One year ago, the Public Policy Forum released a report examining the substantial decline in Milwaukee County’s adult and juvenile detention populations. Entitled “Milwaukee County Detainee Populations at Historic Lows: Why is it happening and what does it mean,” the report not only documented the scope of the decline and its fiscal impacts, but also urged county law enforcement officials and policymakers to consider whether justice system policies that may have contributed to the decline were effective and should be sustained.
As a follow-up to last year’s publication, this report provides a closer examination of the juvenile justice system in Milwaukee County and how well it has performed in reducing recidivism for juvenile offenders. The report was funded by Milwaukee County’s Delinquency and Court Services Division (DCSD), which asked the Forum to lend an outside perspective by reviewing its current approach to measuring juvenile recidivism and findings, and invited recommendations for improving its data collection and evaluation processes and capacity.
Recidivism is defined in many different ways by justice system officials, but is broadly viewed as the commitment of a subsequent offense by an offender already known to have committed a previous offense. Recidivism rates typically refer to the percentage of offenders who recommit a new offense within a distinct period of time after interaction with the justice system.
While recidivism metrics have value when analyzed over a period of years and can serve as a measure of progress among a specific population of offenders, they tell us little about the relative success of a program without a benchmark comparison. Unfortunately, because there are substantial variations in how juvenile justice systems define the parameters of their recidivism metrics from state to state or county to county, a concrete national benchmark does not exist.
This report explores the way in which DCSD measures recidivism and finds that overall recidivism among Milwaukee County’s juvenile offenders has not changed over the past several years. Progress has been made among the multiple repeat offenders, however, with a reduction in the percentage of juvenile offenders who commit more than one repeat offense after their initial referral. These findings are consistent with periodic, internal reports made by DCSD.
In addition, we offer an alternative recidivism measure that may help DCSD better monitor the impacts of its programmatic and operational changes over the short term. Given the resources dedicated by the many players in the juvenile justice system process – police officers, district attorneys, public defenders, judges, detention personnel and probation workers – a better understanding of how delinquent youth in Milwaukee County are progressing following their interaction with the system is essential. Such an understanding not only will help identify the most productive areas deserving further investment, but also those areas in need of improvement, and those areas in which justice system leaders might get the “best bang for the buck” in their efforts to enhance public safety in a cost-effective manner. Continue reading…