This Bulletin is part of OJJDP's Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants (JAIBG) Best Practices Series. The basic premise underlying the JAIBG program, initially funded in fiscal year 1998, is that young people who violate the law need to be held accountable for their offenses if society is to improve the quality of life in the Nation's communities. Holding a juvenile offender "accountable" in the juvenile justice system means that once the juvenile is determined to have committed law-violating behavior, by admission or adjudication, he or she is held responsible for the act through consequences or sanctions, imposed pursuant to law, that are proportionate to the offense. Consequences or sanctions that are applied swiftly, surely, and consistently, and are graduated to provide appropriate and effective responses to varying levels of offense seriousness and offender chronicity, work best in preventing, controlling, and reducing further law violations.

In an effort to help States and units of local government develop programs in the 12 purpose areas established for JAIBG funding, Bulletins in this series are designed to present the most up-to-date knowledge to juvenile justice policymakers, researchers, and practitioners about programs and approaches that hold juvenile offenders accountable for their behavior. An indepth description of the JAIBG program and a list of the 12 program purpose areas appear in the overview Bulletin for this series.

Youth violence increased dramatically between the mid-1980's and mid-1990's (Lattimore, Visher, and Linster, 1995), and public concern about youth crime -- especially youth violence -- has risen accordingly (Reiss and Roth, 1993; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1992; Rosenberg, O'Carroll, and Powell, 1992).

In the wake of these problems and concerns, juvenile justice policy has become decidedly more conservative (Cullen, 1995). Legislators seeking to reduce crime, protect society, and hold offenders accountable for their actions have advocated for a "get tough on crime" policy (Benekos and Merlo, 1995; Langan, 1991). This movement has been extended to juvenile justice (Moon, Applegate, and Latessa, 1997).

Three of the twelve program purpose areas in the JAIBG program focus on enhancing local prosecutors' abilities to address juvenile crime in their jurisdictions. This Bulletin addresses two of these areas:

• Purpose Area 4. Hire additional prosecutors so that more cases involving violent juvenile offenders can be prosecuted and backlogs reduced.

• Purpose Area 6. Fund technology, equipment, and training to assist prosecutors in identifying and expediting the prosecution of violent juvenile offenders.