The effects of an experimental intensive juvenile probation program on self-reported delinquency and drug use

In the late 1990s Ventura County, California, USA, implemented the South Oxnard Challenge Project (SOCP), designed to provide intensive, multi-agency services to youth on probation. SOCP built their program guided by Clear’s “corrections of place” model, which argued that community corrections could decrease offender risk by focusing on restorative principles rather than on coercion. SOCP was designed as a randomized experiment, comparing youths in the experimental group with those on routine probation. Researchers interviewed youths in both the experimental and control groups 1 year after random assignment. This article reports on self-reported crime and drug use, finding few significant differences across groups. Specifically, we find that SOCP youths were significantly more likely to indicate that they had committed a violent crime generally, although a majority of both groups indicated they had done so. We found that those in SOCP who robbed people also did so significantly more often than did the comparison group. In the control group, youths reported committing homicide significantly more often, but this was a rare event. Among those youths who reported taking part in gang or posse fights, those in the control group did so significantly more often. Finally, youths in the control group were significantly more likely to have used ecstasy on more days during the previous month than were those in the SOCP.

Amber SehgalEmail:

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Jodi Lane   is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of Florida (UF), USA. She was a criminal justice policy analyst for the RAND Corporation before joining the faculty at UF and was the onsite project coordinator for the South Oxnard Challenge Project (SOCP) evaluation. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Irvine, USA. Her research interests include fear of crime, juvenile justice, corrections, crime policy, and program evaluation. She currently is part of the evaluation team for the Florida Faith and Community-Based Delinquency Treatment Initiative (FCBDTI). Susan Turner   is a Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and Associate Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Before joining UCI in 2005, Dr. Turner was a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif., USA for over 20 years. She has led a variety of research projects, including studies on racial disparity, field experiments on private sector alternatives for serious juvenile offenders, work release, day fines and a 14-site evaluation of intensive supervision probation. Dr. Turner’s areas of expertise include the design and implementation of randomized field experiments and research collaborations with state and local justice agencies. Dr. Turner has conducted a number of evaluations of drug courts, including a nationwide implementation study. Her article, “A Decade of Drug Treatment Court Research” (2002) appeared in Substance Use and Misuse, summarizing over 10 years of drug court research conducted while she was at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Turner is a member of the American Society of Criminology, the American Probation and Parole Association, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology. Terry Fain   is a senior project manager in the Behavioral Sciences Department at the RAND Corporation. He has extensive research experience in criminal justice and substance abuse. He is expert in computer statistical techniques, as well as in managing large datasets. He has conducted analyses for many RAND projects and is author or co-author of numerous publications, both from RAND and in peer-reviewed journals. His research interests include alternatives to incarceration, substance abuse and treatment, racial disparities in prison admissions, and research collaborations with state and local justice agencies. Amber Sehgal   has more than 10 years of experience defining evaluation parameters; identifying available data and sources of information; developing data tracking systems; overseeing data collection; supervising field staff; acting as a liaison between RAND and clients; and assisting in data analysis and report writing. Recent Public Safety and Justice projects include evaluation programs under the Challenge I Grant (Ventura County), Challenge II Grant (Orange County), Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (Ventura County and Los Angeles County) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Ventura County). A current RAND Health project studies the impact of city parks on physical health.