Rebalancing Response to School-Based Offenses: A Civil Citation Program

In recent years, zero-tolerance policies have been implemented in an attempt to reduce violent and/or drug-related activities in schools. These policies are sometimes expanded to include less serious crimes, which raises a number of questions regarding juvenile justice (JJ) system response and processing. This article discusses the need, implementation, and some preliminary program outcomes related to a civil citation (CC) process undertaken to provide an alternative to school-based justice referrals. Aggregate trends were reviewed based on internal program data as well as publicly available information. Follow-up data on CC youth were obtained and a matched sample of youth not engaged in the CC process was created using a state-level administrative data set to provide a preliminary assessment of outcomes. Key informant interviews examined program development and implementation. Results of this preliminary evaluation are considered in the larger context of youth diversion and school-based practices for dealing with youth misconduct.