Detention Diversion Advocacy Program
Overview
The DDAP Model
History and Successes
Case Study
DDAP Evaluations
Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP) Staff
Contact Information
"For the first time I had someone looking out for me, not just watching over me."
-John, DDAP client
Overview
Started in San Francisco in 1993, the Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP) targets the highest risk youth in the juvenile justice system and offers them intensive case management and a comprehensive range of community services. Many programs target first time offenders but CJCJ recognizes that 70% of first time offenders never offend again, and therefore considers it more effective to concentrate funding and rehabilitation services on repeat offenders, who generally have more complicated needs and are consequently more difficult to serve.
The DDAP Model
Referrals for DDAP come from defense attorneys, courts, parents, or community-based service providers. DDAP staff meet with their potential clients and after an initial screening process, develop case plans to present to the court. The case plan describes the specific conditions and outcomes the youth promises to fulfill in exchange for/or upon release from custody. In at least 80% of the cases, DDAP is triumphant in having the youth released to CJCJ's custody.
Once a youth is released to CJCJ’s custody, DDAP employs an intensive case management strategy to carry out the designated case plan. While probation officers often have a caseload of more than 70 youth, DDAP staff never carry caseloads higher than 12 youth, so as to ensure quality time and services are delivered and devoted to each individual client’s personal needs. DDAP staff connect their clients to an individualized range of community-based services that are selected to address the reasons the client may have resorted to delinquency in the first place. Unlike the punitive environment that often surrounds a youth once they have been arrested, DDAP uses a positive and supportive, while aggressive, case management approach to ensure that the youth take advantage of the services available to them.
DDAP staff use face-to-face visits (rarely used by probation officers) anywhere from three times a day (during the first week after referral) to three times a week (in the second and third months). Staff act as role models and mentors, providing stable and encouraging support structures for their clients, many of 
who have no one else to rely on. In line with one of our goals for healthy youth, staff encourage nutrious eating patterns and offer healthy snacks during client and staff interactions.
Some of our case managers have backgrounds similar to the lives of the clients they are serving and are thus quickly able to facilitate trusting relationships between themselves and their clients. Interactions between the program staff and the youth allow the youth to respect the value of interpersonal support while learning to enhance their self-sufficiency and accountability within the broader community. Staff are often recognized for their professionalism and are well-respected in the courts, communities, schools, and amongst the probation department.
This intensive advocacy and case management model is well-suited for high risk or repeat offenders with special needs because the case managers are able to tailor highly individualized plans that are responsive to the youth's needs, progress, and specific interests.
History and Successes
Since 1993, DDAP has served countless youth in San Francisco, and has proven to result in recidivism rates that are lower than non-referred youth. According to a University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV) study, DDAP participants were 26% less likely to recidivate when compared to detained youth. In 2007 alone, CJCJ’s DDAP served 149 youth with an 85% success rate.
DDAP’s unprecedented outcomes have resulted in the program and the overall agency having received numerous awards since DDAP’s inception. DDAP received the Diversity Award from the Center for Human Development for its pioneering efforts to deliver culturally relevant advocacy and case management services in 1993. CJCJ received the Agency of the Year award from the San Francisco Delinquency Prevention Commission for DDAP that same year. DDAP was also a semifinalist for the Kennedy School of Government Harvard University Innovations in Government Award, five years later in 1998. DDAP was also recognized as a national model of evidence-based practice by the United States Department of Justice publication on juvenile detention alternatives in 2002 and 2005. (OJJDP Juvenile Justice Bulletin, September 2005 and OJJDP Model Programs Guide, 2002).
With DDAP’s extraordinary successes over the years, it is no surprise that DDAP has been replicated in numerous cities around the nation as a vehicle for reducing detention populations and promoting systemic juvenile justice reform. Thus far, DDAP has been replicated in Philadelphia, Baltimore, the District of Columbia, Oakland, and most recently implemented by the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Children's Action Corps in the City of Boston, with technical assistance from CJCJ. In July of 2006, the RFK Corps received a Meritorious Achievement Award from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety for their DDAP program, which was replicated from CJCJ’s San Francisco-based DDAP. The award recognizes innovative public safety programs that break with tradition but share the goal of helping to save lives and fight crime.
Case Study
Program Director Kimo Uila’s client achieves success
Victor was a 16-year-old Hispanic boy who ran with the head of the Norteños in San Francisco when he was first referred to DDAP in 2003. He lived in a single-parent household in the Mission District with his sickly mom who hardly spoke any English. Victor was referred to DDAP through the Public Defender’s Office after being arrested for involvement in a shooting between rival gang members. Though Victor did not participate in the shooting, his high status in the gang and his presence at the crime dictated a serious offense. Both Victor and his mother were facing the possibility of deportation to Mexico.
DDAP’s current Program Director Kimo Uila served as Victor’s case manager. Upon interviewing Victor and his mother, Kimo developed a release plan. Though the charges against Victor were serious it was only Victor’s first offense so the Judge accepted Kimo’s release plan and allowed DDAP on a 30-day trial period. In the first 30 days, DDAP got Victor into an alternative school, an after-school program, tutoring, and a part-time job that paid him a small stipend. Kimo engaged Victor and his mother in various healthy extra-curricula activities. For a youth who had never been out of his neighborhood, these outings became the most positive activities Victor had ever participated in. Victor had never even been as far as Daly City, and such exposure to different neighborhoods and healthy activities made Victor realize “there was a future and a whole world outside of gang life.” Kimo started to serve as the male role model Victor never had.
After the first 30-day trial period, DDAP showed the court Victor’s progress and the Judge permitted another 6 months with DDAP, to eventually be followed by another 6 months, where after Victor was put on formal probation for a 1 ½ years. DDAP finally helped Victor and his mother move from the Mission District to Sacramento, so as to break all of Victor’s previous gang ties. DDAP assisted Victor in removing tattoos from his face and arms, officially denouncing his gang. DDAP expedited Victor’s college enrollment and Victor is currently studying to be a mechanic at the local city college. He says he has realized he has a potential and is now living up to it. He had initially thought the system was out to get him and it was finally when DDAP got involved that he felt he had someone to help him navigate through the process successfully. To this day, Victor has maintained close ties with his DDAP case manager, and continues to maintain a healthy relationship with Kimo.
DDAP Evaluations
An OJJDP (1999) DDAP Evaluation
In 1999 Randall G. Shelden, Ph.D., a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, conducted an extensive evaluation of the Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP). This groundbreaking report points the way for detention diversion to be examined as a true alternative to the formal juvenile justice system. Since the first printing of this report, DDAP has been recognized by the OJJDP as a national model for working with at-risk youth in the juvenile justice system.
The 1999 evaluation compares 271 DDAP referrals with a group of 271 youth who remained within the juvenile court system. The comparison shows that the members of the DDAP group were significantly more likely to be considered at high risk than members of the comparison group. The overall recidivism rate of the DDAP group was 34% compared to 60% for the comparison group. Moreover, the rate of serious recidivism, defined as subsequent referrals for major felonies, was only 24% for the DDAP group and 46% for the comparison group. A mere 9% of the DDAP group returned to court on a violent crime charge, whereas 25% of the comparison group returned to court on violent crime charges. Using recidivism as the key to measure success, overall the DDAP group shows to be more successful than those youth who were not referred to DDAP and consequently stayed in the juvenile court system.
Several socio-demographic characteristics of interest, obtained from the DDAP cases evaluated, are stated below.
- 56% of the clients are African American.
- 46% of the clients live with their mothers in single-parent households.
- 63% of the clients’ highest grade completed in school was either 9th or 10th grade.
- 45% of the clients preferred marijuana as their drug of choice and 76% of them used it either daily or twice a week.
In 2002 Lisa B. Feldman, M.A. and Charis E. Kubrin, Ph.D., from the Center for Excellence in Municipal Management of George Washington University, evaluated the Philadelphia Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP). DDAP was temporarily established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a detention advocacy and case management program to reduce unnecessary overcrowding in Philadelphia’s youth correctional facility, the Youth Study Center (YSC). In addition to reducing the population of detained youth in Philadelphia’s youth correctional facility, DDAP’s other overarching goals included ensuring juveniles were attending their court hearings and reducing the likelihood that the juvenile will re-offend while awaiting case disposition. Philadelphia’s DDAP provided quality intensive case management while offering well-coordinated interventions to reduce service fragmentation. The results based on the 2002 evaluation showed that only 6% of the DDAP clients were rearrested. This suggests that juveniles under DDAP supervision are not committing new offenses. Additionally, only 4% of the DDAP clients were reported to have missed a court date during their time under DDAP supervision. DDAP Philadelphia showed impressive results in targeting highest risk youth and monitoring them while awaiting case disposition.
To read the complete DDAP evaluations, click on the links below.
Detention Diversion Advocacy: An Evaluation
OJJDP September 1999
Detention Diversion Advocacy Program Philadelphia: Evaluation Findings
CEMM August 2002
Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP) Staff
Kimo Uila, Program Director
Abdul Ali Akbar
Vanessa Alvarez
Vanessa Avila
Marc Babus
Shelley Itelson
Oscar Pena
To learn more about DDAP, please contact:
Kimo Uila, Program Director
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
440 9th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel: (415) 621-5661 ext. 375
Fax: (415) 621-5466
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