Office of Justice Programs Safefutures:
Partnerships to Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency

Report No. 99-15
April 1999
Office of the Inspector General


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

SafeFutures: Partnerships to Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency (SafeFutures) is a five-year demonstration grant program to help six competitively selected communities reduce juvenile delinquency by implementing a continuum of care consisting of prevention, intervention, treatment, and graduated sanctions programs for at-risk and delinquent youth. Each grantee will receive up to $1.4 million per year, for a total of about $7 million, to implement nine specific program components and reform its existing service delivery system. Total program costs will be about $42 million.

The program is administered by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), with support from the Office of the Comptroller (OC). Our audit focused on program design, the grant selection and award process, and OJP's management of the program. The audit focused on the period from September 1994 through January 1998.

Overall, we recognize OJJDP's efforts to create an innovative program with the potential to effect real change in communities, and we commend OJJDP's stated desire to work in partnership with the grantees to make the program work. However, we found the following areas where improvements are warranted.

The details of our work are contained in the Findings and Recommendations section of the report. Our objectives, scope, and methodology are contained in Appendix II. Grantee program descriptions can be found in Appendix III.