Overview

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Serving Children, Families, and Communities

Overview

Juvenile probation has been termed the “workhorse of the juvenile justice system.” Probation is a mechanism used by juvenile justice agencies at many different points in the system. It serves as a sanction for juveniles adjudicated in court, and in many cases as a way of diverting status offenders or first-time juvenile offenders from the court system. Some communities may even use probation as a way of informally monitoring at-risk youth and preventing their progression into more serious problem behavior. With such varied uses, there is no doubt that probation touches large numbers of juveniles. For example, probation was ordered in 58% of the more than 1.1 million delinquency cases that received a juvenile court sanction in 2000, compared with 14% that received placement in an out-of-home facility.

Our knowledge about the number of juveniles on probation and the nature of their offenses has been limited to information based on the juvenile court’s use of probation. To broaden the knowledge base, OJJDP is currently funding a study that will collect data to create useful, valid, reliable estimates of the number of juveniles on probation at a specific point in time (much like the information we have on juveniles in corrections), as well as information about the types of services and programs offered by juvenile probation offices. The Census and Survey of Juvenile Probation is being conducted jointly by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and George Mason University. Results should be available in late 2004.

This section provides basic information about juveniles on probation, based on juvenile court dispositions. As results from OJJDP’s new study become available, more information will be added.