WSCCR Continues to Assist Courts with New Dependency Dashboard and Detention Reports

The AOC’s Washington State Center for Court Research (WSCCR) had a busy 2023, releasing multiple tools and materials used to evaluate and improve the juvenile justice system in Washington.

This includes a dashboard which tracks dependent youth outcomes, a report examining the impact of COVID-19 on juvenile detention and a report assessing juvenile detention and its alternatives.

“WSCCR has been excited for the opportunity to produce tools and reports to improve courts’ and stakeholder knowledge of who is involved with the courts, how courts respond to individuals, and the impacts of court actions,” Carl McCurley, manager of WSCCR said.

Dependency Dashboard

In 2023, WSCCR made significant advancements in its ability to collect, analyze and disseminate child dependency data, leading to the development of a comprehensive online dashboard.

The dashboard provides the public dependency data in five main areas:

• Consistently updated current year dependency timeliness measures and fillings.
• Measures and filings over time.
• Filings and filing rates, along with previous years dependency measures.
• Race/ethnicity data for previous years’ filings and measures, including county-level information on dependency filings and outcomes categorized by race and ethnicity.
• Permanency outcomes by demographics over time, including point-in-time median length of stay and placement discharge type.

These additions address previously unexplored areas, including critical data on race and ethnicity, enabling communities to address disparities within the dependency system that disproportionately impact specific populations.

Impact of COVID on Juvenile Detention

During the pandemic, WSCCR partnered with the state Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) to produce a special report examining the impact of COVID-19 on juvenile detention.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Juvenile Detention in Washington State is meant to provide a more comprehensive study of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on juvenile detention in Washington State. The report is broken down into three main parts.

First, it examines how the detention population changed following the onset of the pandemic. The report then estimates the impact of the pandemic on detention admissions. Part three explores qualitatively how juvenile courts adapted to the pandemic through changes in policies and practices by analyzing data collected through surveys of juvenile courts.

Researchers found that in Washington, the pandemic resulted in an estimated 54% reduction in juvenile detention admissions statewide in the ten months following the onset of the pandemic, and that for the first time since they began tracking statewide detention admissions, there were larger decreases for youth of color than for white youth.

Juvenile Detention Alternatives

The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) was first piloted in an effort to reduce local jurisdictions’ over-reliance on juvenile detention. With many of Washington’s most populous counties participating in the JDAI, over 66% of Washington State youth lived in a JDAI jurisdiction in 2020.

The 2020–21 JDAI Report assesses various aspects of the use of detention and its alternatives in order to gain a better understanding of how detention alternatives are being used and allow the courts to evaluate their effectiveness. WSCCR researchers found that JDAI sites typically have lower detention rates than the rest of the state, and they detain youth for more serious reasons (i.e., felony offenses).

Detention alternative programs target only those youth who would otherwise be detained, and instead of placement in a detention facility, they typically include: electronic monitoring, house arrest, community monitoring, reporting centers and shelter beds for youth who cannot return home.

About WSCCR:

The Washington State Center for Court Research (WSCCR) is the research arm of the Administrative Office of the Courts. It was established in 2004 by order of the Washington State Supreme Court.

WSCCR’s empirical research is intended to improve understanding of the courts, help guide judicial policy, and improve the functioning of our judicial system.

The center serves judges, clerks, victims, offenders, legal advocates, and all other participants in the judicial process.

Read more from our annual State of the Judiciary report.