Creation and Validation of the Ohio Youth Assessment System (OYAS) and Strategies for Successful Implementation

• Date: 01 June 2013
• Published date: 01 June 2013
• DOI: 10.3818/JRP.15.1.2013.67
• Author: Edward Latessa,Brian Lovins
• Subject Matter: Toward Evidence-Based Decision Making in Community Corrections: Research and Strategies for Successful Implementation

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Creation and Validation of the Ohio Youth

Assessment System (OYAS) and Strategies for

Successful Implementation

Brian Lovins

Edward Latessa

School of Criminal Justice

University of Cincinnati

JUSTICE RESEARCH AND POLICY, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2013

© 2013 Justice Research and Statistics Association

DOI: 10.3818/JRP.15.1.2013.67

* Abstract

As Ohio began to address the gaps in delivering effective juvenile justice programming

in the state, it recognized that a statewide risk assessment system was needed. The

Department of Youth Services (DYS) explored its options and determined that the best

course of action was to develop a risk assessment prospectively to address the needs of

youth across multiple stages of the juvenile justice system. DYS partnered with the Uni-

versity of Cincinnati Center for Criminal Justice Research (CCJR) to develop the Ohio

Youth Assessment System (OYAS). The OYAS contains f‌ive tools: a diversion tool, a

detention tool, a disposition tool, a residential tool, and a reentry tool. Each tool is

used at the appropriate stage to assess the criminogenic needs of the youth at that stage

and to help guide decisions for appropriate interventions. Results from receiver operat-

ing characteristics (ROC) analysis ranged from area under the curve (AUC) values of

.611 on the diversion tool to .721 on the reentry tool, suggesting that the tools did rea-

sonably well in placing a youth into appropriate risk categories compared to randomly

selected cases. This article reviews the steps taken to develop, implement, and adopt a

statewide risk assessment with f‌idelity.

For more information on the Ohio Youth Assessment System, please contact the lead author

at 513-556-6118 or Brian.Lovins@uc.edu.

The Ohio Youth Assessment System (OYAS) was developed in a partnership with the Uni-

versity of Cincinnati Corrections Institute and the Ohio Department of Youth Services and

was partially funded through a grant provided by Off‌ice of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention (Grant # 2006-JL-FX-K219).

To w a r d Ev i d E n c E -Ba s E d dEc i s i o n Ma k i n g i n co M M u n i T y co r r E c T i o n s :

rE s E a r c h a n d sT r a T E g i E s f o r su c c E s s f u l iM p l E M E n Ta T i o n

P

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Identifying and promoting juvenile justice programs that can demonstrate a sig-

nif‌icant reduction in recidivism is a complicated undertaking. One only has to look

as far as the current buzzwords regarding effective practices to understand the po-

tential for confusion: what works, promising practices, evidence-based practices,

RNR (risk, need, responsivity) principles, blueprint programs. Too often agencies

believe that if they were to adopt an evidence-based curriculum/program like Mul-

tisystemic Therapy (MST) or Aggression Replacement Training (ART) their recidi-

vism rates would automatically decrease. But as Barnoski (2004) found, even if an

agency adopts an evidence-based program it is no guarantee that it will be effective

in reducing recidivism. Many more factors are associated with the ability to reduce

recidivism than the adoption of even a successful evidence-based program. Over the

past 10 years there has been a push to go beyond thinking about evidence-based pro-

grams as an intervention, and think instead about evidence-based decision making.

In a review of the relevant research, the Center for Effective Public Policy

(2010) summarized its overall f‌indings into seven steps that agencies should follow

in order to have a signif‌icant impact on reducing recidivism. First, adopt a risk

assessment that identif‌ies risk to reoffend and criminogenic needs. Second, focus

on moderate- to high-risk offenders. Third, target those factors that are associated

with criminal behavior. Fourth, use effective means to punish behavior and deliver

those punishments with swiftness, certainty, and proportionality. Fifth, reinforce

prosocial behavior to increase the likelihood that it continues. Sixth, provide in-

terventions in the least restrictive, most natural setting. Seventh, include human

services along with sanctions to have the greatest effects.

But while the push is to expand to evidence-based decision making, many

agencies f‌ind it much simpler to adopt a single, evidence-based program than to

change their entire system. Applying a broader, evidence-based framework to all

decisions would force an agency, a system, or even an entire state to examine the

decisions made at every stage of the system and to reallocate resources to ensure its

capacity to deliver effective interventions from diversion to discharge.

* Ohio’s Juvenile Justice System’s Experience with

Evidence-Based Decision Making

In 2005, Ohio’s juvenile justice system was similar to those in many other states

when it came to the adoption of evidence-based decision making. Some local ju-

risdictions were well advanced and had been making decisions based on research

for several decades, while others were trapped in the anecdotal form of decision

making based solely on intuition and experience. This was true across an array of

interventions, but it was no more evident than in the assessment of youth. For ex-

ample, the Ohio Department of Youth Services found that 77 different assessments

were being used across 88 counties to determine the risk and needs of the youth

in the juvenile justice system (Modry & Gies, 2005). At the state level, DYS had