The Juvenile Justice System Numbers:
In Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties alone, 12,000 kids are cited for a juvenile offense each year and more than 6,250 youth are on active probation. The financial costs of our system are significant:
- Our counties spend approximately $525 a night per incarcerated youth—which averages $5.6 million a month and $68 million annually, in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.
- Society pays an estimated $1.7 million for each youth who drops out of school and becomes involved in a life of crime and drug abuse.
FLY Numbers
Without FLY, many youth will continue down their path of delinquent behavior, leading to costly incarceration. Consider the costs of providing a youth with FLY’s programs versus the potential costs of incarceration if FLY does not intervene.
- 12- week Law Program $2,000 – cost of 12 weeks of incarceration ~ $44,000
- 1 year Leadership Training Program $10,000 – cost of one year of incarceration ~ $190,000
- 1 year One-on-One Mentor Program $5,500 – cost of one year of incarceration ~ $190,000
FLY Outcomes
Outcome driven, FLY routinely and methodically analyzes our impact. For the past 10 years each of FLY’s programs has consistently met or exceeded the following outcomes:
- 80% of youth report an increased desire to change
- 80% will report an increase in developmental assets
- 80% will report a change in problematic behavior
- 80% will report they have hope for their futures
There is a cause and effect logic implicit in these three outcomes. When clients are inspired to change, they enable us to help them build/consolidate their assets, which ultimately leads to a reduction of delinquent behavior.
Additionally, the greater the expenditure of FLY funds, the more rigor we require in terms of outcome measurement. For example, last year in our Leadership Program:
- 75% of youth are not found delinquent of a new offense during the program year
- 85% enrolled in school
- 77% of eligible high school seniors graduated from high school or received their GEDs
