The OJJDP DMC Reduction Best Practices Database
is designed to assist jurisdictions in the development of initiatives to reduce Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC). It provides guidelines for choosing strategies and developing an intervention plan and presents a conceptual framework, similar to the risk and protective factor framework used in prevention science, for use in plotting a course through the mixture of programs, services, and activities to determine the most appropriate strategy for targeting specifically identified DMC contributing mechanism(s).

The central feature of this Web site is a searchable database that assists jurisdictions in identifying both multi-component jurisdictional DMC initiatives that have demonstrated a basic level of effectiveness in reducing DMC as well as single-component programmatic interventions that were not necessarily developed to reduce DMC but may prove useful as a tool in the arsenal against DMC. Each jurisdictional initiative summarizes the jurisdiction’s DMC problem, the strategies it used to address the problem, and evidence regarding the strategies’ effects on DMC trends. The single component programs contain summary information (program description, evaluation design, research findings, references, and contact information) on evidence-based delinquency intervention programs.

The database organizes the DMC strategies into three categories corresponding to the different populations for which they are designed to impact: (1) direct services, which target at-risk or system-involved youth, their families, and communities; (2) training and technical assistance, which is geared to strategies for juvenile justice system, law enforcement, and related personnel; and (3) system change efforts, which strive to modify aspects of the juvenile justice system that may contribute to DMC.