Interactive Training Curriculum, Disproportionate Minority Confinement, DOJ

Reducing disproportionate minority confinement.

By focusing on the National Innovations to Reduce Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) project’s implementation of innovative practices and successful community-wide programs, Cygnus provided expertise and training services, curriculum development, technical assistance, policy development, and systems analysis for this 3-year, multi-phased project for the Department of Justice (DOJ) that now regularly addresses the issue of disproportionate minority contact. 

Phase One of the project included:

  • Reviewing and synthesizing the existing knowledge base and research on DMC, including state and local practices and policies designed to address the reduction of DMC;
  • Developing an intensive, interactive core training curriculum on effective intervention and impediments to successful action for juvenile justice system policymakers, decision-makers, and practitioners, and initially delivering this training to a select group of senior juvenile justice policymakers and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) grantees;
  • Developing a highly innovative system of technical assistance, focused on the impact of police practices and community development on DMC, and beginning delivery to key OJJDP grantees involved in other training and technical assistance projects incorporating DMC issues, practices, and policies;
  • Assisting DMC demonstration grantees in modifying their local programs to better manage, institutionalize, and sustain them over the long term;
  • Collaborating with other OJJDP divisions and their technical assistance contractors to develop effective approaches and strategies for states to improve their DMC compliance plans;
  • Developing and implementing a national dissemination and education effort based on the training and technical assistance system; and
  • Establishing an advisory group to support project implementation.

Phases Two and Three built on the initial efforts described above by:

  • Expanding the national dissemination and education effort; and
  • Developing other appropriate products and resource tools to help OJJDP key constituencies improve their effective assessment and reduction of DMC.

Please see this newsletter which illustrated the efforts to address the core requirement of the JJDP Act.

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