The Annie E. Casey Foundation (Casey) partnered with the WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center to develop a study of the implementation of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative® (JDAI) in four states: Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Mexico. JDAI® is a complex, multipart reform initiative developed by Casey to reduce reliance on the use of detention for low-risk young people in the juvenile justice system prior to disposition.

Casey has worked closely with local jurisdictions and states across the country since the 1990s to implement the initiative and bring it to scale. The study that is the focus of this report aimed to document how states have scaled JDAI with quality, to summarize the lessons learned from JDAI implementation both in and across states, and to generate findings that can inform practice and future scale-up of JDAI and other complex juvenile justice reform initiatives.

You can learn more about the project and its findings, including a brief overview, in the final report.