To Cut Recidivism, Focus on Public Safety, Not Technical Violations, Report Says

For reform advocates like Marsha Levick, the deputy director of the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, the report “says everything we would want it to say.”

“It appears to effectively strike a balance between intervention and expenditure of resources on youth whose conduct legitimately poses a threat to public safety and whose conduct therefore warrants an investment of community resources, while at the same time minimizes intervention with youth facing status offenses,” Levick said, adding, “We hope we will see these ideas and strategies spread out around the country.”