In Fiscal Year 2021, federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funding helped communities across the United States adopt provide programs and strategies to prevent and intervene in delinquency and to support youth involved in the juvenile justice system. This report provides an overview of OJJDP's work and the programs and activities the office supported. The office worked closely with federal, state, local, and Tribal partners to protect children from abuse, exploitation, abduction, and violence. OJJDP distributed nearly $344 million in fiscal year 2021 to fund mentoring initiatives, children's advocacy centers, gang prevention programs, drug treatment courts, and other activities aimed at building positive pathways for youth. The report includes a highlight on the funding the office has provided to the Florida Pace Center for Girls, which provides middle school and high school academics along with life skills, coaching, and counseling to girls who are involved in or at risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system.

County and state officials in New Hampshire report a high prevalence of people with behavioral health needs moving through jails and state prisons. Stakeholders and state leaders have expressed concern that community-based resources for people with behavioral health challenges are limited across the state. And county officials report significant gaps in how the state is currently responding to and serving people with behavioral health needs. To address these issues, the state launched a Justice Reinvestment Initiative in March 2022. The Council for State Government’s Justice Center staff worked with the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and county jails to facilitate a cross-system data match that will identify the population of people with behavioral health needs who frequently move through local criminal justice systems. Based on findings from quantitative and qualitative analyses, the advisory commission that is overseeing the project, DHHS, and jail superintendents will consider and develop policy recommendations that are designed to improve services for people with behavioral health needs within the criminal justice system, reduce recidivism, and increase public safety and public health outcomes throughout the state. Key steps involve facilitating a cross-system data match to identify the overlapping population of people with behavioral health challenges.

The state Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act provides funding to California counties to support programs that have proven their effectiveness in curbing crime among at-risk youth and youth involved in the juvenile justice system. The authors of this report provide a review of the literature that evaluates programs for youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system to identify promising and effective practices. Findings from this report will help the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council in Los Angeles, California, make evidence-informed decisions regarding programs that are selected for funding, and will help community-based organizations that serve justice-involved youth choose program models that are effective for their target population. Key findings include that diversion programs, which aim to provide treatment in community-based settings, were generally found to be effective across a variety of program models. Programs using cognitive behavioral approaches, multi-systemic therapy, and functional family therapy were associated with positive outcomes. Certain treatment approaches were less well supported by the literature. For example, programs designed to enhance community supervision with additional oversight resulted in mixed findings, with some programs resulting in increases in technical violations. There were limitations to the existing literature, including a focus on recidivism as an outcome measure and limited efforts to disaggregate data by race, ethnicity, or gender.

Charter schools are public schools that operate under a performance contract (or charter) between the charter school’s governing board and its sponsor (typically a school district). Charter schools are exempt from most state education laws in an effort to permit educational innovation and flexibility in school operations. This report provides an analysis of the current methods used to distribute capital outlay funds and specified federal program funds to traditional public schools and charter schools. OPPAGA recommends that the Legislature consider distributing capital outlay funding to charter schools based on demonstrated need, which would ensure that the most pressing construction, renovation, repair, and maintenance needs are addressed regardless of the type of public school a student attends. OPPAGA also recommends that the Florida Department of Education work with school districts to provide additional training and information to charter schools regarding eligibility requirements and fund distribution for the seven federal programs OPPAGA examined. This additional training and information would make the process more transparent to charter schools and could increase collaboration between school districts and charter schools in the application for and distribution of funds in a manner that would best serve all eligible public school students, teachers, and families.

In the three decades before the COVID-19 pandemic, mean achievement of U.S. 8th graders in math rose by more than half a standard deviation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Between 2019 and 2022, U.S. students had forfeited 40% of that rise. To anticipate the consequences of the recent decline, the authors investigated the past relationship between NAEP scores and students’ later life outcomes by year and state of birth. They found that a standard deviation improvement in a birth cohort’s 8th grade math achievement was associated with an 8% rise in income, as well as improved educational attainment and declines in teen motherhood, incarceration and arrest rates. If allowed to become permanent, these findings imply that the recent losses would represent a 1.6% decline in present value of lifetime earnings for the average K-12 student (or $19,400), totaling $900 billion for the 48 million students enrolled in public schools during the 2020-21 school year.

This online resource is updated regularly and may be used to monitor 2023 policy action by state legislatures on several education issues including early learning, health education, high school education, school choice, teaching, and K-12 education finance. The database includes pending, enacted, and vetoed bills. Bill summaries are added if and when the bills are enacted or vetoed.

What is a feasible and efficient policy to regulate air pollution from vehicles? A Pigouvian tax a tax on a market transaction that creates a negative externality, or an additional cost, borne by individuals not directly involved in the transaction, is technologically infeasible. Most countries instead rely on exhaust standards that limit air pollution emissions per mile for new vehicles. The authors assess the effectiveness and efficiency of these standards, which are the centerpiece of U.S. Clean Air Act regulation of transportation, and counterfactual policies. The authors show that the air pollution emissions per mile of new U.S. vehicles has fallen spectacularly, by over 99%, since standards began in 1967. Several research designs with a half century of data suggest that exhaust standards have caused most of this decline. Yet exhaust standards are not cost-effective in part because they fail to encourage scrap of older vehicles, which account for the majority of emissions. To study counterfactual policies, the authors develop an analytical and a quantitative model of the vehicle fleet. Analysis of these models suggests that tighter exhaust standards increase social welfare and that increasing registration fees on dirty vehicles yields even larger gains by accelerating scrap, though both reforms have complex effects on inequality.

This paper analyzes economic policy responses to the COVID-19-induced recession, focusing on the American policy response. Despite widespread political distrust between the two parties sharing control of the government and the timing of the upcoming presidential election, America’s political system was able to enact a massive policy response that reduced the severity of the recession. This political response happened faster than any automatic policy response would have, based on the delays in data reporting. The economic policies enacted continued America’s trend toward financialization of fiscal policy. The Federal Reserve and America’s private banking and financial systems were heavily relied upon to deliver general macroeconomic assistance to households and businesses, particularly small businesses. The immediate result was that households and businesses that have stronger ties to the financial system received greater economic support. Those with less strong ties to the financial system received aid more slowly and, in some instances, not at all. The long-term consequences of relying on the Federal Reserve to distribute recession assistance through the financial system blurs the lines between engaging in monetary and fiscal policy. This response is a continuation of the trend that began in America from the prior recession and appears likely to continue, potentially impacting the central bank’s independence and raising concerns regarding the role of the Federal Reserve in society.

The Puget Sound is one of the most attractive metropolitan areas in the United States. Among the country’s 50 largest cities, Seattle grew faster than all but Fort Worth and Austin from 2010 to 2020. This momentum, however, has had negative consequences. Affordability has declined, and the region does not have adequate hosing to meet demand, reducing its ability to attract residents or retain its existing population. Recent approval of major taxpayer-supported transit investments will expand access to mobility for residents in communities throughout the Puget Sound region, as $54 billion in planned expenditures will add dozens of new light rail and bus rapid transit stations between 2023 and 2044. These projects will speed commutes for residents and workers, offering them affordable, environmentally sustainable travel options. These new transit investments could set the stage for more housing options in the region, but much of the land near stations is now zoned to limit housing construction or housing density. About one third of station-adjacent land is zoned for only single-family homes; almost 50% requires at least one parking spot per unit. Both zoning restrictions add to housing costs, making new construction more difficult and new homes more expensive. And zoning allowances for new housing are not proportionate to real estate demand, with many of the region's most popular jurisdictions subject to stringent land-use regulations. If regional stakeholders hope to increase housing near transit, a diversity of reforms scaled to community needs is necessary. The authors identified several key reforms, such as including allowing high-density housing near transit to meet demand, allowing small-scale apartments on small lots, and allowing two-to four-unit buildings.

Victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment often experience a variety of psychological outcomes and mental health symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. Sexual trauma also might affect careers. Despite a need to address these harms, some service members have reported that connecting to health care or mental health services following sexual assault or sexual harassment can be difficult—in part because of a lack of leadership support. Given these persistent challenges, the Psychological Health Center of Excellence identified an urgent need to better understand research that is pertinent to sexual assault and sexual harassment during military service so that the U.S. Department of Defense and the military services can improve the health care response for service members. RAND researchers investigated and synthesized relevant research in three topic areas: the effectiveness of psychotherapy treatments designed for adult victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment in military settings; barriers faced by U.S. military members to accessing and remaining in mental health care settings; and associations between sexual assault or sexual harassment and mental health conditions. Available evidence showed that psychotherapy interventions were effective in reducing PTSD and depression symptoms among adult victims of sexual assault in military settings, and there was evidence of an association between reported experiences of sexual assault and the risk of diagnosis of PTSD, depression, and substance use disorders.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related mitigation efforts have had a dramatic impact on food and nutrition security in the United States. During this period, families with children were particularly vulnerable, demonstrating incredible nutritional need. Prior to the pandemic, rates of food insecurity among households with children had been generally declining. Specifically, the prevalence of food insecurity among households with children under the age of 18 was 13.6% in 2019 compared to 20.6% in 2011. However, resulting from COVID-19, these rates rose to 14.8% in 2020. Another measure of food hardship collected during the pandemic has been food insufficiency (i.e., sometimes or often not having enough to eat) which increased among households with children from 9.8% in April 2020 to 13.7% in December 2020. Food insecurity and insufficiency rates are further pronounced in Black, indigenous, and people of color households. For example, in contrast to households overall, food insecurity in Black and Hispanic/Latin-x headed households increased in 2020 during the pandemic, resulting in Hispanic children being more than twice as likely, and Black children almost three times more likely, to live in a food-insecure household than white children. Consequently, not only is there a need for our national food and nutrition assistance system to improve food insecurity and food insufficiency in families with children generally, but also to address racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and other disparities.