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February 2017
The Justice & Prevention Research Center (JPRC) has as its core mission providing evidence-based information to help guide policy and practice in areas such as violence prevention, school safety, juvenile and adult criminal justice, and public health. This guidance can come in various ways: through reports and publications, webinars and presentations, technical assistance and training, and by serving on advisory panels and technical working groups.
In this update, we describe a new Justice & Prevention Research Center (JPRC) effort to provide guidance to a large agency providing services across the U.S. to at-risk youth. We also put the spotlight on a National Institute of Justice-funded school safety project getting ready to launch next month in Texas.
Finally, we again underscore the importance of a multi-partner effort, involving the JPRC, to carefully synthesize research to inform the development of new guidelines for Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts. We conclude the newsletter by highlighting a recent blog article on WestEd’s use of regression discontinuity design in the educational context, and a upcoming presentation by WestEd staff at the upcoming crime prevention symposium at George Mason University.
New Project
Youth Villages Program Development Advisory Committee
 Youth Villages is a private nonprofit dedicated to helping thousands of emotionally and behaviorally troubled children and their families live successfully through a variety of programs and services. Their leadership has a strong commitment to research evidence and continuous learning. To that end, they have convened Advisory Committees to guide their programming and evaluation agenda. JPRC Director, Anthony Petrosino, was invited to be on the Program Development Advisory Committee (PDAC). The PDAC will provide feedback to help Youth Villages in its refinement of interventions for youth. You can learn more about Youth Villages here.
Spotlight on Project
National Institute of Justice Funded Study of School Policing in Texas
 As we announced in our September 2016 newsletter, Texas State University’s College of Education and its Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC) were awarded a four-year, $4.3 million grant by the National Institute of Justice to study a process for integrating law enforcement officers into an educational setting. WestEd is a partner in the project and will be responsible for the outcome evaluation to measure the impact of programming on school climate, delinquency, victimization, and discipline outcomes. You can learn more about the project from the Texas State University press release and the NIJ award description. The project’s launch meeting will be at TxSCC on April 28th.
News & Events
OJJDP releases Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Guidelines
 As mentioned in previous updates, in December 2016, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), in partnership with a research team led by the American Institutes for Research and including the JPRC, released “Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Guidelines”. Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts (JDTCs) are designed for youth with substance use disorders who come in contact with the juvenile justice system. Resources including the guidelines, an interactive map that helps users navigate through each guideline, supporting research reports (including a policy scan led by the JPRC), the Research Synthesis and Evidence Translation Protocol, and other materials are available at the project website.
Blog Article on Regression Discontinuity Design
 As mentioned last month, when random assignment is not possible, there are several innovative techniques that can be employed to improve the causal inference between a program and observed outcomes. One such approach is known as regression discontinuity design (RDD). This design exploits situations in which the selection for a treatment is above or below a certain numeric threshold. RDD remains an underutilized design, particularly in justice settings. WestEd researchers from its Health and Human Development (HHD) Program and the JPRC penned an article that was published in the recent edition of Sage Research Methods Cases series. Although the context is the School Improvement Grants (SIG) in the education sector, the application to a broader number of settings is clear. The JPRC also wrote a brief on RDD for the Justice & Statistics Research Association’s JRSA Forum. WestEd HHD researchers (Jonathan Nakamoto and Staci Wendt) also published this WestEd blog article on the design.
Upcoming Presentation at Center for Evidence-based Crime Policy Symposium
 Researchers from WestEd’s Learning Innovations Program, Atlanta office, will be presenting at a Symposium hosted by George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-based Crime Policy on June 26, 2017. The Symposium will be held at GMU’s Fairfax, Virginia Campus. WestEd’s presentation, to be given by Joe McCrary, Katie Grogan and Jenna Terrell, will be part of a School Safety Panel organized by TxSCC. You can learn more about the Symposium and register here.
About Us
WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center is a new agency initiative that collaborates with partners in funding, implementing, and evaluating programs that promote positive youth development, physical health and well-being, and prevention of risk behaviors, including violence. Keep current on the latest Justice & Prevention Research Center reports, research studies, projects, events, and news through this monthly update, the JPRC website or by sending an email to the JPRC or its' Director, Anthony Petrosino, at apetros@wested.org.
WestEd is a nationally recognized not-for-profit research and services firm. The agency’s mission is to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve social and learning outcomes for children, youth, and adults. WestEd has a long history of effective collaboration with local community, justice, and education agencies in implementing, and evaluating successful programs that promote positive youth development, physical health and well-being, and prevention of risk behaviors including violence.
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