Evidence-based practices reduce juvenile recidivism: can state government effectively promote implementation among probation departments?

California places tens of thousands of juveniles into its 58 county-based justice systems every year. The offenders do not generally experience reduced rates of recidivism. Evidence-based practices can reliably and significantly reduce these rates. Probation departments have infrequently chosen to implement these practices, in large part because of the training, data collection, and organizational change required. Current state law does not effectively mandate these practices and more importantly fails to recognize and fund the substantial and ongoing training and technical assistance that would be required to implement these practices. State government could best promote evidence-based practices by working collegially with probation departments to obtain and distribute private and public funding to support effective implementation.