OJJDP produces different types of publications and products, including Newsletters, Journals, Bulletins, Fact Sheets, Reports, Summaries, and Portable Guides. Scroll down below for descriptions of each type. Some types of publications have different series associated with them. If you find a series you are interested in, you may access a list of available publications by clicking on the headlines below.
Newsletters
Access the OJJDP News @ a Glance Series.
The award winning bimonthly newsletter OJJDP News @ a Glance presents notices of agency activities, recent publications, funding opportunities, and upcoming events. News @ a Glance highlights the latest developments at OJJDP, with an emphasis on providing quick access to online sources for publications and other resources. Newsletters are four to six pages long.
Journals
Access the Juvenile Justice journal series.
OJJDP's Juvenile Justice journal, published from 1993–2004 highlights innovative programs and publications on critical juvenile justice issues and trends. Each issue included two or three feature articles on timely issues in juvenile justice or on a major OJJDP initiative. Articles provided syntheses of research, overviews of training activities, and reviews of innovative programs. The In Brief section highlighted grant awards, promoted conferences, reviewed publications, and provided readings related to the feature articles. Issues are between 32 and 44 pages long. Journals were available from 1993–2004.
Access the Journal of Juvenile Justice series.
Sponsored by OJJDP, the Journal of Juvenile Justice is a semi-annual, peer-reviewed journal that covers a wide variety of juvenile justice issues including system responses; youth victimization; delinquency prevention, intervention, and treatment.
Bulletins
Bulletins describe statistics, research, training, technical assistance, and programs funded through OJJDP grants and contracts. They also profile model programs of particular interest to the juvenile justice field. Bulletins range from 4 to 32 pages in length, may be updated annually depending on the subject, and may be part of a special series. Click on the series' titles below for descriptions of each.
- Beyond Detention Series
- Child Delinquency
- Crimes Against Children
- Family Strengthening
- Girls Study Group Series
- Juvenile Accountability Block Grants
- Juvenile Justice Practices Series
- Justice Research Series
- National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children
- National Report
- National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence Series
- OJJDP In Focus
- Pathways to Desistance
- Serious and Violent Juvenile Offending
- Survey of Youth in Residential Placement
- Youth Development
- Youth Gang
- Youth in Action
- Youth Out of the Education Mainstream
- Youth Violence Research
This bulletin series details the findings of the Northwestern Juvenile Project, the first large-scale, longitudinal study of drug, alcohol, and psychiatric disorders in a diverse sample of juvenile detainees. Topics covered in the series include the prevalence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among juvenile detainees, posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma within this population, functional impairment after detention (at work, at school, at home, or in the community), psychiatric disorders in youth processed in juvenile or adult court, barriers to mental health services, violent death among delinquent youth, and the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in youth after detention.
The Child Delinquency Series offers the latest information about child delinquency, including analyses of child delinquency statistics, insights into the origins of very young offending, and descriptions of early intervention programs and approaches that focus on risk and protective factors.
Crimes Against Children Series
OJJDP's Crimes Against Children Series examines child victimization by analyzing crime victimization statistics, studying child victims and their special needs, and describing programs and approaches that address these needs.
OJJDP's Family Strengthening Series assists ongoing efforts across the country to strengthen the family unit by discussing the effectiveness of family intervention programs and providing resources to families and communities.
This series showcases OJJDP's commitment to addressing girls' delinquency by presenting the Girls Study Group's research findings. The series examines recent trends, factors that protect girls against delinquency, what factors lead to delinquency, and more.
Juvenile Accountability Block Grants Best Practices Series
OJJDP's Juvenile Accountability Block Grants (JABG) program promotes greater accountability among young people who violate the law. OJJDP created the JABG series to help states and local governments develop programs in the 12 purpose areas established for JABG funding. Bulletins in this series inform juvenile justice policymakers, researchers, and practitioners about programs and approaches that hold justice-involved youth appropriately accountable for their behavior.
Juvenile Justice Practice Series
This series provides the field with updated research, promising practices, and tools for a variety of juvenile justice areas. These Bulletins are designed to be important resources for a large number of youth-serving professionals involved in developing and adopting juvenile justice polices and programs, regardless of their funding sources. This series is available online only.
This series, produced jointly by OJJDP and the National Institute of Justice, highlights research efforts in juvenile justice-related areas. The series covers issues such as delays in case processing and examines a study group's findings on transitions from juvenile delinquency to adult crime.
National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children
This series summarizes findings from the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2) and the Law Enforcement Survey, a component of the Third NISMART (NISMART–3). Bulletins in the NISMART series offer national estimates of missing children based on surveys of households, juvenile residential facilities, and law enforcement agencies. The series also presents statistical profiles of these children, including their demographic characteristics and the circumstances of their disappearance. Fact Sheets are also available.
Published every 4 years, OJJDP's National Report Juvenile Offenders and Victims offers a comprehensive statistical overview of the problems of juvenile crime, violence, and victimization and the response of the juvenile justice system. Published each interim year, the Bulletins in the National Report Series provide access to the latest information on juvenile arrests, court cases, juveniles in custody, and other topics of interest. Each Bulletin in the series highlights selected topics at the forefront of juvenile justice policymaking, giving readers focused access to statistics on some of the most critical issues.
National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence Series
This bulletin series reports on findings from the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence. This study, sponsored by OJJDP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, explores the incidence and prevalence of children's exposure to violence as either victims or witnesses and marks the first comprehensive attempt to measure children’s exposure to violence in the home, school, and community across all age groups from birth to age 17.
The series highlights major agency programs and initiatives and provides information on OJJDP resources, including funding, training and technical assistance, and research activities. Topics of OJJDP In Focus include Disproportionate Minority Contact, the Community Prevention Grants Program, and the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws Program. OJJDP In Focus publications are four pages long.
The Pathways to Desistance bulletin series presents findings from a multidisciplinary investigation into why many youth who have committed serious offenses stop or reduce offending as they mature whereas others continue to offend into adulthood. The study followed more than 1,300 adolescents in the Philadelphia, PA, and Phoenix, AZ, metropolitan areas for 7 years following their convictions. The investigators interviewed the youth at regular intervals and reviewed official records to learn about their offending history, their incarceration history, their substance use history, their history of behavioral health disorders, and their access to residential treatment and community aftercare services to learn how those factors related to their persistence in or desistance from committing offenses.
Serious and Violent Juvenile Offending Series
Although few in number, youth who commit serious and violent offenses are responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes. OJJDP created a study group of 22 researchers to collaboratively analyze current research on risk factors, protective factors, and the development of serious and violent offending among youth. The Bulletins in this series focus on aspects of the group's work.
Survey of Youth in Residential Placement Series
This series describes results from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement, the first comprehensive national study to gather information about youth in custody by interviewing the detained youth. Bulletins in the series highlight the characteristics of youth in residential placement, their conditions of confinement, the services they receive, and the nature and risk of the victimization they experience while in custody.
The Youth Development Series presents findings from the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency, which is designed to improve our understanding of serious delinquency, violence, and drug use by examining how youth develop within the context of family, school, peers, and community. Three research teams at study sites in Rochester, NY, Denver, CO, and Pittsburgh, PA, have interviewed thousands of participants at regular intervals, recording their lives in detail.
OJJDP's Youth Gang Series delves into many of the key issues related to youth gangs, such as gang migration, gang growth, female involvement with gangs, homicide, drugs and violence, and the needs of communities and youth who live in the presence of youth gangs.
The Bulletins in this series are geared to a youth audience. They present topics—including peer mentoring, event planning, and working with the media—that help youth become actively involved in crime prevention. Specific examples, checklists, timelines, and contact information are included as resources for youth. Fact Sheets are also available.
Youth Out of the Education Mainstream Series
This Bulletin series addresses issues associated with the Youth Out of the Education Mainstream initiative. The initiative focuses on the needs of five often interrelated categories of at-risk youth: students fearful of attending school because of violence, truants, dropouts, suspended/expelled youth, and youth returning to school from correctional settings in the juvenile justice system.
Youth Violence Research Series
The Youth Violence Research Bulletin Series presents research findings on critical topics related to youth violence, including gangs, firearms, suicide prevention, and the impact of violence on youth. The Bulletins, which were developed in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discuss research in a way that makes it relevant to both the public health and juvenile justice fields.
Fact Sheets
Fact Sheets are two-page documents that highlight key points and sources of further information on OJJDP programs and initiatives. These are the latest OJJDP fact sheets.
- In Focus: Title II Formula Grant Program
- In Focus: Juvenile Indigent Defense
- In Focus: Support for Prosecutors Who Work With Youth
- In Focus: Supporting Youth and Families Impacted by Opioid Abuse
- In Focus: Emergency Planning for Juvenile Residential Facilities
- In Focus: Child Protection: Dependency Courts
- In Focus: Children's Advocacy Centers
- In Focus: Eliminating Prison Rape Among Juveniles
- In Focus: Child Protection: Law Enforcement
- In Focus: Youth Gangs
- In Focus: Tribal Youth Initiatives
- In Focus: Juvenile Reentry
- In Focus: Mentoring Youth
- In Focus: Drug Courts
- Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation Purpose Area 8 Fact Sheet: Juvenile Healing to Wellness Courts
- Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation Purpose Area 9 Fact Sheet: Tribal Youth Program
- OJP Drug Courts Fact Sheet
Literature Reviews
The OJJDP Model Programs Guide (MPG) Literature Reviews provide practitioners and policymakers with relevant research and evaluations on a variety of juvenile justice topics and programs.
Reports
Reports describe comprehensive research and evaluation findings; provide detailed descriptions of innovative juvenile justice programs implemented at the national, state, and local levels, including case studies, field studies, and other strategies used for assessing program success and replication; or present statistical analysis, trends, or other data on selected juvenile justice topics. Some Reports provide training curriculums and lesson plans and are often used as training tools for juvenile justice professionals. Reports, which usually include appendixes and lists of resources and additional readings, can be annual updates or one-time publications.
Summaries
Summaries describe key research and evaluation findings that may be used to enhance future juvenile justice policies and practices and highlight OJJDP-funded programs implemented at the national, state, or local levels that may serve as models for other jurisdictions. They also can be used as training guides for juvenile justice professionals who work with youth. Summaries are generally 30 to 90 pages in length and usually include appendixes and lists of resources and additional readings.
Portable Guides
Access the Portable Guides to Investigating Child Abuse series.
This series provides practical references for law enforcement and other professionals to determine whether a child has been abused or exploited and to collect evidence necessary for effective prosecution. The Guides provide basic information on the most critical aspects of investigations involving child abuse, neglect, and exploitation. Topics include burn injuries, sexual exploitation, diagnostic imaging, interviewing techniques, and photodocumentation. Each Portable Guide is 6 by 9 inches and is between 16 and 36 pages long.