The impact of two Los Angeles County Teen Courts on youth recidivism: comparing two informal probation programs

Objective

This study sought to examine the impact of two Teen Courts operating in Los Angeles County, a juvenile justice system diversion program in which youths are judged by their peers and given restorative sentences to complete during a period of supervision.

Methods

A quasi-experimental design was used to compare youths who participated in Teen Courts (n = 112) to youths who participated in another diversion program administered by the Probation Department (the 654 Contract program) (n = 194). Administrative data were abstracted from the probation records for all youths who participated in these programs between January 1, 2012 and June 20, 2014. Logistic and survival models were used to examine differences in recidivism, measured as whether the minor had any subsequent arrest or arrests for which the charge was filed.

Results

Comparison group participants had higher rates of recidivism than Teen Court participants, after controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, and risk level. While the magnitude of the program effects were fairly consistent across model specifications (odd ratios comparing Teen Court [referent] to school-based 654 Contract ranging from 1.95 to 3.07, hazard ratios ranging from 1.62 to 2.27), differences were not statistically significant in all scenarios.

Conclusions

While this study provides modest support for the positive impact of Teen Court, additional research is needed in order to better understand how juvenile diversion programs can improve youth outcomes.

     

Gang Wars of Central America: What Anthropologists Have to Say

Deborah T. Levenson, Adiós Niño: The Gangs of Guatemala City and the Politics of Death. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index, 200 pp.; hardcover $84.95, paperback $23.95. Kevin Lewis O'Neill, Secure the Soul: Christian Piety and Gang Prevention in Guatemala. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index, 304 pp.; hardcover $85, paperback $29.95, ebook $29.95. Elana Zilberg, Space of Detention: The Making of a Transnational Gang Crisis Between Los Angeles and San Salvador. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Notes, bibliography, index, 360 pp.; hardcover $99.95, paperback $27.95, ebook $13.99.     

Which American Dream Do You Mean?

According to the latest U.S. Census projection, the arrival of immigrants and their higher birthrates, projected forward at current rates, will turn the U.S. into a “minority–majority” society in 2042, 8 years earlier than the Census used to predict. Liberals tend to view immigration to the U.S. as a human right, but many employers prefer to hire immigrants because they can be paid less than the cost of reproducing their labor-that is, the cost of keeping an American family above the poverty line. One way of looking at the resulting debates over U.S. immigration policy is in terms of moral economy, that is, how different factions compete for moral authority in order to gain control over a desired good. In this case, the desired good is American citizenship, including access to the highest consumption rates on the planet, and national definitions of citizenship are competing with transnational or globalist definitions of citizenship. Constructing moral rhetoric for either national or transnational definitions of citizenship requires excluding information that does not serve the cause. One way of spotlighting the omissions is to look at each moral economy as a highly selective version of the American Dream.

Spatial mismatch,discrimination, and male youth employment in the Washington,DC area: Implications for residential mobility policies

Residential mobility policies are in part premised on the assumption that place and not race explains blacks' joblessness in central cities. The article investigates the potential effects of residential mobility programs by analyzing a “natural” black residential mobility process in the Washington, DC area, where black suburbanization has coincided with suburban job growth. Using data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS), this article examines the relative contribution of place and race in explaining racial differences in employment for young men with a high school diploma or less. The results show that having a suburban residential location improves young males' spatial access to jobs, but that the employment benefits are greater for white than comparable black youth. Simulations point to racial discrimination in suburban labor markets being as important as having a suburban residential location as an explanation of white‐black employment rate differences in the Washington, DC area. Thus, if residential mobility programs are to be fully effective in improving central city minorities' employment prospects, antidiscrimination enforcement efforts in suburban labor markets must be included in the policy package.© 1998 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Within cities and suburbs: Racial residential concentration and the spatial distribution of employment opportunities across sub‐metropolitan areas

This article examines and compares the spatial distributions of new jobs and people across sub‐metropolitan areas for Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles. The jobs data come from the Multi‐City Study of Urban Inequality and the data on people come from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The results indicate that less‐educated people, public assistance recipients, and especially poor females with children mostly reside in areas heavily populated by minorities where the availability of less‐skilled jobs is quite low, while the availability of these jobs relative to less‐educated people in suburban areas heavily populated by whites is high. Large fractions of the less‐skilled jobs in these metropolitan areas are not accessible by public transit. Furthermore, there is significant variation within both central cities and suburbs in the ethnic composition of residents and in less‐skilled job availability. The ability of various minority groups to gain employment in each area depends heavily on the ethnic composition of the particular area. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Social problem-solving correlates of sexual deviancy and aggression among adult child molesters

Cognitive-behavioral treatment programs for adult sex offenders often include training geared to improve a perpetrator's social problem-solving skills. However, little empirical evidence exists to date that documents the relationship between problem-solving and deviant sexual interest or behavior among child molesters. As such, this study investigated the association between problem-solving and two aspects of sexual offending—self-reported sexual deviancy and clinician-rated sexual aggression among a recruited sample of incarcerated child molesters. To minimize the potential for biased self-reports, criterion scores on a lie scale were employed to exclude individuals who might be prone to misrepresent their responses. Results indicated this sample to be characterized by significant deficits on all measures of social problem-solving as compared to the general population. In addition, a series of correlational analyses indicated that an avoidant problem-solving style was significantly associated with past sexual aggression, whereas a negative problem orientation and an impulsive/careless problem-solving style were significantly related to a measure of current sexual deviancy. Of particular interest is the finding that a rational problem-solving style (i.e., the constructive style that involves the systematic application of specific problem-solving skills geared toward identifying an effective solution) was not significantly related to either sexual offending measure. The implications of these collective results are discussed.