The Urban Institute
Office of Juvenile Justice &
Delinquency Prevention
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Juvenile Forecaster is a population projection tool for decisionmakers who need to plan the future capacity of juvenile detention and correctional facilities. It includes two components:
1. Population Modeler allows users to enter their own data about juvenile corrections populations and lengths of stay in order to create projections of future populations.
2. CaseFlow Simulator allows users to model changes in their local juvenile justice process and simulate the effect such changes may have on the number of juveniles entering residential facilities, juvenile probation caseloads, etc.
Together, the two components of Juvenile Forecaster are designed to serve the needs of State and local agencies that lack either the time or the resources to obtain more elaborate and detailed projections. By making this tool available at no cost, OJJDP and the Urban Institute hope to increase decisionmakers' access to projection methods and improve the practical value of projections, thereby enhancing the juvenile justice system's ability to provide effective responses for youthful offenders.
In the past, many efforts to anticipate the future size of detention and corrections populations have suffered from the same flaw. Juvenile justice agencies would analyze recent trends in juvenile population, juvenile arrests, or juvenile court cases and the results of that analysis would be used to generate an answer for policymakers—e.g., because arrests have grown 20%, detention capacity should be increased 20%.
Any single analysis, however, is likely to be obsolete in a relatively short time. Conditions change constantly. Moreover, projection methods depend on a wide range of assumptions about current and future conditions, and some of these assumptions may not be obvious to (or shared by) State and local officials. Juvenile Forecaster provides State and local policymakers with the ability to do their own projections, to revisit tbese projections more frequently, and to incorporate the results of projections in their daily decision making.
The development of this projection tool began with an Act of the U.S. Congress. In a 1997 Appropriations Act, Public Law 105-119, Congress expressed concern about the supply of and demand for bed space in juvenile detention and corrections facilities and directed the Department of Justice to examine the issue. In response, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention initiated the Assessment of Space Needs in Juvenile Detention and Corrections project. That investigation, conducted by the Urban Institute, focused on the methods used by States to anticipate future demand for juvenile detention and corrections space. Juvenile Forecaster is a product of that work.
Juvenile Forecaster was developed by the Urban Institute with funding provided under the Assessment of Space Needs in Juvenile Detention and Corrections project. The project was conducted by the Urban Institute's Program on Youth Justice, which is housed within the Justice Policy Center.
Project Staff
William Adams
Matthew Buettgens
Dr. Jeffrey Butts, Project Director
Rosaline Daniel
Dr. Daniel Mears
Project Advisory Committee
Dr. Arnold Irvin Barnett, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Donna M. Bishop, Northeastern University
Mr. Edward J. Loughran, Council of Juvenile Correctional
Administrators
Dr. James P. Lynch, The American University
Dr. Samuel L. Myers, Jr., University of Minnesota
Ms. Patricia Puritz, American Bar Association
Project Consultants
Mr. Paul DeMuro, Montclair, New Jersey
Dr. William J. Sabol, Case Western Reserve University
Dr. Howard N. Snyder, National Center for Juvenile Justice
Mr. David J. Steinhart, Mill Valley, California
The development of Juvenile Forecaster benefited from the input and direction provided by Mr. Joseph Moone, OJJDP program manager for the project, as well as the members of the project's Advisory Committee and the consultants who provided critical assistance and insights at each stage of its development.
The Assessment of Space Needs in Juvenile Detention and Corrections project was supported by funds provided to the Urban Institute by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice under grant number 98-JB-VX-K004.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.
Both OJJDP and the Urban Institute gratefully acknowledge the efforts of the State and local officials who assisted the project in its work. Their participation helped to make this software possible. In particular, senior officials from the state-level juvenile corrections agencies in Alaska, California, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin provided critical comments and insights.
Special thanks are due to the following agencies:
Points of view or opinions expressed anywhere in this web site are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice, the project's advisors and consultants, the State officials contacted by the project, nor of the Urban Institute, its trustees or funders.
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