A Longitudinal
Analysis of Suicide Proneness in Adjudicated Youth
Investigators
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Nicole T. Flynn, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social
Work
Kenneth Hudson, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social
Work
Start date
of initial award: 2006
Project Status: Active
The purpose of this project is to study suicide proneness in adjudicated adolescents
by conducting analyses in two pre-existing data sets. The first data set will
be used to determine if adjudicated youth have elevated rates of suicide proneness
in comparison to truant youth, or similar aged youth in school. The second data
set will be used to determine predictors of suicide proneness in male and female
youth who are residing in an alternative sentencing program.
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Art Builds Character
Investigator
Claire Evangelista, MFA, Department of Visual Arts
Start
date of initial award: 2006
Project Status: Active
The project will provide arts skills training conducted by a professional
artist to the youth served by Wilmer Hall, measure its effects on developing
verbal and social skills, and identify ways to expand the program to
more at-risk youth. Numerous studies have indicated that arts based programs
show promise in preventing and reducing violent and delinquent behavior
in at-risk youth. The PI along with staff members of Wilmer Hall will
create and evaluate a visual arts training course for them to take place
in the spring/summer of 2007. In addition a social scientist will work
with the PI to measure the effects of the project.
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Evaluating the Helping Families Initiative and Documenting Hurricane
Related Youth Violence
Investigators
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Lisa Turner, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Jayne Carson, Mobile County District Attorney’s Office
Start
date of initial award: 2006
Project Status: Active
This project is designed to evaluate
the effectiveness of the Helping Families Initiative (HFI). HFI provides support
for families at a critical time – when
a child has committed C (severe behavior), D (drugs), or E (weapons) violation(s)
within the Mobile County School System. The goal of HFI is to assess the family’s
needs, refer the family to appropriate services, follow-up to see that the services
are accessed, and then assess the family after services have been received.
With data gathered by HFI staff, we will address two questions: (a) Does school
adjustment vary as a function of HFI? and (b) Does family functioning improve
for families in HFI? These findings will contribute to the refinement of HFI
and to the possible development of future programs.
Because of the recent hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, many students have endured
significant stress and have been displaced. All displaced students are coded
within this database and we will conduct a set of analyses to describe the needs
of this group. First, we will determine if displaced students account for a disproportionate
number of school offenses. Second, we will determine if displaced families that
are being served by HFI differ noticeably from the non-displaced families. These
findings will contribute to our understanding of hurricane related stress and
its potential effects.
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Expressive Alternatives: Improving Odds for Youth at Risk for Violent
Behavior
Investigators
Ellen Broach, Ph.D., Department of Health, PE & Leisure Services
Constance Smith, M.S., Department of Dramatic Arts
Mathew Ames, Ph.D., Department of Dramatic Arts
Steve Pugh, Ph.D., Department of Health, PE & Leisure Services
Start
date of initial award: 2006
Project Status: Active
This project will involve collaboration with the Dramatic Arts Department and
the Therapeutic Recreation Program in the College of Education. This proposed
development project will be geared towards young adolescents at risk for violence
without delinquent records. The youth will also be those who have expressed an
interest in developing skills in expressive arts. The project will focus on decreasing
the potential for violence through implementation of an expressive arts program
designed to change the participants social and emotional functioning. A thorough
literature review will precede the development of a curriculum that will be tested
spring of 2007. Outcome measures for the pilot program will include socio-emotional
skills, theatre skills, social validity of the program, and participant enjoyment
level. The researchers will additionally use focus group discussions for feedback
on the program and outcomes. Based on the pilot results, a long term research
program will be developed.
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Hurricane Disruption
as a Risk Factor for PTSD & School Behavior
Problems in Adolescents
Start date of
initial award: 2006
Project Status: Completed
Investigators
Linda Haynes, Ph.D., Department of Education Professional Studies
John Dempsey, Ph.D., Department of Education Professional Studies
Monica Hunter, Ph.D., Department of Education Professional Studies
Brenda Litchfield, Ph.D., Department of Education Professional Studies
Vaughn Millner, Ph.D., Department of Education Professional Studies
The interdisciplinary team
of researchers and educators facilitate the program that allows students
who were affected by the hurricane to learn
a variety of science and information technology topics, conduct a needs
assessment related to the hurricane recovery, generate advisory reports
for school and community leaders, and create a documentary of the hurricane
recovery process in the students’ school and community. The students
are active participants in the hurricane recovery process.
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Linking Lives: Developing Intervention Strategies Based on a Life
Course Model of Female Crime and Deviance
Investigators
Roma Hanks, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social
Work; Chair of Department of Gerontology
Nicole T. Flynn, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social
Work
Start
date of initial award: 2006
Project Status: Active
We propose to analyze interview data
from our previous work, including our process and outcome evaluation of the Network
Aftercare System and our qualitative investigation
of life histories of women in the Mobile Metro Jail, in order to develop evidence-based
intervention strategies during future funding cycles. To date, our work with
girls and women in these projects has been directed at better understanding how
events during childhood and adolescence relate to delinquency in youth and to
adult criminal outcomes. Based on these findings, we propose: (1) to complete
our qualitative analysis of interviews with women in jail, (2) to present findings
at two or more national professional meetings, (3) to submit articles to appropriate
professional journals and to complete a book proposal that will be presented
to an academic publisher, (4) to develop a model for a “Linking Lives” intervention
strategy for girls; the intervention can be piloted, implemented, and evaluated
during future funding cycles. We will continue to interview women in jail, using
the IRB-approved interview protocol. Interviews during this funding period will
focus on following up on interviews that suggest themes. We will also use available
arrest histories and interviews with key informants to confirm our qualitative
analysis through triangulation.
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Neighborhood and School Effects on Persistent Youth Offending and Violence
Investigators
Kenneth Hudson, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social
Work
Nicole T. Flynn, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social
Work
Michael Daley, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social
Work
Start
date of initial award: 2006
Project Status: Active
Data collected by the University
of South Alabama Youth Violence Prevention Project (YVPP) between 2000 and 2005
indicate that between 25 and 30 percent of youth
completing residential treatment programs for local low-to-medium risk juvenile
offenders were charged with a new offense within 4 years. Forty-five percent
of male youth were charged with a new felony offense (Flynn, Hudson, Hanks, Hunt
2006). Previous research suggests that the characteristic of neighborhoods (Shaw
and McKay 1942; Wadsworth 2000) and schools (Farnworth and Leiber 1989; Sampson
and Laub 1993) have a significant impact on the likelihood of youth
crime. The proposed project will extend the YVPP’s previous research on
youth recidivism by examining the impact of neighborhood poverty, low wage employment,
limited opportunities for occupational mobility, local crime rates, and the role
of school resources and conduct problems on the likelihood of youth crime and
persistent offending. Information from neighborhoods and schools will be combined
with previously collected individual youth recidivism data. These data will be
used
to conduct multilevel analyses (Raudenbush and Bryk 2002) on
the effects of individual, school, and neighborhood effects on the hazard of
youth recidivism. Particular attention will be given to explicating the specific
mechanisms by which school and neighborhood contexts impact the youth offending.
References:
Farnworth,
M., & Leiber, M. (1989). Strain theory
revisited: Economic goals, educational means, and delinquency. American
Sociological
Review, 55(2), 236-279.
Flynn,
N., Hudson, K., Hanks, R. & Hunt, A. (2006). “Gender
Effects Along the Juvenile Justice System: Evidence of a Gendered Organization.
Paper presented at the Southern Sociological Society Meetings March 26, 2006,
New Orleans, LA.
Raudenbusch, S. & Bryk, A. (2002). Hierarchical Linear Models.
Sage.
Sampson, R., & Laub, J. (1993). Crime in the Making: Pathways
and Turning Points Through Life. Harvard University Press.
Shaw, C. and McKay, H. (1942). Juvenile Delinquency and Urban
Areas.
Chicago: Univerisity of Chicago Press.
Wadsworth, T. (2000). “Labor
Markets, Delinquency, and Social Control Theory.” Social
Forces 78:1041-1066.
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Reducing Intimate
Partner Violence with High-Risk Adolescents – Year
Three
Investigators
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Lisa Turner, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start date of
initial award: 2006
Project Status: Active
Intimate partner violence is a serious problem that has profound effects on the
victim, the perpetrator, other family members, and society. The goal of this
project is to continue to investigate the effectiveness of a four-session brief
intervention designed to equip adolescent mothers with the skills necessary to
build healthy and non-violent intimate relationships. We hypothesize that at-risk
adolescent women participating in the intervention will have better relationship
skills, less anger, violence, and jealousy, and better conflict management strategies
than at-risk adolescent women randomly assigned to the control group. In addition
to the continued investigation with adolescent mothers, we also propose to direct
funds and energy to developing and pilot testing a similar intervention for at-risk
male adolescents who are residing in an alternative sentencing program.
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Developing a Life Course Model of Female
Crime and Deviance
Investigators
Roma Hanks, Ph.D., Department
of Sociology, Anthropology & Social Work; Chair of
Department
of Gerontology
Nicole T. Flynn, Ph.D., Department
of Sociology, Anthropology & Social Work
Start date of initial award: 2005
Project Status: Active
The researchers proposed
to launch a qualitative investigation of women in jail in order to better
understand the life course of women
and
crime
and
how
events during childhood and adolescence relate to adult criminal outcomes.
The study is built on findings from the program evaluation that they
have conducted. Their research will examine qualitatively life course
transitions
and trajectories that may be associated with criminality in girls and
young women. This extension of their research will provide a basis for:
(1) developing programs for girls that recognize key transitions in girls’ lives
that may influence their entry into the criminal justice system and (2)
delivering programs that meet the needs of girls whose life events have
set them on different trajectories. Their primary goal is to develop
a more informed theoretical model of female offending and to generate
hypotheses
about relationships between adolescent transitions and adult crime. The
project has the following specific aims: (1) to collect oral life histories
and use these to build “grounded theory” about female offending;
(2) to share theoretical and methodological insights gained with our
academic peers and graduate students; (3) to generate hypotheses for
future studies of women’s adolescent transitions and adult crime
trajectories; and (4) to use the knowledge gained as a basis for recommendations
for appropriate programming for women in the criminal justice system.
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Evaluating Anger and Resiliency in Relation
to Racial Stereotypes During Stress in Older Adolescents
Investigator
Elise Labbé-Coldsmith, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start
date of initial award: 2005
Project Status: Active
Stereotype vulnerability may
increase a person’s risk for engaging
in violent behavior. The investigator proposes that emotional stability
and resiliency may actually reduce the risk for aggressive behavior and
violence. The research the investigator is proposing will test these ideas
with eighty older adolescents by assessing state anger, resiliency, and
emotional stability after a stereotype threat is made and the participants
engage in a challenging cognitive test. The investigator hypothesizes that
emotional stability and resiliency scores will be inverse predictors of
stereotype vulnerability in the present study. A second hypothesis is the
experimental group will experience a significant increase in sympathetic
arousal as compared to a control condition indicating reactivity to the
induced stereotype. Third, the presence of this stereotype should be confirmed
by impairment of test scores and lower self-ratings of performance in the
experimental group. Finally, based on research literature on stereotype
vulnerability and racial differences, African American adolescents will
demonstrate higher sympathetic arousal and lower self-ratings of performance
as compared to the Caucasian adolescents. The results should support previous
finding on stereotype vulnerability and further understanding of how stereotype
threats may be associated with increased risk for anger and aggression.
As well
as how emotional stability and resilience function as protective factors
by reducing arousal and anger.
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Reducing Intimate Partner Violence by Enhancing Relationship Skills:
Year Two
Investigators
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Lisa Turner, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start date of initial award: 2005
Project Status: Active
Adolescent mothers living
in poverty are at high risk for exposure to intimate partner violence and
relationship instability (Cokkinides & Coker,
1998; Schumacher et al., 2001). Their babies are also likely to be at
increased risk
for child abuse (Appel & Holden, 1998). Yet, few intimate partner violence
prevention efforts have been targeted at this group. This project is designed
to investigate the efficacy of the brief (4-session) violence prevention program.
The program (Building a Lasting Love; Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Turner, McGowan, & Dooley,
2005) incorporates key elements from relationship enhancement interventions
and existing domestic violence programs. Thirty teen moms recruited from the
Mobile Alabama Teen Center will participate in the program over a 1-year time
period. A similar number of control mothers will also be assessed. The project
will consider the degree to which the program impacts individual characteristics
of the women (e.g., depression, self-esteem); violence-related characteristics
(e.g., acceptance of interpersonal violence); and relationship skills (e.g.,
assertiveness, communication skills). In addition, the existing program will
be modified so that it can be administered to female college students and preliminary
data about this modification will be obtained.
References:
Appel, A. E. & Holden,
G. W. (1998). The co-occurrence of spouse and physical child abuse: A
review and appraisal. Journal of Family Psychology, 12(4), 578-599.
Cokkinides,
V. E., & Coker,
A. L. (1998). Experiencing physical violence during pregnancy: Prevalence
and correlates. Community
Health,
20, 19-37.
Schumacher, J. A., Feldbau-Kohn,
S., Smith Slep, A. M. & Heyman, R.
E. (2001). Risk factors for male-to-female partner physical abuse. Aggression
and Violent Behavior, 6 (special issue), 281-352.
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Righting the Scales Planning Grant: Survey of Youth Offender Perceptions
of Sanctions and Rewards
Investigator
David Bowers, Ph.D., Department of Political Science & Criminal
Justice
Start date of initial award: 2005
Project Status: Active
Rewards and incentives are inherent to the success of a graduated sanctions
program. Preliminary studies done as early as 1990 have indicated that
a system of punishment without the possibility of rewards did not work
(McKenzie and Armstrong, 2004). Although researchers have concluded that
rewards do result in long-term benefits for the youth offender, many
juvenile justice programs employing a graduated sanctions approach do
not adequately balance the use of rewards and sanctions.
This project is a planning project for a proposed implementation project
concerning the use of graduated rewards and punishments in the juvenile
justice system. The purpose of this planning project is to develop a
matrix of rewards and sanctions as well as establish the framework for
the implementation project. The larger project will use the matrix of
rewards and sanctions, as well as other information, to implement an
experimental study of graduated rewards and sanctions.
This planning project will generate new and important information for
juvenile corrections. The few studies of juveniles and their perceptions
of sanctions have focused on asking juveniles broad questions about rewards/sanctions
that have no immediate relevance to their behavior. This project will
help academics and practitioners better understand the impact that rewards
and sanctions can have on a juvenile justice population.
References:
McKenzie, D., Armstrong, G. (2004). Correctional Boot
Camps. Thousand Oaks,
California, Sage Publications.
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They Think They're
Good, So Why Are They in Trouble? Using Juvenile Delinquents' Definitions
of Self and Others to Predict Delinquency
Investigator
Nicole T. Flynn, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social
Work
Start date of initial award: 2005
Project Status: Active
The investigator is proposing to conduct a data analysis using
recently collected definitions data. These data are responses to
semantic differential items and ratings of relationships made by
juvenile delinquents. These will be linked to data collected for
a process outcome evaluation of the Mobile Network Aftercare System that
included questions about experiences and behaviors. The new scales
were added to existing instruments at minimal cost during the last
funding cycle. The data on definitions is available for around
125 kids, and were collected over the course of ten months.
Identity
theory asserts that involvement in close relationships alters
self meanings, and persons behave consistent with those meanings. Affect
Control Theory asserts that people are
motivated by the need to verify their self and social meanings, and these needs
lead to emotions and interpretations of events that promote existing
definitions. Self and social meanings change only when maintaining them
becomes dysfunctional. The investigator’s focus will be on how
juveniles’ interactions in their networks and in justice settings
affect their definitions of self and others, and how definitions are
predictive of conventional versus delinquent behaviors. Having emotionally
positive interaction with people expecting conventional behaviors should
increase conventional self and social meanings, prompting conventional
behaviors. This project may identify experiences that promote conventional
definitions and advance the ways we conceptualize prospects for successful
exit from juvenile justice systems.
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Operation Ice/Project Safe Neighborhoods: Reducing Gun Crime in Communities;
Reducing Juvenile Risk Factors
Investigator
Timothy O’Shea, Ph.D., Department of Political Science & Criminal
Justice; Director Center for Public Policy
Start date of initial award: 2005
Project Status: Active
Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN)
represents a commitment to gun crime reduction through a network of local
partnerships coordinated through the nation’s
94 United States Attorneys’ Offices. The Mobile Police Department
(MPD) initiated a PSN-like gun crime program (Operation Ice), with the
cooperation of the U.S. Attorney’s
Office, in the spring of 2002. Interventions in Mobile were limited to
public service announcements (PSAs) such as billboards ads meant to deter
gun
violence. The Operation Ice evaluator, Dr. O’Shea, has collected
monthly gun crime data and conducted interrupted time series analyses since
the project’s inception in 2002. The purpose of the proposed project
is to continue an evaluation of Operation Ice. The evaluator will
then have monthly crime data for fifty-six months pre-intervention, forty-eight
months during the intervention, and twenty-four months post-intervention
to analyze.
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Digging
Out of Trouble: Archaeology as Educational and Prosocial Activity
Investigators
Philip J. Carr, Ph.D., Department of Sociology & Anthropology
James Daniel Lee, Ph.D., Department of Sociology & Anthropology (left the
project after the first year)
Start date of initial award: 2004
Project status: Completed
The project investigators will provide
an educational and prosocial project based in the archaeology of Mobile, Alabama,
that will be incorporated into
the Network Aftercare System (NAS) during the summer of 2005. For a sample
of aftercare youth, the project will complement the web of aftercare services
provided by NAS that carry youth from local residential facilities back into
their communities. The eight week project will include archaeological fieldwork,
artifact processing and analysis, as well as interpretation and construction
of a portable display. The benefits will include an educational program with
supervision that extends youths’ ties to conventional others as well as an
opportunity for students to investigate their ties
to Mobile’s history and empower them to interpret the artifacts recovered during
their archaeological investigation.
Investigators
Elise Labbé-Coldsmith, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start date of initial award: 2004
Project status: Completed
Music may be a
medium to help youth, particularly those at risk for violence,
to reduce negative feelings and responses. The
investigator
will test 160 local community adolescents’ emotional and cognitive
response to different types of music after participating in a challenging
mental task. This research aims to provide data to support the
use of certain types of music to help youth cope with stress. The
investigator
hypothesizes that youth exposed to relaxing music or self-selected
relaxing music will demonstrate a significant reduction in anxiety
and autonomic arousal as compared to those who sit in silence (control
condition) or to heavy metal music.
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Intervention
with High-Risk Adolescent Mothers to Enhance Child Development
Investigators
Lisa Turner, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start date of initial award: 2004
Project status: Completed
This project attempts to address
the first link in a potential chain of the development of aggressive behavior.
By educating the adolescent mother and
teaching her effective parenting practices, the researchers hypothesize that
the child’s exposure to early aggressive practices can be reduced. High-risk
mothers in the third trimester of pregnancy who have not completed high school
will be randomly assigned to either a parent-training
group or a control group. The researchers hypothesize that parent-training
beginning in the early months of a child’s life can result in parenting practices
that are less coercive and aggressive in nature, thereby, reducing the early
training of aggressive behavior in these at-risk children.
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Reducing
Intimate Partner Violence in At-Risk Adolescent Mothers
Investigators
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Lisa Turner, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start date of initial award: 2004
Project status: Completed
This project focuses
on adolescent mothers’ romantic relationships
with potential partners. Namely, the researchers are attempting to
prevent the occurrence of intimate partner violence and injury and
its impact on at-risk infants by focusing directly on the relationship
skills and interpersonal choices of adolescent mothers. These skills
are offered at a developmental point when high-risk women might be
open to prevention efforts. Thus the purpose of this project is to
pilot a
brief relationship-oriented intervention with high-risk moms.
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Critical
Junctures: A Qualitative Study of Risk and Resiliency in Older Adolescents
Investigators
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start date of initial award: 2002
Project status: Completed
This project explores the mechanisms by which some youth are able to overcome
significant, and typically adverse, delinquency-related events. The study recruits
college women who faced significant adverse events during their youth. These
women are providing historical, self-report data about these events and their
resilient responses to them. In addition, the project has developed a state-of-the-art,
interaction lab that is being used to record and analyze interactions between
a sample of these college women and their mothers as they discuss how they
coped with the life changing event.
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Mental Health and Protective Factors among Control, At-Risk, and Delinquent Youth
Investigators
Catalina Arata, Ph.D., Department of Psychology (left project after first two years)
David Bowers, Ph.D., Department of Political Science & Criminal Justice
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start date of initial award: 2001
Project status: Completed
This project examines how certain risk and protective factors and mental
health functioning helps predict juvenile
delinquency and responses to criminal justice interventions. Information collected
will be used to delineate differences in
existing risk and protective factors between male and female juvenile delinquents
and to determine differences in risk and
protective factors among youth who are incarcerated in the juvenile justice system
(delinquents), youth who are in truancy
court (at-risk), and similar youth (matched on age, gender, race, family composition,
SES) who are attending a local high
school (controls). This study will also begin to develop a longitudinal database
of adjudicated youth in order to examine the
efficacy of probation as an intervention for delinquency and to compare outcomes
for males versus females following their
probation. Data are gathered through risk assessment questionnaires, face to
face interviews and analysis of court documents.
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Mobile Juvenile Violence Project
Investigators
Timothy O’Shea, Ph.D.,
Department of Political Science & Criminal Justice; Director Center for
Public Policy
Start date of initial award: 2001
Project status: Completed
The completed Mobile Juvenile Violence Project addressed community-level
risk factors by assisting the Mobile Police Department in partnering
with a variety of community groups to design and implement juvenile crime
and violence interventions. The goal of the project was to reduce community-level
risk factors through careful analysis of police data, identification
of potential interventions, and building community capacity for situational
crime prevention.
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Predicting Response to Functional Family Therapy: A Treatment Option for Reducing At-Risk Behavior in Youth
Investigators
Elise Labbé-Coldsmith, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Cay Welsh, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
Start date of initial award: 2001
Project status: Completed
The project is
evaluating the effectiveness of Functional Family Therapy (FFT) on reducing
at-risk behavior in youth within
Mobile’s Network Aftercare System (NAS). The goal is to discover what types of behavior problems respond better to FFT and to
explore whether the treatment is more effective for boys or girls, whether it is equally effective for both groups, or
whether other variables have a significant impact on FFT’s degree of effectiveness
for one or both groups.
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Investigators
Nicole T. Flynn, Ph.D., Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Roma Hanks, Ph.D., Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Chair of Department of Gerontology
Start date of initial award: 2001
Project status: Completed
Altschuler & Armstrong
(1994) developed the Intensive Aftercare Program (IAP) to incorporate
community services into the residential setting.
The program has six key elements: (1) client-community interaction and
involvement that begins during reintegrative confinement; (2) new resources,
supports, and opportunities for the client are developed in the home
community; (3) youth are prepared for progressively increased freedom
and responsibility in the community; (4) overarching case management
insures that services are delivered and are delivered in the proper sequence;
(5) provision of a full range of services for the youth and family, including
those related to peers, schooling, work, and drug involvement; and (6)
program management information to allow researchers to document that
services were available and delivered properly.
In winter of 2001, the Mobile County Juvenile Court contracted with
the Boys and Girls Clubs of South Alabama (BGCSA) to develop a program
to assist with the transition of adjudicated youth from residential
treatment to the community. BGCSA adopted the tenets of Altschuler & Armstrong’s
IAP model and implemented a community-based program called the Network
Aftercare System (NAS). NAS is funded through a grant from OJJDP.
The objectives for this project are to assess the extent to which
the program elements are implemented at both Camp Martin Youth Leadership
Academy (CMYLA) and the Girls Reaching Our Womanhood Through Healing
(GROWTH) program. The researchers expect that higher levels of implementation
will be associated with reduced recidivism after aftercare, but likely
more minor offending during aftercare. Through ongoing process evaluation
and program monitoring, including collecting qualitative and quantitative
data, the researchers compare level of program implementation with
youth outcomes.
One component of the evaluation is assessing the extent to which the
IAP model was implemented successfully at NAS. While not all elements
of the IAP model were successfully implemented at NAS, the researchers
did find that those components that were developed appeared to be
well entrenched and appeared to make a difference in a youth’s
success. During the past year, budget cuts have affected components
and NAS
staff, and the researches expect that they are discovering another
distinct phase of implementation.
To date, they find that youth participating in NAS in the early period
of implementation have higher levels of recidivism than youth participating
in later years of the program. Roughly 35 percent of youth have recidivated
since the program inception, a rate well below averages for other programs
of this type.
A final component of this project is to support the Mobile County
Juvenile Court in its effort to engage in research-to-practice interventions
and to develop evidence-based practices where data collection and analyses
help guide program improvement. This project is not a formal evaluation
of the effectiveness of IAP, since formal evaluations have been done
elsewhere (c.f., Wiebush, McNulty et al. 2000). However, this project
is an evaluation of the implementation of IAP at NAS, and as such provides
a case study of IAP as it is implemented in the field.
References:
Altschuler, D.M., and T.L. Armstrong. 1994 (September). Intensive
Aftercare for High-Risk Juveniles: A Community Care Model. Program Summary. Washington,
D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department
of Justice. NCJ 147575.
Wiebush,
R. G., McNulty, B., & Le, T. (2000). Implementation of the
intensive community-based aftercare program. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
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School Safety and Student Victimization
Investigators
J. Keith Nicholls, Ph.D., Department of Political Science & Criminal Justice;
Director USA Polling Group
Timothy O’Shea, Ph.D.,
Department of Political Science & Criminal Justice; Director Center for Public
Policy
Start date of initial award: 2001
Project status: Completed
As part of an on-going effort to improve school safety, a number of national
surveys have been conducted to establish
baseline data on levels of violence and victimization in schools, as well as
student perceptions of school safety. This
completed project was designed to establish a similar baseline for school safety
issues in Mobile County, Alabama. Random
digit dialing procedures was used to establish a sampling frame of households
that included children ages 12 to 18.
Computer-assisted telephone interviews were conducted with school-age children
and their parents in a two-stage process. In
the first stage, 1,451 interviews were conducted with parents to obtain permission
to interview the children and to measure
parental perceptions of school safety issues. Of the 1,451 parents interviewed,
1,106 parents gave permission to interview
their children. In the second stage, 706 extensive interviews with the children
were conducted to assess a wide variety of
attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors related to school safety. The project gauges
the extent and severity of school safety
problems, as well as providing a baseline for evaluating the effectiveness of
efforts to resolve the problems.
