Impacts of Juvenile Probation Training Models on Youth Recidivism

Probation and parole case managers in 12 field offices of a state juvenile justice agency took part in a controlled experiment aimed at advancing knowledge on implementing evidence-based practices in juvenile assessment, treatment planning, and placement. Employing stratification and random assignment, case managers in four of the offices were assigned to a control/no training condition and case managers in the other eight offices took part in an initial training and two follow-up sessions on research-based supervision practices. In four of these offices, training was enhanced by the inclusion of peer coaches who provided internal support for practice implementation. Consistent with other ongoing research that shows improved organizational functioning in the enhanced training sites, logistic and Cox regression results on 1,518 youth in two follow-up cohorts tracked over 12months indicate those supervised in the enhanced sites show a pattern of reduced recidivism compared to those in the standard and control sites.