Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Graduated Responses Toolkit: New Resources and Insights to Help Youth Succeed on Probation (2016)

Youth should be held accountable for their actions. However, there are many ways to teach youth to respect rules that do not involve incarceration and removal from family, school, and the community … A strong system of “graduated responses” - combining sanctions for violations and incentives for continued progress - can significantly reduce unnecessary incarceration, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and improve successful probation completion rates and other outcomes for youth under supervision. This Toolkit is designed to help jurisdictions create an effective graduated response system or improve an existing system (p. 4).

Notice about external resources

These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organization or individual. NIC bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.