JDAI

State Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI)

The Association of Minnesota Counties is pleased to announce to announce our partnership with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety and Dakota, Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, in the form of the state Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) Coordinator.  This position is responsible for the coordination, management, and expansion of Minnesota’s statewide juvenile detention reform initiative.  The state JDAI coordinator is charged with assisting to reduce disproportionate minority contact, inappropriate use of detention, and over reliance on detention in a rational risk-based manner without compromising public safety through the implementation of the strategies of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. 

The JDAI model focuses on eight core strategies:

  • Interagency collaboration to improve planning and coordination;

  • Use of data, including results tracking to drive policy and program decisions;

  • Reliance on objective criteria and instruments to guide admission and sanctioning decisions;

  • New or enhanced community based alternatives to secure detention;

  • Expedited case processing to reduce lengths of stay and speed the administration of justice;

  • Practices and policies to eliminate structural and personal biases that produce racial disparities;

  • Routine facility inspections to improve conditions of confinement; and

  • Innovations to reduce secure custody in “special” detention cases (e.g. violations of probation).

Successful implementation of these strategies is expected to reduce admissions, reduce lengths of stay, shorten case processing times, and increase non secure community based programs.  These improvements would in turn result in reduced racial disparities and reduced daily populations in secure detention without increases in either re-arrest or failure to appear rates.

This is a grant funded position for three years and is subject to the availability of funds for renewal beyond the initial three year period.

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