The application of social impact assessment to the study of criminal and juvenile justice programs: A case study

This article focuses on the utility of social impact assessment as a method for the study of criminal and juvenile justice programs. Social impact assessment is a relatively new research approach which has most often been used not in the field of criminal and juvenile justice, but to predict the many possible impacts of public construction programs on individuals, organizations, and the community. To illustrate the method of social impact assessment, a case study of one of the few applications of social impact assessment in a juvenile or criminal justice setting is provided. The case study is of a nationally acclaimed program model, the Community Arbitration Project (CAP), which was designed to improve the screening of juvenile delinquency cases before court. The case study compares CAP with a traditional screening program. It shows the procedure used to identify many types of possible impacts that may differ between the two programs, including those which are desired and not desired, and those which are intended and unintended. Furthermore, the case study demonstrates the process used to document selected impacts throughout the social system, in the case of CAP and traditional screening, on offenders, victims, police, the juvenile court, and the local community. The article concludes with a discussion of the feasibility of using the results of a social impact assessment as input into the modification of innovative model programs during their formative stage, and as input into the decision making that leads up to the choice of a model program for replication.     

Managing reductions in criminal justice education programs

The types of changes facing criminal justice education administrators and faculty mandate attention to the real world of fiscal stress and the concomitant problem of student declines. Current trends emphasize that all of those involved in the criminal justice education field must look beyond short-term cyclical problems involving the delivery of criminal justice educational services. The issues of fiscal tension and student declines require hard choices, the development of new administrative skills, and the recognition that new behaviors will be mandatory for criminal justice education administrators during the rest of the eighties.     

Relative prestige of criminal justice doctoral programs

Organizational sets are made up of organizations with interchangeable personnel, important activity common to members, and a prestige order. The prestige order in other academic disciplines has been identified, and the survey reported here was an attempt to provide some preliminary information on the prestige order among criminal justice doctoral programs. A survey of a sample of Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences members and other criminal justice educators revealed several programs consistently receiving high ratings. These programs are likely to have a substantial influence on the development of criminal justice graduate education by providing models for graduate programs, personnel to staff criminal justice programs, and establishing the standards by which quality education will be defined. In addition, the importance of a list of characteristics pertaining to quality education was examined, and library resources and several faculty attributes emerged as those perceived as most important for quality doctoral education in criminal justice.     

Survival analysis of criminal recidivism of boot camp graduates using elements from general and developmental explanatory models

This is a 5-year follow-up study of recidivism among 601 male graduates of a boot camp for adults in a southern state. Cox's proportional hazard analysis is used to determine the hazard rate of recidivism (arrest or parole violation) of several elements of general and developmental models. Analyses are conducted according to age of onset of unlawful behavior (10 years old or younger and older than 10 years). Findings indicate that caregiving factors have inverse relations with the hazard of recidivism, whereas low self-control, deficits in social skills, peer association with criminals, gang membership, drug use and sales, and carrying weapons have positive relationships with this hazard. These findings are observed irrespective of the age when persons begin committing offenses. Implications of the findings for theoretical models is discussed.     

The quality of doctoral programs in deviance,criminology, and criminal justice: An empirical assessment

While information regarding the doctoral programs in any discipline is of obvious and considerable relevance both to those in the discipline and to those seeking access to the best possible sites for graduate training, our knowledge about the quality of doctoral programs continues to be based on little more than speculation and highly ambiguous measures of institutional or departmental prestige. This study attempts to fill this gap for those who have special interests in the related fields of deviance, criminology, and criminal justice by ranking the thirty-six most significant doctoral programs in the nation by means of data derived from the Social Science Citation Index. Perhaps the most striking of our findings—and certainly to us the most distressing finding—is that those departments ranked by our measures as being the highest quality are consistently those which exist within the broader structure of departments of sociology. Given our firm conviction that the discipline of criminology is far, far more than that aspect of it which is closely related to issues of substantive significance to the field of sociology, we can only speculate that those in leadership positions in the growing number of independent schools or departments of criminology or criminal justice are not meeting their obligations to the discipline whose vitality and prospects depend so heavily on the quality of their judgment.     

Developments in criminal law and criminal justice

Conclusion It follows from what has been said above that history, principle, and authority combine to compel the conclusion that § 80's guarantee of trial by jury precludes a verdict of guilty being returned in a trial upon indictment of an offence against a law of the Commonwealth otherwise than by the agreement or consensus of all the jurors. That being so, § 57 of the Juries Act, 1927, cannot, consistently with § 80, operate to authorize the conviction of either of the appellants by a majority verdict. Their convictions were unconstitutional and must be set aside.The appeal should be allowed. The orders of the South Australian Court of Criminal Appeal should be set aside and in lieu thereof it should be ordered, in the case of each appellant, that the appeal to that court be allowed, that the conviction be quashed and a new trial ordered.B.A., Columbia University 1972; J.D., Hofstra University 1975.     

Developments in criminal law and criminal justice

Developments in criminal law and criminal justice     

Integrating the study of criminal justice and literature

The best interdisciplinary courses are those that not only expand a student’s consciousness but also increase a student’s options. A course in criminal justice and literature can give criminal justice students a broader philosophical basis for work in their profession and metaphors for understanding their discipline. For humanities students, it can reveal the extent to which literature reflects social conditions and criminal justice theories and practices. With this in mind, the authors, professors of criminal justice and English, respectively, designed and taught an experimental course that integrates topics in criminal justice with topics in literature. This article details the philosophies and goals behind this undertaking and describes the specific course objectives, readings and other instructional materials used, and the teaching methods and evaluation procedures employed. Also included are the results of a research survey which explored student perceptions of and reactions to the course. The article concludes by offering suggestions and cautionary advice that would be helpful for those interested in setting up such a curriculum.     

Discriminators of types of recidivism among boot camp graduates in a five-year follow-up study

This was a five-year follow-up study of 572 male graduates of a boot camp in the South. The purpose was to determine what elements of life-course theory discriminated between four outcomes: (1) nonrecidivists, (2) recidivists with felonies, (3) technical parole violators, and (4) parole violators due to drugs. Findings indicated a relatively accurate classification of the first three outcomes.The discriminators between nonrecidivists and various types of recidivists in the study were indicators of informal social controls such as marriage, employment, children, and religiosity. Discriminators of felony recidivists were early sexual and physical abuse, gang membership, peer association, carrying a weapon, and early onset of crime. Discriminators associated with technical parole violation were attachment to female caregivers, self-esteem and self-efficacy, and perception that boot camp stimulated thinking about choices in life. The conceptual and policy implications of these findings are discussed in detail.     

Challenges of conducting field experiments in correctional settings: boot camp prison study as an example

Objectives

The challenges of conducting a field experiment in a correctional setting.

Methods

This paper discusses the issues related to planning, design, and completion of a randomized control study of a correctional boot camp including the difficulties confronted and how these were or were not overcome.

Results

At the beginning, correctional administrators were interested in and supportive of the study and this greatly facilitated our initial work. However, as described in this paper, during the course of the research obstacles and difficulties arose. Using the boot camp experiment as an example, we review the trials and tribulations of trying to do a field experiment in corrections. The importance of collecting quantitative and qualitative in order to understand the experiences of both the control and experimental groups is emphasized, as is the need to examine the theoretical mechanisms hypothesized to lead to changes in outcomes.

Conclusion

Some of the challenges confronted in this randomized control trial are those facing anyone attempting to conduct a field experiment, others relate to the particular issues faced by those who are conducting experiments in correctional settings. The paper concludes with a discussion of the issues confronting researchers who are doing field experiments in corrections.     

An experimental study of a therapeutic boot camp: Impact on impulses, attitudes and recidivism

Two hundred thirty four adult male inmates entering prison were randomly assigned to an early release program in either a correctional boot camp or a large, traditional prison in the Maryland state correctional system. Boot camp releasees had marginally lower recidivism compared to those released from the traditional prison. A pre-test, post-test self report survey indicated the boot camp program had little impact on criminogenic characteristics except for a lowering of self control. In contrast, inmates in prison became more antisocial, lower in self control, worse in anger management, and reported more criminal tendencies by the end of their time in prison. Criminogenic attitudes and impulses were significantly associated with recidivism. The impact of the boot camp diminished to non-significance when antisocial attitudes or anger management problems were added to the models predicting recidivism. Implications for jurisdictions considering whether to operate correctional boot camps are discussed.     

Distinguishing graduates from dropouts and dismissals: Who fails boot camp?

This study of 784 inmates in a boot camp in a southern state was designed to determine what elements from life-course theory distinguished between graduates, dropouts, and dismissals from the program in this facility. Multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that several social bonds—such as employment, income, marital status—and personal assets like self-efficacy differentiated graduates from dropouts and dismissals from that program. In contrast, selling drugs, illegal income, and carrying a weapon also were associated with graduation.Lack of self-control, drug use, and peer association differentiated dropouts from graduates, whereas history of being abused, emotional problems, and suicidal attempts distinguished dismissals from graduates. The implications of these findings for further research and current decision-making are discussed.     

Criminal justice faculty and criminal justice students: A case for the missing data

This article reviews the most current criminal justice education research. It examines the interrelationship between the work of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, the Joint Commission on Criminology and Criminal Justice Education and Standards, and the National Advisory Commission on Higher Education for Police, and describes and compares some of their more important findings. Discussed are types of criminal justice programs; characteristics of criminal justice faculty, particularly in terms of earned academic degrees; agency work experience; commitment to research and teaching; types of criminal justice curricula, as typified by certain educational philosophies; and criminal justice students. Although this article notes several areas with which future research might become fruitfully involved, the area in need of most immediate attention, and the area that current research has all but ignored, is the criminal justice student.     

Educational saliency and careers in criminal justice: The case of Louisiana

While there is little consensus as to the exact form and structure of an academic criminal justice program, the traditional model of higher education, with its emphasis on qualified and productive faculty, has gained popular acceptance in the past decade. Concurrently, graduates of criminal justice programs have often found that prospective employers do not value their degrees. This article explores the relationships between student evaluations of their educational experiences, the structural characteristics identified as essential to an educational program, and the mechanisms used by ex-students to reduce dissonance caused by employer rejection or a poor job market.In 1980 a total of 411 recent graduates of eight criminal justice programs in Louisiana responded to a questionnaire designed to measure their attitudes toward and evaluations of their educations. Several key structural variables frequently associated with quality higher education failed to predict student evaluations. Two exceptions were ration of senior faculty and ratio of ex-police as faculty, and the effects of these variables on student evaluations were inverse. Overall, the best predictor of the saliency of one's educational experiences was the student's evaluation of the current job market in criminal justice. This variable was followed, in descending order by sex, ratio of faculty with senior rank, years since graduation, type of degree granted, and ratio of ex-police as faculty.     

Productivity ratings of graduate programs in criminal justice based on publication in ten critical journals

This article examines scholarly productivity among faculty members of graduate programs in criminal justice. Studies of scholarly productivity in other disciplines have frequently appeared in the literature. Cartter's early work on “prestige levels” was cited as being the forerunner in this respect. The authors obtained rankings of the “ten most critical” journals from graduate criminal justice program directors. After the list of journals was compiled, these journals were searched for the most recent five-year period. Articles published by full-time faculty members at fifty-two institutions were included in the study. In addition to total productivity, data on productivity adjusted for faculty size was also presented. Problems and controversy associated with this type of work are cited by the authors.