Estimating Treatment Effects and Predicting Recidivism for Community Supervision Using Survival Analysis with Instrumental Variables

Criminal justice researchers often seek to predict criminal recidivism and to estimate treatment effects for community corrections programs. Although random assignment provides a desirable avenue to estimating treatment effects, often estimation must be based on observational data from operating corrections programs. Using observational data raises the risk of selection bias. In the community corrections contexts, researchers can sometimes use judges as instrumental variables. However, the use of instrumental variable estimation is complicated for nonlinear models, and when studying criminal recidivism, researchers often choose to use survival models, which are nonlinear given right-hand-censoring or competing events. This paper discusses a procedure for estimating survival models with judges as instruments. It discusses strengths and weaknesses of this approach and demonstrates some of the estimation properties with a computer simulation. Although this paper’s focus is narrow, its implications are broad. A conclusion argues that instrumental variable estimation is valuable for a broad range of topics both within and outside of criminal justice.     

Measuring community social organization: Sense of community as a mediator in social disorganization theory

The current study utilized an updated systemic model of social disorganization to investigate neighborhood effects on both positive and negative youth outcomes. Although empirical support for updated social disorganization models has increased in recent years, the field continues to rely too heavily on behavioral indicators of community social organization. Unfortunately, these measures do not assess the truly important social processes and dynamics that result in cohesive and supportive neighborhoods. It was proposed that sense of community (SOC) was a more valid, comprehensive, and applicable measure for the mediating variables in social disorganization theory. Results supported the hypothesis that SOC mediates the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on youth outcomes and implications for the field are discussed.     

Project intercept: The Los Angeles experience

A program for the diversion of arrested juveniles from the juvenile justice system in Los Angeles County is described. The interagency program involving eight law enforcement agencies and the probation department was developed without requiring additional funds. Juvenile processing has been expedited with apparent favorable impact, and interagency cooperation in others has increased.