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Mendel, Richard A.Prevention or Pork? A Hard-Headed Look atYouth-Oriented Anti-Crime Programs.American Youth Policy Forum, Washington, DC.ISBN-1-887031-50-295

48p.

American Youth Policy Forum, 1001 Connecticut Avenue,N.W., Suite 719, Washington, DC 20036-5541 ($5).Reports Evaluative/Feasibility (142)

MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.Causal Models; *Cost Effectiveness; *CrimePrevention; *Delinquency; *Early Intervention;Elementary Secondary Education; Family Programs;Federal Aid; Government Role; Law Enforcement; ParentEducation; Program Evaluation; RecreationalActivities; Rehabilitation Programs; School Safety;*Youth Programs

This report reviews the facts underlying the debateabout delinquency in the United States, focusing on evidence of howwell various approaches to crime succeed in practice. Do youthprograms such as family therapies and recreation initiatives actuallymake a cost-effective contribution to controlling crime? Researchsupports a strong foundation for identifying risk factors early inlife, allowing programs to target underlying conditions that propelsome youth to crime. Research does not suggest that tougher lawenforcement and stricter sanctions are likely to reduce crimesignificantly. A number of youth-oriented prevention strategies havedocumented impressive results in reducing criminal, delinquent, andpredelinquent behavior. Careful evaluation has supported thecontributions of early childhood interventions in reducing eventualcrime. Several prevention efforts and recreationprograms such as midnight basketball have been demonstrated to beeffective. Prevention through youth programs has beer shown to work.An appendix contains a graph of effective prevention efforts.(SLD)

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About the Author

Richard A. MendelRichard Mendel is an independent writer, researcher and consultant on poverty-related issues in education,

employment and training, and community economic development. He worked five years as a staff associatefor MDC. Inc., a non-profit employment policy research firm in Chapel Hill, N.C. In addition. Mr. Mendel has

done contract work for the Lilly Endowment, Comprehensive Community Revitalization Project (SurdnaFoundation), Corporation for Enterprise Development, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, Center for ImprovingMountain Living, among others. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun,Washington Monthly, Miami Herald, and others. In 1994, he wrote The American School-to-Career Movement.

A Background Paperfbr Policymakers and Foundation Officers. Mr. Mendel holds a bachelor's degree in public

policy from Duke University (1983) and an M.A. in journalism from the University of Maryland (1992).

This publication is not copyrighted and may be freely quoted without prior permission,provided the source is identified as:

Richard A. Mendel, Prevention or Pork? A Hard-Headed Look at. Youth-OrientedAnti-Crime Programs

Washington, D.C.: American Youth Policy Forum, 1995

ISBN 1-887031-50-2 $5

Additional copies may he ordered from:

American Youth Policy Forum1001 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 719Washington, DC 20036-5541

$5.00 each, including shipping.Prepaid orders only, please.Quantity prices are available.

PREVENTION OR PORK?

A Hard-Headed Lookat Youth-Oriented

Anti-Crime Programs

Richard A. Mendel

American Youth Policy Forum

ill cooperation with

Center for Youth Development, Academy for Educational DevelopmentInstitute for Educational Leadership

National Assembly of National Voluntary Health and Social Welfare OrganizationsNational Crime Prevention Council

National Youth Employment Coalition

4

Publisher's Preface

During the acrimonious and often partisan debate preceding final passage of the "Violent CrimeControl and Law Enforcement Act of 1994" ("The Crime Bill"), advocates of positive youthdevelopment were alternately depressed and cheered.

Depressed to hear many of the programs they supported described as "social spending boon-doggles," "social pork," and, sarcastically, as "such stringent anti-crime measures as arts and crafts,self-esteem enhancement, and midnight basketball."

Cheered because, in the new federal legislation, the Congress recognized the value, or at least thepotential, of such concepts as "an ounce of prevention," "youth anticrime councils" and otherlanguage signifying a positive and comprehensive youth development approach to crime preven-tion.

The American Youth Policy Forum is dedicated to exploring all the various ways by whichAmerica's youth may develop into productive workers, successful parents and contributing citizens.The Forum looks upon youth as whole people. Youth are not merely students, nor solely futureworkers, parents, or citizens. They fill multiple roles and have multiple needs. Therefore, what isneeded is a coherent system of long-term youth development opportunities offered in effectiveschools, safe neighborhoods, and an economy providing good jobs essential to the support of strongand stable families. When all of these "front-line," "first-chance" subsystems are working well, webelieve, the need for youth-oriented crime prevention and treatment programs and criminal justiceinstitutions will be greatly diminished.

For these reasons, the prospect of the new Crime Bill offering recognition and financial backingfor state and local crime prevention and youth development initiatives became a matter ofconsiderable interest to the Forum as another building block in a comprehensive strategy of helpingthe nation's youth make transitions to successful adulthood.

But what is meant by youth-oriented crime prevention? How much Is reliably known about theefficacy of the various forms of prevention in helping youth to avoid delinquency and crimealtogether? And how much is known about preventing youthful anti-social behavior from developinginto serious, even violent, criminal activity?

On these important substantive questions, the Congressional debate on the 1994 Crime Bill was lessthan helpful. Therefore, the Forum turned to Richard Mendel, an independent writer who hadpreviously demonstrated his ability to synthesize a large body of relevant literature in a short time.'Mendel's assign- -,t: to present a popularly-written, documented summary of wF, ..t is known fromresearch and evg, :4ation about the effectiveness of the types of youth-oriented prevention strategiesthat might be supported under the Crime Control Act.

As the 104th Congress prepares to revisit the issues and the prescriptions contained in the 1994crime control legislation, we present Mr. Mendel's report, published as an aid to informed publicdiscourse.

---,Samuel HalperinAmerican Youth Polk), Forum

See Nlentlers '1/k' American Sang)1 to-Can't:I .1 ft >v<91/011: /Sac legnmItti rolic.1.1)lakcn (ma

lyficeIN. (Washington, DC: otalt Policy Forum, 199.0.

Table of Contents

Executive SummaryHelping Youth Before Trouble StartsTreating Troubled Youth

iii

Introduction: A Look Back at the Crime Debate of 1994 1

Why Prevention? A Brief Look at Youth, Crime and Public Policy 3The Promise of Prevention 3

Pathways to Crime 4

The Causes and Correlates of Crime 4

Resiliency Against Risk 6

The Limitations of Law and Order 6Crime and Punishment in California 7The Impact of Incarceration 7Death Penalties and Juvenile Justice 9Toward a Comprehensive Approach 10

Does it Work? The Effectiveness of Crime Prevention 11Deciphering Prevention's Record 11

Helping Youth Before Trouble Starts 13Recreation and Midnight Hoops 13

School-Based Violence Prevention Curricula: Conflict Resolution 14

Preparing Youth For Adulthood: Education and Training inHigh-Risk Communities 15

Multi-Dimensional, Community-Wide Prevention 17

Summing Up: The Case for Prevention 19

Treating Troubled Youth 19Family Therapy and Parental Skills Training 20Cognitive and Behavioral Skills Training 21

Shock Incarceration 22Psychotherapy and Other Counseling 22

Rehabilitating Juvenile Offenders 24Diversion and Other Treatments for l'nincarcerated Juvenile OffendersCommunity vs. Institutional 25

DetentionToward the Future 26

Conclusion

Research Notes

Appendix

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28

30

33

Appreciation is due to Ann Dryden Witte. Ray O'Brien, Theresa Kelly, Gordon Raley and Jack Calhounwho reviewed the manuscript and made many hell rt.]] suggestions. Samuel Halperin and Jean O'Neil

edited the manuscript. Vinny Spent waded it for typesetting by "Pasha Harris.

Executive Summary

America has been attempting to solve thecrime problem with one arm behind itshack. For over a decade, the nation has

pursued essentially a one-track strategy for attack-ing crime: "lock-'em-up.- Through mandatory sen-tences, reduced plea bargaining, restricted parole,and the construction of hundreds of thousands ofnew prison cells, our nation has more than doubledthe number of prisoners behind bars. Yet crime rateshave not plummeted, and violent crime remainspersistently high.

Make no mistake: Our sock.' v has a vital stake inincarcerating serious, ' iolent, chronic criminals. Butgiven the tremendous costs associated with build-'ng a spate of new prisons and housing hundreds ofthousands of additional prisoners. relying only on.increased incarceration to eliminate America's per-sistent crime epidemic flies in the face of evidenceand logic.

Though state and local criminal justice budgetshave increased significantly, few new resourceshave been devoted to steering young people awayfrom crime and violence or to redirecting troubledyouth who display signs of delinquency. Somelocalities have implemented new community-basedprevention programs and alternative sentences aimedat rehabilitating youthful offenders, but these re-main the exception. Increasingly, states' answer tocrimefor juvenile offenders and adults alike--hasbeen the prison cell.

In 199 Congress staked out a new direction 1( irthe nation on crime. In addition to prison construc-tion, increased law enforcement. a host of newdeath penalties and a -three strikes and you're out"provision requiring lifetime incarceration for three-time felons, the Violent Crime Omtrol and LawVnforcement Act of 199-1 authorized S- billion for anarray of initiatives in "crime prevention.'' includingmany aimed at keeping youth crime fee. Among themore promising new initiatives is an emphasis oncomprehensive, prevention-focused, community-government partnerships. Rather than punishmentand more punishment. the new rubric is punish-ment phis prevention.

This shill in philosophy did not come without afight. Ilw debate leading to fin,11 passage ( )f this lawwas among the most heated in recent memory.Many opponents ridiculed the bill proposed by the

conference committee and lambasted the bill's pre-vention agenda.

The legislative exchange was long on rhetoric andhyperbole, short on reasoned analysis. Does preeen-thm work? Does criminological research suggest thatprevention deserves a prominent place in the nation'scrime control strategy alongside increased incar-ceration and skived up law enforcement? Fewlegislators and few reporters assigned to cover themtook time to consider these questions seriously.

In the end, the crime bill passed with only modestreductions in prevention spending. But a newCongress vows to revisit the legislation in 1995. Thepolitical war over crime preyention is beginningagain.

This report reviews the facts underlying the delin-quency debatethe wealth of scholarly evidenceon the causes and correlates of delinquency andexisting research examining how well various ap-proaches to crime succeed in practice. Is there astrong rationale for such programs as family thera-pies, recreation and midnight sports leagues andschool-based conflict resolution to prevent or de-crease delinquent behavior by youth? 1)o theseprograms actually make a cost-effective contribu-tion to controlling crime? Or, rather, is there merit tothe critiques that depict prevention efforts as naive.soft-headed, even counterproductive?

By examining these questions carefully, policymakers can govern more wisely on crime. Advo-cates, reporters, and other interested observers caninfluence policy makers to conduct the next crimedebate on the basis of cold reality rather thancolorful rhetoric.

\X'hat is the cold reality about crime and crimeprevention? A hard-headed look at the evidencereveals several lessons:

1. Research provides a strong foundation foridentifying risk factors early in life, whichenables us to address the underlying condi-tions that propel some youth to crime.

The raid to violence begins in childhood. Crimi-nologists have long known that a relative I-(111d ofserious chronic offenders are responsible for themajority of crime in America. Research documentsthat violent chronic offenders are most active during

their teen years. Their paths to violence almostalways begin with serious behavioral problems inearly childhood. While most children who exhibitpoor conduct right themselves rather than embarkon a life of crime, those who do become chronicoffenders typically follow well-worn pathways to-ward increasingly serious criminality.

Research identifies many risk factors that contrib-ute to youths' propensity for violence and delin-quency. Crime-prone youth are more likely to comefrom families where parents are abusive or neglect-ful, provide harsh or erratic discipline, or exhibitmarital discord. They tend to live in communitiesrife with drugs, crime, guns, and poverty, wherepositive role models and safe, constructive recre-ational opportunities are scarce. They are likely toassociate with peers who are delinquent or drug-abusing or to participate in youth gangs. In manycases they are "tracked" at school into classesdominated by low-achieving and trouble-makingstudents.

Several individual characteristicssuch as hyper-activity, attention deficit disorder, low intelligencehave been linked to delinquency. The presence orlack of self-control, problem-solving skills, andbeliefs condemning violence have been identifiedas key determinants of criminality. Other personalfactorsa strong and sustained relationship with atleast one adult, an even temperament, and an abilityto evoke positive responses in othershave beenidentified as "protective factors" that can helpinsulate even high-risk youth from the danger offalling into delinquency. If prevention can addressthe risks facing many children while boosting pro-tective factors, it will make them less likely tobecome delinquent.

2. Tougher law enforcement and stricter sanc-tions are unlikely, in the absence of effec-tive crime prevention, to reduce crime sig-nificantly.

Throughout the crime debate of 1994, preventioncritics urged that scar e taxpayer dollars go forprison construction in to eradicate what they called"revolving door justice lenient sentencing andeasy parole for serious crimes.

Yet recent experience throughout America pro% esthat incarcerating more criminals for longer periodsdoes not necessarily reduce crime or increase publicsafety. Between l9-'S and 19M, Inc expected prisontime ft )r committing a halt crime nearly tri pied.Vet violent crime rates did not decrease dramati-cally. Between 1980 and 1992 California spent 5.3.8billion on prison construction to more than qua-druple its prism population, giving it the largest

prison population in America and second highestper capita incarceration rate. Yet California's crimerate did not falleither in absolute terms or relativeto other states.

This results from both the failure of deterrenceand the impotence of incarceration. For deterrenceto work, would-be offenders must be rational intheir decision-making and determined to avoidprison. Most crimes are committed in the heat of themoment, however, often under the influence ofdrugs or alcohol. In many inner city communities,impulsive behavior and a predisposition to violenceare the norm, and they may be the immediate,automatic response to any tense situation. Increas-ingly in tough, urban neighborhoods, prison time isviewed less as a hallmark of shame than as 21 badgeof honor or even a rite of passage.

A second argument for increased incarceration isto take dangerous felons off the streets. Here too,the public safety benefits are limited. The vastmajority of crimes committed in America each year(31 million out of 34 million, experts say) go eitherunreported or unsolved. Though locking up moreof those convicted for longer periods can keep somecriminals off the streets, many more will continue toroam free. Also, research reveals that the criminalcareers of most chronic offenders span only a fewyearsbeginning in the teen years, tapering offsteadily during the 20s, and plummeting in the 30s.By the time most criminals have compiled recordsserious enough to warrant long pri.ion terms, theircriminal activity has long since passed its peak.

3. A number of youth-oriented preventionstrategies have documented impressive re-sults in reducing criminal, delinquent, andpre-delinquent behavior among youngpeople.

Any douht that prevention programs can reducecrime are dispelled by several carefully evaluatedprograms providing intensive assistance to childrenand their families in the first five years of life. Thehest known of these is the Perry Preschool programin Ypsilanti. Michigan. forerunner to the present clayHead Start program. IA ng-term follow-up revealedthat at age 27, more than 20 years after completingthe program, only seven percent of Perry partici-pants had been arrested five or nurse times, com-pared with 35 percent of a control group. Familyinter\ ention programs have also shown dramaticimpat t on criniinality. Only six percent of partici-pants in a day care assistance and home visitingprogram in Syracuse, New York were e\ er pro-cessed in juvenile courtversus 22 percent of youthassigned rand( imly to a control group.

Helping Youth BeforeTrouble Starts

Many delinquency prevention programs targetedto older children and adolescents have not beenimplemented on a broad scale. \lost that have beentried have. typically operated on meager budgetsand without careful evaluation.

Nonetheless, the record reveals that several pre-vention strategiesincluding both "pure preven-tion- aimed at the general youth population andtargeted treatment' for those already engaged in

problem behaviorsdo indeed divert youth fromthe pathways to crime. Included among them are:

Communilv-wide Prevention Initiatives. Mostimpressive of the pure prevention efforts are multi-pronged prevention initiatives designed and imple-mented by entire communities, particularly thosethat build on the strengths and interests of youthrather than focusing only o t youths' problems anddeficits:

Through its "Success Through Academic andRecreational Support- (STARS) program loghigh risk youth ages 11 -1 -t, Fort Myers, Florida,reduced its juvenile crime rates by almost one-third. Among 11 and 12 year-old offenders city-wide, the rate of repeat criminal behaviordropped ()-t.3 percent.

Crime went down ()(1 percent in two tn)ubledLansing, Michigan, neighborhoods after police,local sch()( )Is, and a social service agency openeda neighborhood network center and launchedan extensive youth development program.

NortOlk, Virginia, forged a partnership betweenpolice, human service agencies. and local citi-zens to combat crime in ten high crime neigh-borhoods. The initiativewhich included newyouth athletic leagues and a Youth Forum forteens to speak on community problems as wellas other prevention measuresled to a 29percent drop in crime in the targeted neighhor-hoods and a citywide reduction in iolentcrime.

S in Antonio, Texas. has employed a variety ofinitiatives including after-school programs andpenalties against youth (and their parents) forcarrying weapons, painting graffiti. or violatingouth curfews in an anti-crime partnershipbetween c()minunitv residents and police. In!Ile program's first Cal, :lire-As for juvenilecrime do 9pecl by tell pen ent and ithenilevictinu/ation fell by .So percent.

AlnIti-Inmensionall7olorcePret'entkm Schools.Conflict resolution and violence prevention cur-ricula have swept the nation in recent years. Severalprograms have documented impacts on students'beliefs and conflict resolution skills and on studentsself reported behavior. The best of these programsreach beyond the classroom into the entire schooland the broader community.

Resolving Conflicts Creatively (RCC), a Brooklyn,New York-based program, combines violence prevention classes with peer mediation and parenttraining to change the total school environment. Inone early evaluation, 70 percent of teachers in-volved in the program reported that RCC, reducedfighting among panicipating students. Teens, Crime,and the Community, a national curriculum, Chal-lenges students to examine and act on real crimeissues and take preventive action. It has been shownto improve students' attitudes and knowledge andto reduce their likelihood of delinquency.

Recreation Programs. Though midnight basket-ball became the brunt of many a rhetorical attack,leagues have been spreading rapidly across thecountry in recent yearsoften with active supportfrom local law enforcement agencies. Particularlywhen they require participation in life skills work-shops and other constructive activities as a prereq-uisite for playing, these leagues have helped tobring down crime rates in sponsoring communities.The original league in Glenarden, Marykmd, iscredited with reducing crime by ()O percent. In the\Vinton Hills section of Cincinnati, crime ratesplummeted 24 percent within 13 weeks after a latenight recreation program was initiated.

Other recreation and youth development activi-ties can be equally effective. Researchers at Co lum-bia iliversity found that the presence of a BoysGirls Club in a public housing project reduced crimerates by 13 percent and drug use by more than 2(1percent.

Treating Troubled YouthPrevention can work. Particularly wt.,en

Miles come together to offer youth a 0)1.51intillill ofprograms and services. and prnc ids youth theopportunity for supportive and sustained I elation-ships with caring adults, and the chance to assumeconstructive roles in the community, the elle( t onouth can he appreciable. But these purc.h

efforts do not deal with youth already ill troutThe majorit limes are « mimitted ielamhandful or repeat offenders john typicallyserious belia% ior problems in carh c hildhcn.nd. 1'o1.

10

them. more intensive, inch\ idualized treatment %vittlikely required.

What is the record of treatment or interventionprograms in redirecting troubled youth? Thoughsome types of treatment have proven to he far moreeffective than others, the overall answer can hesummed up in two words: -quite promising.-

L'amily nempie.N. The most impressive interven-tions focus on the families of troubled c)tith--evenyouth with serious behavior problems. One ap-proach, multi- systemic family therapy (Nisi') re-duced rearrest rates among incarcerated youth lwalmost half. Youths who received NISI' spent anaverave or -3 fewer days behind bars in the yearIi ilk mg treatment than did youths in a controlf Up.

Other family interventions hate also shown dra-matic results. When Parent Nlanagement TrainingPMT) was provided to parents of problem children

ages 3-8, the children fared lar better than a controlgroup of children assigned to a waiting list fig theprogram. Overall. between two-thirds and three-fourths of the PMT children achieved clinic:illysignificant change and returned to a normal rangeof behavioral functioning. PNIT has also been foundeffective with adolescentseven those with serious

enile t rime records.

CHf.vi it ire Thrilling. Anothcr set of promisinginter\ enticm programs aims to develop in troubledyouth the social and cognitive skills necessary toavoid conflict and control aggression. Childrenraised in strong families, quality schools, and healthycommunities typically develop these skills as :1

matter of course. Ann mg high risk and delinquentyouth they are often lacking. Research shows thatlitcused training in social problem-solving. angermanagement, moral reasoning and perspective-taking can make a significant difference both withchildren displaying earl signs of delinquency and

ith youth already incarcerated for serious of-fenses. These progiams can be delis erect for only asmall fraction of the cost of incarcerating offendersin ill\ mile or adult prisons: the hest programs limedemonstrated the c apa( ity to reduce clime rates.

The Positive Adolescent (:lioic es Training (PACT)'migrant teaches negotiation, cc mnpromise, and aarietv of anger management skills to troubled

Afric an Americ an adolescents. A recent stud!. showed[hal only 18 ..)ciccnt of PA". PIllicilvIlt`. "erereferred to jtwenil cowl in the three %ears aftertraining compared ith it) percent of .1 randomassigned contrc cl gn

A number of other treatment approaches havealso been shown to reduce criminality. Providingdelinquent youth intensive contact with collegestudent volunteers under the guidance of graduatestudents and university faculty has proved success-ful in several tests. Youthful offenders ordered topay restitution to their victims or perfi gm service tothe community have lower recidivism rates thanthose for whcmi restitution or service is not ordered.Sentencing juveniles to appropriate correctionalprograms, bas6 in the community whenever pos-sible. rather than only to -training schools- or otherlarge-scale detention facilities has proved a cost-effective strategy in Massachusetts and other states:recidivism and juvenile crime rates have remainedlow in these states.

4. Other prevention strategies have not beenproven effectivemost because they havenot been subject to rigorous evaluation, afew because evaluations have found littleor no positive impact. Further investmentsin research and evaluation of crime pre-vention are clearly justified.

Several pc >pular strategiesincluding mc)st school-based c millet resolution, peer mediation. and gangprexention effcgtshave not yet been rigorouslyevaluated. I lundreds of these programs are beingtested throughout the cctuntry, and several showgreat promise.

Other prevention approaches have proved inef-fective in repeated t...sts. Shock incarceration (i.e.,boot camps) does not reduce criminality, studiesshow. Short-term. "quick fix- job training has notlowered arrest rates. Neither traditional psycho-therapy nor behavior modification has shown greatpromise as a vehicle for redirecting delinquent andcriminal ymth. A few eliorts--mostly scare-ob-oiled programs or programs that place groups ofdelinquent youth to for extended treatmenthave actuall worsened the behavior of partici-pants.

5. States and the federal government need todevelop and implement prevention pro-grams aggressively, taking care to learnfrom experience. Research and evaluationmust he important elements in all preven-tion efforts.

cost effective approach to crinie requires morethan punishment. America cannot jail away its crimeproblem i %van:housing criminals. }tong or ()I,' 11

cannot Si h. e crime sorer) through deterrence, or by...dull king trouble prone youth or -scaring themstraight.- Rather, to help children ;Intl youth gro\\into prmlut tic «mstrtictive Auks, they must he

11

super\ ised, supported. educated, encouraged, cared0)r and en opportunities to contribute. And theymust have positive opportunities tOr recreation.exploration, and personal growth.

For some youth, particularly those frinn high-riskfamilies and communities, cognitive skills trainingand family counseling \yin also he required. And tohe effective. these treatments must he carefullycrafted, research-based, and effectively in0 lementecl.

To date, nowhere in America have all of thesepieces peen pulled together in one comnumitalthough a number of places are trying to do so.Nowhere has the impact of well-defined, youth-oriented crime prevention programs been fullyrealized. Prevention's potential remains untapped.

Given the high costs and dubious henclits to heexpected from continuing on the lock-'em-up path.and given the encouraging results of many Youth-oriented prevention and intervent,on strategies.significant public investment is surely \\ arrantedhoth to strengthen and expand a youth-orientedprevention agenda and to step up the effort to relineand improve on prevention's promise.

Throw money at prevention will not soh eAmerica's crime problem. Rut ignoring preventionis an even ViirSt: alternative. Roth to protect ourselves and 0) secure our children's future, preven-tion 1111151 become :1 mainstay in our nation's crimecontrol strategy. A two-armed approach to crime isI( mg c n c'rdlle.

(Citations for the main points in this Exec olivesminmary may he lound in the Research Notes at theend of this paper. )

1

Introduction:A Look Back at the Crime Debate of 1994

Surmounting many hurdles and extremelyheated argument, Congress completed actionon the Violent Crime Control and Law En-

forcement Act on August 25. 1994. The conferencereport on the $30.2 billion authorizationincluding$7 billion for preventioncleared the House ofRepresentatives by 235 (188 Democrats, 46 Repub-licans, 1 Independent) to 195 (6-1 Democrats and 131Republicans). On the Senate side, 61 Senators (.5Democrats and 7 Republicans) voted for final ap-proval versus 38 opponents (30 Republicans and 2Democrats).

In the preceding debate, critics of preventativestrategies unleashed a gale-force rhetorical assault.They derided the crime bill as a "train wreck,""boondoggle" and "unholy trinity of pork, postur-ing and partisanship," to cite but three examples.Critics assailed many provisions of the bill but theyaimed their sharpest, most biting attacks at thedollars proposed for "crime prevention'.--espe-cially programs designed to n-lp at-risk youth staycrime-free. The critics double -damned these pro-grams as "social pork," short both for social pro-grams (i.e., welfa,e) and for pork barrel (i.e., waste-ful) spending. Their v itriolic rhetoric indicteddelinquency prevention as a wasteful, even ridicu-lous, response to youthful violence. Their critiquewas stark and simple and seemed to resonate withmany voters:

"IThe bill squanders] billions upon billions ofdollars in scarce crime-fighting resources on gauzysocial spending schemes straight out of the failedGreat Society of the 1960s," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-IIT)told the Senate.' "Over $9 billion is included firevague social spending to finance such stringent,mticrime measures as arts and crafts, self-esteemenhancement, and midnight basketball," said Rep.Lamar Smith (R-TX). "All this on the theory that theperson who stole your car, nibbed your house, ;Indassaulted your family was no more than a dis-gruntled artist or would-he NBA star."2

Prevention's defenders scurried to counter theseattacks. They suggested that the opponents wereinspired mote by the National Rifle Association'sopposition to an assault weapons ham than onprincipled opposition 0) crier' prevention. And they

accused the hill's opponents of hypocrisynotingthat many had supported prior versions of the crimehilt that included billions for prevention.

What prevention supporters did not do, however,was to offer an effective defense of the crime bill'sprevention agenda as a realistic strategy to fightcrime. The President refused to countenance largecuts in prevention programs, but for the most parthe and Congressional advocates defended suchprograms only in vague terms of equity and bal-ancenot safety.

Thus emerged a glaring knowledge gap in thepublic discourse over crime. Namely: Does Preven-tion Work? Were the critics correct: Is there no placein a hard-headed anti-crime strategy for youth-targeted crime prevention initiatives? Are morepolice, mmdatory sentences, restricted parole, andcontinued prison construction the hest or the onlyreasonable approaches to crime?

Or, as many criminologists, community activists,law enforcement officials, and big city mayorsargue. do delinquency prevention programs repre-sent an important and cost-effective component- -even a necessary componentin an enlightenedand rational approach to combatting crime andviolence in America?

Community organizations and local, state. andfederal agencies have tested many youth-targetedcrime prevention programs over the past severaldecades. Sc11..,lars have assembled an extensivebody of research on the causes and correlates ofcrime, and they have evaluated the impact of manypolicy and program approaches for combattingcrime.

What does this record tell us about the potentialeffectiveness of delinquency prevention? Are at-riskyouth and already delinquent youth amenable tointervention programs? Which, if any, programmodels have proved effective in reducing criminalbehavior? \X'hich have proved ineffective? I las pre-vention earned a place beside law enforcement andcorrections in a comprehensive national anti-crimeagend.i? ( )r not?

13

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

The dust of summer 199-Es acrimonious debatehas now settled. Rut the battle over prevention hasreally just begun. \X'hile significant new funds havebeen authorized for youth-targeted crime preven-tion, the new Republican majority in Congress (asstated in its -(;ontract With America-) will soonrc\ isit the crime hill. Many members apparenhy aimto gut prevention programs in favor of more prisonconstruction. Even if they fail, funds for preventionwill have to be appropriated by Congress each of thesix years covered by the new law. And at the stateand local level, where much of the authority fordirecting the federal funds resides, decisions willhave to he made where and how prevention effortswill be undenaken.

13efore politicians on both sides of the Congres-sional aisle resume that debate, theyand theirstaffs, the media. advocacy groups, and state andlocal leaderswould do well to review the factsabout delinquency prevention and to place preven-tion efforts in proper context. 'this report is intendedto assist them in that endeavor.

14

Why Prevention?A Brief Look at Youth, Crime andPublic Policy

FACT Me peak age ,?/' arrestees fin- serious violent crimes in AII1CriCa is 18. Arrests for violent acts taper offdrastically by age 29.3

PA (..7. 2: Ado/escence is a 1)01(4 (/ heightened riSb (MUMS; all .liure than olle:finirth (.1.Male adolescentscommit at least one violent offense hcli)re reaching adulthood.'

lkspite the prevalence (d delinquent behavior, a small pnportion (,,f adolescents (6 percent) an'responsible pr two-thirds of violent crimes committed 1)y 'twenties. About -10 percent td a)Testslio-all serious crime is accounted for hr youth between the ages of 10 and 20 t'e'ens old .5

hose striking facts underscore two criticalfacets of the American crime problem. First.violent criminal activity occurs dispropor-

tionately :tinting the young. Second. while manyadolescents may flirt with delinquency and crime.the major threat to public safety is posed by a tinyminority of individuals, mostly MACS. W110 CIIIIXII'Lon CMCIldd, often violent criminal careers. Theserealities make clear a third truth: making Americasafer is primarily a function of incapacitating, seriousviolent offenders: if pus,,ihle, providing effectivetreatment for them: and preventing youth fromlapsing into either episodic or chronic criminalactivity.

O\ er the past 15 ears. our approach to crime hasincreasingly concentrated on int arcerationattempt-Mg to incapacitate criminals. Prison construction.mandatory sentencing. and strict new limits onparole and probation have bet;t1 the priorities, withthe result that the nation's prison population-already the largest in the free world--has more thandoubled since 198n. Yet crime has not gone away.

Through the Violent Crime Control and LawEnforcement Act of 1994, America has for the firsttime in decades placed significant emphasisandtax dollarstm the second half of the public saki)equation: preveuing criminal behavior. Does thisnett emphasis and in\ estment make sense? That isthe ,Ii- billion question.

An informed answer requires detailed under-standing of the crime problem. What is the nature ofAmerica's crime epidemic? I low is it changing? \Vhois committing crime. :Ind what fai i i-,-, hate beenproven to contribute to or deter their Lnininalbehavior?

A hard-headed look into these questions revealsthat the case for including prevention as a centralelement of a comprehensive national crime controlstrategy is compelling. This is true for two reasons:

1. Prevention shows significant promise toidentify potential risk factors for youthearly in life and to address the underlyingconditions that propel them toward lives ofcrime; and

2. In the absence of effective prevention,tougher law enforcement and stricter sanc-tions are unlikely to reduce the crime prob-lem significantly.

The Promise of PreventionThe road to violent crime begins in childhood. In

fact, most who follow that road begin the journeylong below reaching the age of majority.

According to a comprehensive multi-year surveyof American youth, serious violent offending mostcommonly begins at ages IS or 1.6. Vitileht hehmiorpeaks at age 18 and declines sharply thereafter. It israre for anyone who has not exhihiteci serious\ iolent behavior by age 20 ever to become a \ iolentoffender!'

Of tourse. some le\ el of rebelliousness andmischief-making is considered a natural part ofadolesct.nce, and a substantial majority of youthcrime is non \ a considerable nunorit oftouth commit at least one act of violence beforethey turn 18. Poe Ir.o.t imth this .intis(wial Behar\forceases \\ than 80 percent of those who

commit a violent offense during adolescence termi-nate their violence by age ?1, and the -criminalcareers- of most violent youthful offenders spanonly one yea.'

Thus. while the occasional criminal and violentacts committed otherwise healthy adolescentsrepresent a serious problem, perhaps increasingly?.0, the most dangerous source of crime remains. asalways, a deviant cadre of chronic offenders deeplyengaged in criminal behaviors.

Pathways to Crime-Adult criminality seems to be always preceded

by childhood misconduct," report criminologistsRobert J. Sampson and John H. Laub.8

This fact. that virtually all career criminals displayearly warning signs before reaching adulthood,provides an important ingredient for prevention: ifrisk factors for youth at high risk for violence can beidentified earl, they might be provided effectiveremedial treatment and diverted from the road toviolence.

Over the past several decades, and especiallysince the federal Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention Act passed in 197-4, extensive researchhas identified the comnum characteristics of chronicoffenders, the conditions personal, familial, sod-

dal. or educational that seem to cimtril)ute todelinquent behavior, and the factors that scent I()prexeril repeat ()1111..Incler, !rum "growing out of it,nut returning to the straight-and nario\, 111.c thcmajorit) of other youths who get into trouble.

Perhaps most striking is the finding that thepathways toward crime are well-marked. Acrosssubcultures, over time, the behavior patterns lead-Mg to chronic criminal behavior are distinct--andthey almost always involve serious behavior prob-lems in early childhood.

In early childhood, some boys and girls begin toshow patterns of aggressive behavior in their family,in their schools, in their interaction with peers, or intheir activities in the community. They pick fightswith their brothers and sisters, scream at theirparents, verbally attack their teachers. bully theirpeers. and intimidate younger children in the neigh-

irhi iod,' %%riles 12()riald Slaby, a crime preventionexpert at the Education Development Center andHarvard 1, niversity. This behavior is -the best pre-dictor of chronic delinquent offending and violencein ad()Ieseence."9

Most children who display antisocial tendenciesdo not go on to become juvenile delinquents orcareer criminals -most do not. Hut those who dobecome chronic offenders typically follow a c(im-mon progression of increasingly serious behaviors:problems begin with defiance. lying or bullying,f(illowed by fighting among individuals or gangs,and then serious violent behio. ior starting withaggravated assault and leading (in some cases) torape, robbery, and perhaps homicide. Farly alcoholabuse (often marijuana abuse as well) precedes theslide into violence for the vast majority of seriousoffenders. Subsequent violent behavior is oftenassociated with use of other illicit drugs such ascocaine and heroin.1°

-Adult antisocial behavior virtually requires child-hood antisocial helm ior,- explains Lee Robins."Yet, for the most part, children w Ito display warningsigns of violence receive little focused attention.They may be punished by paren:s or teachers, orsuspended from school, but seldom are they en-gaged in a well-designed program to address theunderlying causes of their problem behavior.

The Causes and Correlates of CrimeWhat is it that leads these youth to violence? !lure

again, the work of criminologists, psychologists,sociologists. and public health scholars shedsThrough hundreds of studies their research hasidentified critical risk factors in fire

-Children who demonstrate antisocialbehavior come from very nonsupporti\ e families attwo extremes: either the family is repressi\ e andabusive, or it seriously neglects the child from theearly years on.- reports .1()%, 6. Dn foos..1 leadingscholar on itdolescence.12 surprisingly. parental

16

neglect is almost as strong a predictor of subsequentviolence as physical abuse, and parental rejection isthe most powerful predictor of all. In one stud, COpercent of children rejected by their parents went onto commit serious crimes, versus only 20 percent ofabused and neglected children.13

As xcteran criminologist Travis I firschi has put it,the closer the child's relationship with his parents.

the more he is attached to and identified with them.the lower his chances of delinquency.-14 This find-ing holds in one- and two-parent families alike. Asstudies have' concluded. "Parental absence due todivt wee or separation has been found to have eithera small or inconsistent association with adolescentdelinquency,16 while marital conflict in two parentfamilies "is strongly associated with juvenile delin-quency and conduct disorder.'

Neighborhood: Growing up in an underclassneighborhood is closely correlated with increasedrisk of delinquency. Of course, most poor peopleare not criminals. Prevalence of drugs, crime, guns.and poverty have been identified as causes ofdelinquency, as has the lack of positive role models.thriving community-based organizations, qualitysell( sits. adequately funded social services, cohe-sive community leadership. and safe and construc-tive recreational opportunities. "The inclination toviolence springs from the circumstances of lifeamong the ghetto poor the lack of jobs that pay alip ing wage. the stigma of race, the fallout fromrampant drug use and drug trafficking, and theresulting alienation and lack of hope for the future,"w rites Elijah Anderson, a 'niversity of Pennsylvaniaurban anthropolt ;gist who has spent many yearsobserving and documenting the often dangerousand deviant behavioral dynamics of the inner city.'

Peer Groups: Frequent association \\ ith delin-quent and drug-using peers or participation in ayouth gang are also critical indicators of delin-quency. Vnlike adult crime, the majority of youthcrime is committed in groups. t8 In fact, writesDelbert Elliott, "The strongest and most immediatecause c,f the actual onset of serious violent behavioris in\ olvcment with :t delinquent peer group. It is

here that iolence is modeled, encouraged. andrewarded: and justifications kir disengaging one'smoral obligation to others are taught and rein-forced..19 Membership in a youth gang is an espe-cialh powerful risk fictor: though gangs can pro-\ isle youth a sense of belonging, plus some safetyfrom real dangers. extended involx (anent in a gangleads to .exeeptionalk high rates of delinquenc

School: 'W(tile patterns of beim \ is r learned inearl\ childhood cart) cc er into the se hoot eontext,

the school has its own potential for generatingconflict and frustration and violent responses tothese situations," Elliott writes. "During junior andsenior high school, a clear adolescent status hierar-chy emerges, and much of the violence at school isrelated to competition for status and status-relatedconfrontations. Ability tracking also contributes to.1 collective adaptation to sclux,1 failure and peerrejection by grouping academically poor studentsand those who are aggressive troublemakers to-gether in the same classes. Delinquent peer groupstend to emerge out of these classes and individualfeelings of anger. rejection and alienation are mutu-ally reinforced in these groups. -21

Though there is some evidence that delinquentbehavior subsides somewhat in the months imme-diately after dropping out (due to reduced feelingsof failure and frustration ).22 the overwhelmingoverrepresent:akin of school dropouts among thenation's prison population confirms the powerfulongoing link between school failure and criminalbehavior.

Individual facton-s: In addition to these externalfactors, several individual characteristics can alsopredispose iatth to violence. Hyperactivity andattention deficit disorder are closely correlated withdelinquency, as is low intelligence.' Mann childrenwho exhibitbehavior problems demonstrate mal-adaptive beliefs, thought processes, and behaviorpatterns that predispose them to violence. Childrenmay attribute hostility to peers where "mine is

intended. They may lack bask problem-solvingskills or the ability to identify non-violent milutionswhen social problems arise. They may hold beliefsjustifying violence in a wide variety of situations,and they may resort to violence quickly in conflictsituations. "tinder conditions of high emotionalarousal." reports Harvard's Ronald Slaby. "aggres-sive individuals are likely to default almost aukmatically to learned stereotypic patterns of behaviorthat are often both violent and inappropriate for the

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situation."23 These social skill deficits have been thefocus of several delinquency programs in recenttimessome with highly successful results.

Resiliency Against RiskThese risk factors explain much about who be-

comes a criminal and who doesn't. They provideimportant clues for the formulation of effectivepre\ ention strategies. II prevention can improveparenting skills and family cohesion in high-riskhouseholds, if it can reduce (or ameliorate) thenegative influences youth experience in their neigh-borhoods and schools, if it can intervene to inhibitthe formation or expansion of deviant peer groups,prevention c an make a major contribution to ournation's struggle against crime.

Yet these risk factors tell only part of the preven-tion story. "A striking finding of studies of riskfactors associated with offending is that manyadolescents y-ho are exposed to risk factors do nutbecome delinquent,- reports the CongressionalOffice of Technology Assessment "Studies havefound that a positi\ c temperament. including posi-ti\ e mood and a tendenc' to eVoke positive re-sponses in others, a high IQ. positive school andwork experiences. high self-esteem, some degree ofstructure in the environment, and one good rela-tionship w ith a parent or other adult reduce the riskfactors associated with offending "74

"Research has demonstrated that health\ hond-ing is a s:gnificant factor in children's resistance tocrime and drugs.- explain David Hawkins andRichard Catalano of the 'niversity of Washington.-Strong posit' \ C bonds ha \ e three important com-ponents: attachnicrit positive relations \\ ithothers: (2) (()twili t investment in the in-

.111(1 (3) belie /about what is right and \\ rung,\\ ith an orientation to positive, floral behavior and

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periell(A", IILly contribute1( ) C... Yei none of these social ex perienc es

or sources of social interaction, singly or in conilli

nation, will inevitably lead to violent behavior for allindividuals,- writes Ronakl Slah\ . "Much like aphysiological immune system, learned patterns ofpsychological mediation are capable of succumbingto, neutralizing, or counteracting the impact ofexperiences that act as violence toxins."26

'Ibis potential for resiliency, this capacity of youthto overcome troubling influences and develop intohealthy, productive. law-abiding adults, provides asecond critical underpinning for prevention. Notjust a means to treat behavior disorders or solvesocial prohlems, prevention can also he a vehicle forbuilding up this social "immune system" in highrisk youthcreating a moral compass, so to speak,a commitment to pros(wial values c(Huhined withthe skills, knowledge, and thought processes nec-essary to avoid the ternplat ions and pressures thatlead to violence.

"I:nderstanding Rile' risk factors lic)r violence' isa first step toward identifying effective means ofprevention.- write Hawkins and Catalano, whc >se-social development strategy- underlies the com-prehensive approach to serious, violent, and direjuvenile offenders advocated by the Office of Juve-nile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. "Equallyimportant is the evidence that certain Rimed/relirctHrs can help shield youngsters from problems.If we can reduce risks while increasing protectionthroughout the course of young people's develop-ment, we can pre\ ent these pnblerns and pnffliotehealthy, pro-social growth."27

The Limitations of Law andOrder

"Whate. er happened to deterrence? Whateverhappened to actually carrying out severe penaltieskw those who commit heinous crimes?- asked Rep.Bob Stump (R-A,) in the heat of the I99-1 crimeclehate.28 "We should not he spending social wel-fare money out here like this," echoed Rep. BillNIcCollum R-FD. "We need to put certainty andswiftness and punishment ha( k into the systemagain. \ \'e need to have deterrence of criminal lawsin this country, deterrence of crime, which is truepre' \'e'Iltlt ,n:29

"Re\ ol\ ing-cloor justice.- the fact that many con-\ It is serve far less time than they are sentenced to,lay at the heart of the argument in I99 t againstde\ oting scarce public resources to crime pre\ en

)11. -our nation's criminal justice system lackscredihilit\ because we have failed 1, provideadeqiiate deterrent to crime and enough places to

lock up hardened criminals and throw away thekey," 30 argued Sen. Orrin liatch ( R-17). now chair-man of the Senate judiciary C immittee.

To holster their case, Hatch and others presenteddisturbing information on the failure of courts topunish criminals severely. For instance, violentoffenders serve on average only 3- percent of theprison time they are sentenced to. Murderers aresentenced to) an average of 15 years but serve onlyseven: rapists are sentenced to eight years onaverage but serve only three.3'

Such statistics, combined with news stories (andpolitical advertisements) depicting seasoned crimi-nals committing heinous crimes after early release

from prison, make a powerful impression on thevoting public. But politics aside, can a nationalcrime strategy based solely on increased incarcera-tioncoupled with other "law and order" remedieslike the death penalty and widespread waivers to tryjuvenile offenders as adultsmake a significantdent in the American crime problem? A hard look atthe criminological evidence suggests the answer isno.

Crime and Punishment in CaliforniaBetween 1984 and 1991. California enacted moire

than 1,000 new criminal statutes either to lengthenprison sentences or upgrade misdemeanor offensesto felonies. At the sante time, California courtsdramatically intensified their monitoring of proha-tic iners and pan )lees, sending tens of thousands ofconvicts hack to prison. As a result, the statequadrupled its prison population front 22.500 in1980 to over 106,000 in I 992giving it the largestprison population and the second highest incarcera-tion rate ( 311 prisoners per 100,000 population) inthe nation. California spent $3.8 billion on prisonconstruction during this period, boosting the prisonsystem's share of state spending from 2 percent in

1981-82 to over 6 percent in 1991-92. Yet California'scrime problem did not impr(veeither in absoluteterms or in comparison with other states. Rather,crime remained stable, with violent crime ratesincreasing and property crimes decreasing.32

"The data indicate that the money spent inCalifornia on prison construction was money'wasted," writes Franklin %jawing from the l'niver-sity of CalilOrnia, Berkeley. "The almost (vadat-pling of prison capacity seemed to make littledifference when it came to turhing the rate ofviolent crime."33

Other studies have been more favorable towardincreased incarceration as it means of reducingcrime. According to Michael Mick of the I 'niversityof Arizona, the 10 states that increased their prisonpopulations fastest in the 1980s experienced morethan a 20 percent decline in overall crime rates,compared with a 9 percent increase in the I() stateswl.,:ch increased their incarceration rates the least.34

Most researchers draw a different conclusion.however. "Several recent studies have attempted tosort out the relationship between imprisonment andcrime." reports Joan Petersilia, former director of theRANI ) Corporation's Criminal justice Program. "Theresearch results are surprisingly consistent: Prisonhas a marginal crime prevention. incapacitation ef-fect, but it is not large enough to reduce oi LTA'crime rates significantly.' 35

Perhaps the most complete information) comesfrom the National Academy of Sciences Panel onl'nderstanding and Preventing Violence. "The in-crements to crime control front incapacitation areModest, even with very large general increases ininmate populations," the Panel fo mild in 1986.36

Nlore recently, the panel reported that -sentencingpolicy became touch harsher" between I (PS and1989. "Increases in both a convicted violentoffender's chanceof being imprisoned and the aver-age prison time served if imprisoned at all combinedto cause a near tripling of the expected prison timeserved per violent crime."37

Yet the number of violent crimes committed inAmerica was the Sallie in 1989 as in 19-75-2.9

"This suggests that by itself the criminaljustice response to violence could accomplish nomoire than running in place," the panel found. -Aneffective control strategy must also r include prevent-ing violent events before they happen..3R

The Impact of IncarcerationI low t an this he?Ilow can increasing the se \

of punishment and removing store criminals In int

the streets for longer periods of time not make usappreciably safer? A look at the criminologicalevidence reveals two causes: the impotence ofdeterrence, and the weak effects of incapacitation.

Deterrence. The criminal justice system's pri-mary means of promoting public safety is deter-rencepreventing crime by discouraging potentialoffenders with the threat of punishment. For deter-rence to be effective, would-he offenders must herational in their decision making and see imprison-ment as an unacceptable consequence of offending.Especially within the inner city, real life often meetsneither of these conditions.

-Much individual crime (particularly violent crime)is an impulsive response to an inr,ediate stressfulsituation and is often committed under the influ-ence of drugs and or alcohol," Petersilia writes. It

crime is highly impulsive, then rational choicemodels, xvhich attempt to convince the offender thatcrime doesn't pay by increasing penalties, havelimited utility for crime control."39

This impulsive behavior is colored by the behav-ioral and moral norms internalized by would -beoffenders during childhood and modeled in theirfamilies, schools, and communities. "By the timethey are teenagers. most linner city] youths haveeither internalized the code of the streets or at leastlearned the need to comport themselves in accor-dance with its rules," observes Elijah Anderson. "It'sbasic requirement is the display of a certain predis-p)sitkill fo VkAenCe.-40

"Unfortunately, for too many youth, violence iseither the only or the most effective way to achievestatus, respect, and other basic social and personalneeds," writes Delbert Elliott.

"Prison is most likely to deter if it meets twoconditions." Petersilia writes, "social standing isinjured by the punishment and the punishment issevere in comparison to the benefits of the crime."'"nkirtunately, for many urban youth neither o inch-

tion holds true. "Many street oriented boys aremuch more concerned about the threat of 'justice'the hands of a peer than at the hands of police,"Anderson finds. "Nloreover, many feel not only thatthey have little to lose by piing to prison but thatthey have something to gain. The toughening upone experiences in prison can actually enhanceone's reputation on the streets.42

Incapacitating Criminals. A second purposefor incarcerating criminals is to separate them fromthe community .111t1 prC1C111 111011 front tunlmilling

!mire crime. "1 think it's fair to say that we don'tknow how to rehabilitate the serious repeat offend-ers,- says lames O. Vilson of the University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles, "so the goal has to be: toprotect society and make it clear... that society is notpiing to tolerate this behavior by ignoring it orwinking at it," 43

Yet the National Academy of Sciences panelfound the criminal justice system's increased use ofprison from 19-5 to 1989 prevented just 1(1 to ISpercent of potential violent crimes." The crime-reducing effects of incarceration are necessarilylimited for several reasons. First, the great majorityof crimes in America never lead to an arrest orconviction. Of the 34 million crimes committed in1990, 31 million went unreported or unsolvedEven if those arrested include many chronic offend-ers, the supply of potential criminal recruits is

seemingly endless in many neighborhoods. AsPetersilia puts it, "the ability of hack-end strategies(such as imprisonment) to increase public safety isseverely limited because of the replenishing supplyof young people who are entering criminal ca-reel s.

This problem is compounded by the poor perfor-mance of the criminal justice system in selectingwhom to incarcerate. As young adults, chronicoffenders often receive light sentences becausecriminal court judges and prosecutors are unawareof offenders' juvenile records. "In a national survey

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of prosecutors, half the respondents said theynormally received little or no juvenile record infor-mation on even the most serious young adultoffenders in their jurisdiction," reports Cmigres-c ((ma Quarlerho. "When juvenile records wereaailable, they were often inoimplete or arrived toolate to affect decisions on whether or not to filecriminal charges." Rather than incapacitating

chronic offenders at the height of their careers,prison terms are usually imposed when criminalactivity is beginning to taper off. In California, forinstance, while the average age of arrest is 1", theaverage age of first commitment to prison is 26 andthe median age of new prison admissions is 29about the age most criminal carec..rs are coming toa close.43

Another factor limiting the crime-reducing impactof incarceration is evidence that imprisonment ulti-mately increases the criminality of those who servetime. One recent study followed matched pairs ofoffenders (convicted of similar crimes, with similardemographics and criminal records) who weresentenced differently--one to prison, one to proba-tion. The study found that those sent to prison weremore likely to be arrested over the subsequent threeyears than those given probation.43 The criminogeniceffects of prison may be especially strong for youth-ful offenders, write Sampson and Laub. "Imprison!pent may have powerful negative effects on theprospects for future employment and job stability.In turn. low income, unemployment, and underem-ployment are themselves linked to heightened risksof family disruption. Through its negative effects onmale employment, imprisonment may thus leadthrough family disruption to increases in future ratesof crime and violence."50

Death Penalties and Juvenile JusticeTwo other 'law and order' approacheshot h

included in the 1994 crime act with bipartisansupportsimilarly hold limited promise to reducethe crime threat: death penalties. and the wide-spread use of waivers to try juvenile offenders asadults.

As has been widely documented, there exists nocredible evidence that the death penalty deterscrime. One recent study, for instance, comparedviolent crime rates in 293 pairs of counties thatborder along a state line. The analysis found that,taking into account demographics and other rel-evant factors, the states' use of the death penalty hadno significant impact on violent crime; in fact,counties in states where the death penalty is widelyused showed higher rates of violent crime thanthose in counties where executions are performedseldom or not at 311.51 The death penalty may bejustified as an expression of public will. or as fairpunishment for heinous crimes, but it simply doesnot make our streets safer.

Less understood is another key intent of the newcrime law---to try increasing numbers of ju (mileoffenders as adults. Between the early I9-0s and

21

198-, the proportion of youthful offenders referredto adult criminal courts increased from 1 percent to5 percent. Between !98-7 and 1991, the number ofjuvenile cases transferred to criminal courts jumpedanother 29 percent nationwide, from -7,000 to 9,000.52This growing reliance on adult courts is rooted in aperception that young criminals are being coddledby a rehabilitation- minded juvenile justice system.

However. many juvenile justice experts deny thatserious offenders are receiving lenient treatment.and they argue that diverting youthful offendersfrom the juvenile systemparticularly nonviolentoffenders is counterproductive.

In many states, the sentences meted out byjuvenile courts are no less severe than those dealtyouthful offenders in criminal court. In California,for instance, youth convicted of homicide, kidnap-ping, robbery, and assault in juvenile courts actuallyserve longer sentences than adults and youth con-victed in criminal court. Youth convicted of homi-cide serve an average of 60 months, compared with41 months for those convicted in criminal court.53 Insore states, juvenile courts are more lenient. in NewMexico, for instance, a murderer convicted injuvenilecourt faces a 111,INI11111111 sentence of two

years: when convicted as adults, murderers face alife sentence or the death penalty.

Overall. "It does not appear that juveniles receiveharsher penalties, on the average. when transferredto criminal courts for a broad range of offenses,"conclude criminologists Dean J. Champion and C.Larry Mays. Roughly half the juvenile cases trans-ferred to adult court each year are dismissed for lackof evidence, Champion reports. Nlany of the rest arespared harsh sentences by judges accustomed tohardened adult criminals. "The kids go from beingbig-time juvenile actors to small-time criminal ac-tors," Champion says. -The likelihood is they willget pn)hation.54

A 1991 study comparing the sentencing of 16-to-17 year-olds accused of robbery and burglary inNew York and New Jersey found that juvenile courtswere no less severe than adult courts. Moreover, thestudy found that youth treated in the juvenile justicesystem "were rearrested less often, at a lower rateand after a longer crime-free period."'

This outcome confirms the lear4 of many juvenilejustice advocates: that youth treated as adults, andparticularly those sentenced to adult prisons, maybe hardened into chronic criminality. Adult prisonstypically do not provide the types of rehabilitationprograms offered in juvenile detention settings. Yetthe majority of juveniles \\aiyed to adult courts arenot violent offenders: only r percent of cases

9

transferred to adult courts in 1991 invoh.ed crimesagainst personsand not all of these were forviolent crimes.56 \lost waivers go to youth accusedof property or drug crimesyouth for whom reha-bilitation is a viable and appropriate optkin.

Toward a Comprehensive Approachour society has a vital stake in incarcerating

serious violent offendersadults or juvenileswho wreak havoc on our streets. A major goal ofpuhlii polic must he to redress the breakdownsremaining leniency in state jug chile justice statutes,and communication gaps between juvenile andcriminal courtsthat allow many youngavoid long prison terms during their most destruc-tive years.

I lowever, the fact remains: on their own, incar-ceratkm simply cannot effect a significant reductionin crime. Too few criminals are deterred by thethreat (or reality) of increasing prison terms, and to()many adolescents are poised to replace those whoare shipped off to prison.

Critics of the 1994 crime hill reveled in labeling it-a full employment program for social workers.-Yet the punitive alternative can just as accurately hedepicted as a full employment program for construc-tion 'workers and prison guards. The costs of prisonconstruction alone ran to S4.9 billion in the latestfiscal year,57 and the tab for housing a juvenile oradult prison inmate range from $15,000 to upwardsof S-40,000 per year. In terms of crime reduction, thepotential pay -till' from this investment is modest.

-Those who focus ( m the criminal justice systemare offering the public a false hope, the hope that ifthe criminal justice stem just did its job morecompetentlyand criminals were punished moreoften and more harshly--the public' would he safefrom most crime,- "rites Joan Petersilia. -Thepublic gets some comfort inmi statistics showingthat -.wrests and imprisonments are going up. liut it31 million crimes arc' being committed in thiscountry and 31 million are never detected, the onlywan to truly reduce Clink' is to find some way to stopsome of the crime In nn being committed in the firstplace.58

In the words of flaw kills and Catalaik). ''It is as ifwe were pro Kling expensi\ e ...unbulances at thebutt MI of a dill to pick up the youngsters ho falloff, rather than building a fence at the top of the dill.to keep them from falling off in the first place:"

III

NotesRace, on the other hand, does not appear to be

a factor in youth's propensity to violence. ThoughAfrican-American youth tend to grow up at fargreater risk than their white peers. Elliott reports thatthe ratio cif black-to-white youth who ever engagein violence is only 5-to-4. Blacks are far more likelyto he arrested than whites, however, and they aresignificantly tin ire likely to continue their violenceinto adulthood. Elliott suggests this disparity is

related to blacks' greater difficulty finding andholding jobs and to their lower marriage and stablecohabiting rates. -In essence, race and poverty anerelated to successfully making the transition out ofadolescence and into adult roles," he writes.

** In an attempt to address these problems, thestate of Colorado approved model legislatkm in1993 requiring that violent youth offenders (ages 14-18) receive adult-length sentences but serve them inyouth-only correctional facilities.

2 4."

Does it Work?The Effectiveness of Crime Prevention

"tioleme i.c not a random. tutcontmllable. or inetitable occutTence... Although we acknowledge that the pmblentof violence involving youth is stagt ering... there is otvrwhehning evidence 11)(11 we can intorene (!,(ii,ctiveli, ill thelives ofyoung people to reduce or prevent their invohvment ill violence:6°

The intellectual case 1( w prevention is compel-ling. Without prevention, we face untoldspending on prison construction and iikar-

ceration, yet hold little hope for meaningful crimereduction. Pre\ ..ntic in. on the other hand, Ippearsto hold significant promise as (t comtplement to theenforcement approach. We know which kinds ofchildren are at risk. We understand what factors canplace them at risk. And we know a good deal aboutthe protective factors--the skills, attitudes, supportsand opportunitiesthat can inoculate them fn nnthe dangers of delinquenc.

If prevention )n programs can use this knowledgesuccessfully to address the developmental deficitsthat lead toward delinquency, they \yin delier.asignificant breakthrough in our nation's struggleagainst cricie. If not. these programs will pourtaxpayers' nit iney do\\ n the sinkhole of good inten-tions, validating their critics' warnings.

This chapter examines a broad array of approachesto reduce crime among unincarceraied )(Rah at riskfor delinquency: (ommunitv-w ide strategies. he-ha \ ior management. an conflict resolution fin )-

grams, recreation programs, counseling programs.It also examines t range of other youth-orientedinter\ en.i !ssome targeted to assist high risklamilies and children generall, others focused ondexclopment and rehabilitation of adolescents al-read\ involved in crime. and still others targeted tohigh !kit, \ outh I nit not ipecinc,tilv attnyd at delin-quency prevention.

This rep ie)s include!, program, that ate not basedin the criminal justice sstem. Only by examiningsuch a Wide arra \ of pit igram., ran this repoa( r urateb, relict t the ) ()nth des elopment locus on,netting dclinquenc that is espoused b man\experts. -Programs that adopt a youth des eh )pmentorientation... pros kit! ;kitties( ems w ith the full rangeol slit-)1)n, ne«",5,11- It t' them ti I prepare It ir

adulthood. Indeed. tins is the lo( us ol the 'best

American Psychological AsmiciationConguission tm Yowl. and Violence

prevention pn)graills," wrote Shepherd Zeldin and1 toward Spivak in a 1993 paper for the Center forYouth Development and Policy Studies. "When theenvironment engages the adolescent, and provideshim or her with appropriate experiences (e.g..sustained adult relations, cooperative activities withpeers. high expectations. responsibility, recreation)not only is violent behavior prevented, but theyoung person is more likely to muse successfullytoward aclulthcxxl.-61

Deciphering Prevention's RecordSo what is the record of programs falling under

this broad prevention umbrella? No unequisocalanswer to this question exists as yet. Delinquencyprevention pre ;grants have never been implementedon a massive scale and many have operated on ashoestring. Nlanv have not been implemented fullyor effectively. and few have been subject to carefulevaluation.

As re'ce'ntly as 1> or 20 year-, ago. the consensuson delinquency prevention among leading crimi-nologists held that -nothing works.- looking atrehabilitation programs !O juvenile offenders. one55 kick. cited 19-4 study found that ith le \\

isolated exceptions. the rehabilitative el( in, thathave been reported so far ha \ e no -appreciable ellecton rev dk i,.,).-62 Three \ tai s later, another scholarconcluded: "The blanket assertion that 'nothingworks' is An exaggeration. but not cry 11:63

Since thcn, Inns ever, the conventionalMal wisdomhas reversed. "\Vithin the last decade... a number ofprograms have shown that antisocial behavior canbe redo( ed ith pre\ enti\ c intersentions.- writesNlan kazdin of Yale ersitY. "Improsed resultsappear to have resulted from better understanding()I the emergence of antisocial betas it 1r, implemen1,11 of romprehenske and protra, led lilt r\I it ill prt1S..y.1111',, and 111(M' .1111,10( ill (II sng

term utters ention elle( N..'"

2.)BEST COPY AVAILABLE

The Power of Early Intervention. Though mostintervention programs lack definitive evaluationsand some have shown themselves to be ineffective,a number of prevention models have documentedpowerful effects either on adolescent delinquencyor on pre-delinquent behavior among youngerchildren. By far the most dramatic of these are earlyinterventions aimed at children and their families)in the first five years of life.

Particip,mts in the Perry Preschool program inYpis lanti, Michigan proved far less likely to commitcrimes than a matched control group. for instance.By age 19. fourteen years after completing this two-year program of o .:elopmental preschool andweekly home visits, only 31 percent of participantshad ever been arrestedcompared to 51 percent ofthe control group. by the time they turned 27. one-fifth as many Perry participants as control groupmembers had been arrested five or more times C'percent vs. 35 percent). and one - -third as many hadbeen arrested for selling drugs C percent vs. 25percent ),65

A home visiting and parent development programfor low-income families in Houston, Texas. alsoproduced significant results related to delinquency.The program trained mothers to be more affection-ate. more responsive, and less punitive toward theirnewborns. Five to eight years later, program chil-dren exhibited less fighting than a control group,and they were less disruptive, less impulsive andless restlessall behaviors with proven links tosubsequent criminality 66

likewise, children in the Yale Child V'ellarProject showed significantly less aggression, dis-obedience, lying, and cheating than control youthten years after their parents took part in a tonnevisiting program that provided parenting skills andjob counseling. As in other programs, the benefitsof intervention were not limited to delinquency-related behavior. At the 10 year lidki -up participat-ing parents were less welfare dependent. bettereducated, and had fewer children than controlparents: youth were less likely to require specialeducation.'

In Syracuse, New York, a day care assistance andhome visiting program for poor mothers with pre-school-age children also produced dramatic results.Longitudinal follow -up found that only o percent ofchildren from families participating in the programwere ever processed in juvenile court, comparedwith 22 percent of rand( intly assigned controlgroup. Nloreneer, crink.s committed by programparticipants were far 11,s serious than those commit-ted control group youth. 1 he average juvenile

I!

justice cost per child for the preschool home-visit-ing group was $186: for control group youth it was$1,985.66

Clearly, prevention can curb crime and delin-quency. If programs target high risk children andtheir parents early in life, and if they pnwkleintensive and extended (two years or more) coun-seling, education, and parenting assistance via highlyskilled youth development prcifessionals, preven-tion efforts yield powerful reductions in later ag-gressiveness. delinquency, and criminal behavior.'"

What Works for Older Children and Youth?But the crime prevention agenda clues not beginand end with early chiklhood. What is the record ofother intervention strategiesparticularly thoseaimed directly at adolescent and pre-adolescentyouth? Here the record is murkier and more mixed.

In general. prevention programs fall into twotypes. The first is strictly preventive. aimed at thegeneral youth populaticm in a given community.The impact of these efliirts is difficult to evaluate.Even if it does help lessen the propensity of teenstoward delinquency antiviolence. most observerswould agree that a new youth center or recreationprogram or 10-day "anger management" unit in theschool health curriculum is unlikely on its own toreduce the overall juvenile crime rate. And even ifthe crime rate clues drop, evaluators have no way todiscern for certain whether the program or someother factor is responsible.

The second type of program is intervention, du )seefforts aimed at controlling or reversing the problembehavior of particular youth. Their impact is some-what easier to measure. And, though the vastmajority of intervention programs are not evaluatedand many evaluations that are undertaken sufferserious methodological flaws, a number of pro-grams have been evaluated thoroughly.

Recently, Nlark Lipsey of Vanderbilt Universitycompleted a "meta-analysis'. aggregating the find-ings on -143 intervention programs fiw which solidevaluation data are available. lie reported thatoverall, the programs did decrease the delinquencyand recidivism of treated youthbut only by about1(1 percent. That is, if before the program youth hada SO -SO risk of future delinquency. their chances, onaverage, were 45 percent after participating. "Theanswer to the general question 'Does treatmentreduce delinquency?' therefore appears to be 'Yes,it, average there is a positive effect,- Lipsey re-

ported. "but hil positive and significant. themean effect sire found here appear relativelyIns ulesl.' "

At first glance, this modest impact might lendsupport skeptics. But a closer examination of thedata reveals grounds for substantial optimism. Sometypes of programs produced large positive effects:others demonstrated no effects or even negativeeffects. "The best of the treatment. types... showdelinquency effects of meaningful practical magni-tude," Lipsey declared.70

What are the characteristics of effective delin-quency prevention pn)grams? Ik1w do they differfrom ineffective or counterproductive programs?The following pages examine the available evi-dence. The lessons that emerge are varied andcomplex. Yet the general finding is straightforward:the consensus today is delinquency pre\ entionprograms can work." In fact, these programs oftendo workhut only when they are intensive, ori-ented to youth development. multi-dimensional,carefully designed, effectively implemented, andconstantly evaluated with an eye to improvingprogram perform ance.

Helping Youth BeforeTrouble Starts

This section examines an array of efforts designedfor the general population of youth, including thoseat risk. These include recreation programs; conflictresolution, mediation, gang prevention and otherschool-based prevention programs; programs foracademic enhancement, dropout prevention, andemployment training; plus more comprehensiveinitiatives tying several of these components into acommunity-wide youth development crime pre-vention strategy.

Recreation and Midnight HoopsAs the battle raged on Capitol I lill in 1994, one line

item in the proposed crime hill captured moreattention than any other: $40 million for late nightsports leagues. Though this represented only half ofone percent of prevention's piece of the hill (andbarely one one- thousandth of the entire hill), Re-publicans made midnight basketball the WillieHorton of the crime bill.'

The program hecame a magnet for rhetoricalgrenades. "Presumably kids are supposed to get outof bed in the middle of the night to g,0 playhaskethall so they won't get involved in crime,"wrote one commentator in the Witt/ .Circeilmmud.Imagine the conversation between two muggers,"

suggested pollster Frank Lumz. "One looks at hiswatch and says to the other, fey its already ,,1:30.

25

We'd better get one more mugging in before thegame begins.-72

Yet before receiving their first dime in federalfunding, midnight sports leagues h.we already spreadto dozens of cities all over the nation--often withenthusiastic support and cooperation from local lawenforcement officials. While the impact of theseleagues has not been formally evaluated, there isevidence that they can indeed reduce crime. Theoriginal league Incited in Glenarden. Nlarylandwas launched in 1986 after local officials recognizedthat most of the town's en ,e occurred between 10p.m. and 2 a.m. Glenarden opened its recreationalfacilities during these hours, and as a condition forparticipation required the playersyoung men be-tween 1- and 26to attend life skills workshopsand observe a strict code of conduct. Once theleague started, "There was a 60 percent drop indrug-related crime." reports the Prince George'sCounty police chief, David Mitchell. In the \VintonHills section of Cincinnati, public housing residentsresponded to a crime epidemic by launching late-night and weekend hasKetball along with othersupervised recreation activities. In the program'sfirst 13 weeks, reported crime dropped by 24percent.73

Advocates of midnight basketball mphasize thattheir programs are about much more than sports. InChicago, for instance, applicants to the league mustfirst participate in a month-long "b mt camp," thenattend mandatory life skills workshops after eachgame. Any player who gets in trouble with the lawis expelled from the league. Despite the fact thatmany of the 1.200 players who've participated since1989 have a history of delinquency, only one playerhas been banished for criminal 1 .tivity.'

A Columbia liniversitv study of Boys Girls Clubsin public housing project- provides additional evi-dence that safe and constructive recreational oppor-tunities can lessen crime. The study found thatpublic housing projects containing a Boys GirlsClub had crime rates 13 percent lower than projectswithout a Club. Prevalence of drug activity is 22percent lower in projects with a Club, the studyfound, while crack presence is 25 percent lower."The influence of Boys & Girls Clubs is immilest inlouths'l involvement in healthy and constructiveeducational. social and recreational activities," thestudy concluded. "Relative to their counterpartswho do not have access to a Club, these youth areless involved in unhealthy, deviant and dangerousactivities."75

No reputable expert suggests that recreationaliineat midnight or any other hourcan sole

ti

the urban crime problem. Rut especially when it is

integrated with education, training, and other ser-vices, and when it is offered through community-based organizations that provide Youth with fc)rmaland informal counseling, recreation can help reducecrime.

School-Based Violence PreventionCurricula: Conflict Resolution

Another element of the 199-t crime preventionpackage is conflict resolution. Along with othershort-term, school-based violence prevention cur-ricula, conflict resolution programs have swept thecounts in recent years and become a standardteaching tool in thousands of middle schools andhigh schools. Though these curricula have not beendamned like midnight basketball, they too arc amatter of some controversy.

In the winter of 1993. Johns Hopkins 1.'niversityviolence prevention scholar Daniel Webster pub-lished an article in the journal. itea/thentitled: "The 'nconvincing Case for School-basedConflict Resolution Programs for AdolescentsDespite the fact I he hadt.lat ;le tic. previous:y participatedin designing and evaluating such programs, Websterpronounced himself -skeptical that existing conflictresc)lutk pre ;grams can reduce interpersonal vio-lence76

Chances are -remote.- Webster wrote, that 'ado-lescent conflict resolution curricula. in the absenceof changes in families and communities. will pro-duce significant reductions in serious injuries result-ing from violence.- Most classroom curricula ad-dressing other adolescent health risks (i.e., sub-stance abuse. teen pri.gnancy, Illy AIDS) have noteffected substantial or sustained behavior change,he asserted. \\ ebster also cited preliminary ev.ilua-tions of three high profile conflict resolution (cir-ri( tilatwo c,f which scented to produce littleimpact. And Webster reasoned that most existingconflict resolution c urricula are developmentallyand culturally ill-suited to inner city adolescents andill-equipped to stake a significant impact on youths.behavior.

Reaction to the article was vehement. Four rebut-tals appeared in //oath .11fittr.N condemning theintegrity and the accuracy of Webster's analysis.They !milted Webster for equating "absence orevidence- NN tth cc idence ul absence. notingcon! lie t resolution's unproN en record is the result ofunfinished program evaluations rather than docu-mented program lailures. The critics also lashed outat Webster lor failing to acknow ledge his pastaffiliation w uh one of the programs critic f/d Andthe\ noted that two of the three models reviewed INN

\Xchster have since yielded ackliti.inal evaluationshowiny positive imracts on partici-

pants' attitudes toward N. kAencc and skills in avoid-ing it."

"uch short-terni, self-reported changes may or nornot translate into reductions in aggressive andviolent behaN ior, however. And in the absence ofcontrolled long-term outcome evaluations. the im-pact of conflict resolution remains a matter fordebate. webster is not alone-tichcx)1 officials are responding Ito serious violenceby and against adolescent stuckntsl by addingviolence prevention programs ohen a commercially available 'off-the-shelf' packageto theirschools' already overcrowded curricula,- MarcPosner of the Education Development Center wroterecently in the Haman/ Education Leiter. 78 WilliamIX..long of Harvard University tickled in HealthAffaiiN thatlike the recreation programs discussedearher"school -based education programs alonecannot address the deeply rooted problem of youthviolence plaguing our nation... Changing the socialnorms that sustain violent behavior will require abroad-based effort involving families. the massmedia. and entire communities.-79

"Violence prey ention may prove most eflectiNewhen it is one ol a number of services offered as partof a 'full-service school.: Posner suggested.6° Oneprogram that has taken this message to heart is

Resolving Conflicts Creatively ( RCC 1, based in Broc ik-lyn. New York. This year-long programwhichnow involNeS i.0(4) teachers and 120,00(1 students in2-7)schoolsteaches students skills and techniquesto resolve conflicts peaceably. encot:rages teachersto grant students a measure of control in theclassroom, and empowers sonic students as "peelmediators- to find peaceful solutions to classmates'disputes. Aiming to change the overall schoolenvironment, RCC prox ides extensive and ongoingteacher education. and it has begun training parentsto lead workshops and in\ of\ other parents in theRCC process.81

In a 1990 evaluation, -0 percent of participatingtea( hers reported that the program reduced class-room violence and name-calling. Many students.too.too. said they engaged in fewer list fights andname calling following participation. While thatevaluation did not measure long-term impacts onstudent:: out-a-school behavior (a more thorougheNalitation is in progress) the preliminary results andthe ('C's subsequent imprciNc rents suggest thatthis program has significant potential to alter stu-dents' attitudes about conflict and their conduct."

Other School-Based Programs. A number ofother school-based prevention programs have alsoshown encouraging if nit yet definitive results.Several cities have heel) offering gang preventionurricula in recent years to dissuade young students

from gang participation. In Paramount, California,the Iocal human SCIVICCS deparunrnt developedl; -part "Alternatives to Gang lembership curricu-lum that its stallf delivers each year to fifth gradestudents. The curriculum which has been replicatedin a number of other California comimmities and inII:RV:Ai, is reinforced by an eight-session follow-upfor seventh graders. It also includes parent and«multiunit) awareness meetings.

A post-program evaluation found aim prior to theprogram 50 percent of the students were undecidedabout joining a gang; by program's end 90 percentwere opposed to joining (me. Follow -up studiesha ye 1( ittrid that students continued to report. anti-gang attitudes years later, and most say they havenot joined a gang. Researchers warn that these datashould he taken with a grain of salt, however. "Selfreports about gang membership have serious prob-lems,- concludes the Education Development Cen-ter, as students may be biased by their desire to givethe -right- answer 83

Peer mediation programs have reportedly re-duced the amount of fighting in schools and im-pRieed the learning climate. School authorities inCharlotte. North Carolina credit their program withreducing assaults by and against students by SOpercent. A New York-based program has reportedlyreduced the number of suspensions for fighting inparticipating schools by 50-70 percent since it wasintroduced 10 years ago.' These programs have notbeen subject to rigorous evaluation, however. -Al-though peer mediation has intuitive appeal,- pre-vention scholars report. -its efficacy has simply notbeen determined.85

Another school-base(' nuxlel is Law-Related Fdei-cliti"Il (1,R1..) Aspects of IRE have been adopted byschools in at least ,10 states. The concept is simple:young people who understand the law and its

benefits to them are more likely to respect and obeyit. Actit ities for students in elementary through highschool grades include mock trials, interactive class-room exercises. visits to courtrooms, and work inthe community with lawyers, judges and police. Inone evaluation, ninth-grade students in an I.REcourse (taught one class pert, .d per day for an entiresemester) reported significantly less delinquentbehavior than those in a «mtrol group. It is not clearwhether this improvement sustained itself mei-time. !m (..\ cr, or translated iiito reduced violencein the communit

27

Summing Up: School-Based Prevention Cur-ricula. I )espite the sharp attacks they leveled againsthim, none of Webster's critics challenged his con-tention that: -Brief interventions that are not rein-forced outside the immediate training environmentcannot he expected to alter difficult-to-change be-hat ior.-87 Posner concluded that "a ten-sessionprevention course cannot overwhelm the depriva-tions or a lire or poverty or the pressures towardviolence in the world outside school.-

Yet. "while violence prevention programs are not/be solution.- Posner continued, "carefully de-signed, targeted, and implemented programs withgood teacher training and technical support can hepart of the solution... Webster, too, conceded that"well designedcurricula be useful compo-nents of more comprehensive community-widestrategies that involve parents, community leaders,mass media, advocacy, and law enforcement.-88

Preparing Youth For Adulthood:Education and Training in High-RiskCommunities

Completing an education and making a success-ful entry into the labor market are critical variablesin the' delinquency equation. "Prevention or delin-quency appears to he embedded in the preventionof school failure,- wrote Joy Dryfoos in 1990. "Theztcquisition of basic skills appears to be a primarycomponent of all pre\ ention.-89 Joblessness, like-wise, is frequently cited as a key contributor to crimein depressed communities.

If youth stay in school and learn, and if they areable to make a successful transition from school towork, their chances of succumbing to crime anddelinquency will he minimal. Thus, the conven-tional wisdom suggests, programs to enhance aca-demic achievement and foster gainful employmentbecome central to fulfilling the crime preventionagenda.

liut what is the record of education and trainingprograms for at risk youth in reducing delinquencyand crime? The answer is at best mixed.

Educational Interventions. On one hand. re-search finds that education and delinquency areclosely intertwined. Two educational variablespoor reading achievement and weak commitmentto schoolare particularly strong predictors offuture delinquency. And early school failure is oneof the key early warning signs of future delin-quency.

Nlore'm er, several intentintereentiott programs lor at-risk students have proven successful in redressing

I S

basic skill deficits and promoting school comple-tion. Title I, the federal government's main remedialor compensatory education program for schoolsserving disadvantaged communities, has been shownto improve participants' reading and math scores by15-20 percent compared with similar needy youth.9°Computer-assisted remedial instruction, like thatprovided in hundreds of learning centers nation-wide through the Comprehensive CompetenciesProgram, has generated even more impressive re-sultsboosting achievement test scores by 1.0 gradelevel in reading and 1.4 grade levels in math forevery 28 hours of instruction.'

To date, however, there is little evidence thatacademic skills remediation has a direct effect onadolescents' propensity to crime and violence. Ac-

,-cling to Anne Dryden Witte of Wellesley Collegeand Florida International tiniversity, "If education isto have a major crime-reducing impact, it appearsthat the impact will arise from educational programs'socializing and supervisory roles not from theirprimary educational activities."92 In short, youth at-risk for delinquency have a more immediate needfor support and discipline than they have for aca-demic skills.

So-called "alternative schools" offer one methodfor educators to enhance the socialization andsupervision of high-risk youth. These programstypically work with a small number of students andprovide individual attention, self-paced instruction,peer counseling, leadership training, parental in-volvement, and a student-centered climate. A studyof r such prognuns found that they promoted"greater safety. reduced teacher victimization, andless delinquency."93

Dn)pout prevention is another widespread strat-egy. Most school districts engage in some efforts topromote school completion. often with modestresources and to little effect. But the Ford Founda-tion-supported Quantum Opportunities Program((SOP) demonstrates the potential impact of inten-sive and well-conceived dropout prevention. Ineach of five cities. QOP provided counseling, aca-demic enhancement, life skills instruction, commu-nity service projects. and financial incentives to 2Swelfare dependent students throughout their highschool years. Compared to randomly assigned con-trol groups. QOP participants were 50 percent morelikely to graduate high school on time, ISO percentmore likely to attend postsecondary schools, andone-third less likely to have children. In addition,QOP participants were almost 50 percent less likelyto he arrested during the four years of the program.94

Probably the most important educational inter-ventions, however, are those that improve theoverall environment of entire schools. School re-structuring is ahout much more than delinquencyprevention, of course. Yet improving the schoolenvironment can be a critical step toward improvingyouth's attachment to school and their motivation tolearnboth critical factors in determining the propensity to crime and violence.

Beltire James Owner of Yale University initiatedfundamental restructuring at Brennan-Rodgers andKing elementary schools in New Haven 20 yearsago, the schools' achievement levels (two to threeyears below national norms) were among the city'sworst. The student population at the schools wasoverwhelmingly poor, and more than 5t) percentcame from welfare dependent families. Comer'sprocess to break the cycle of underachievementincluded three central components: ( 1) a newmanagement team. led by the principal and includ-ing teachers, parents, counselors and other schoolstaff, was empowered to set overall policy for theschool; (2) parental involvement in the school wasincreased dramatically, with parents being recruited'to organize school events and to serve as classroomassistants; and (3) focused intervention was pro-vided for children who displayed emotional, behav-ioral or academic problems.

The process worked. The schools which once fellat the bottom of New !lawn's 33 elementary schoolsranked third and fourth hest by 198,1. Despite thehigh risk student body, attendance rates at King roseto hest in the city in the early '80s. Moreover,reported Comer, "We haven't had a serious behav-ior problem in the schools we're involved in over adecade." The Coiner model has now been repli-cated in several other cities around the country, alsowith excellent success.95 And several other schoolchange models have also produced promising re-sults. Though no data have been reported measur-ing the impact of these impressive school changeprograms cm subsequent delinquency, researchshows clearly that early school failure and behaviorproblems are important prec kirsors to adolescentcrime and violence.

Job Training Programs. As the Crime Bill weits way through the legislative process in 1994, therewas initial bipartisan agreement on the need forincreased opportunities kw job training leading toeconomic' self-sufficiency. Supporters successfullyurged. that residential boot camps include educationand training programs fur non-violent youth offend-ers and that the states model their curriculum afterthe 30-year-old job Corps. A neighborhood. cantmunity wide "saturation model"--Y.F.S., Youth

Employment and Skills, offering youth employmenttraining coordinated with other essential supportservicespassed loth houses of the Congress. In

the frenzied, election-eve struggle over alleged"pork- in the Crime Bill's conference report, how-ever, Y.E.S. was eliminated.

Despite kvidcbspread political support for employ-ment training for youth, there are no recent long-term evaluation studies or large-scale and compre-hensive inter ,entions such as Job Corps or thenewer Youth Fair Chance (Title IV- i I of the Johtraining Partnership Act), although studies of bothare underway.

What few evaluations do exist focus on measur-ing onl "earning gains- and are usually for short-term, quick-fix, skills training programsfive monthsor less in duration. Not surprisingly, evaluaticms ofthese short-term pre grams have not found signifi-cant increases in participant earnings or reducedrisks of delinquency among adolescents. "Therelationshipbetween lack of employment and crimeor drug use found among adults does not seem tohold for adolescents,' concludes the Office ofJuvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. "Work-ing youth have levels of delinquency and drug useequal to or higher than their nonworking counter-parts.-96 A recent national evaluation of the JohTraining Partnership Act also fiaind that participat-ing youth had higher reported arrests than mm-,ITPA youths in a control gnmp.97

The migration of jobs away from inner city areashas been a key factor in the demise of manycommunities and the attendant rise in violent crimeover the past 30 years.98 Ultimately, reducing crimewill depend on far greater availzthility of good jobsand adequate preparation for well-paying careers.Short-term, narrowly-focused youth employmenttraining programs have not proven to he art effectivevehicle for achieving those goals. Broader, devel-opmental, community-wide interventionsads o-cated by many youth employment expertshaveyet to he subject to meaningful evaluation.

Multi-Dimensional, Community-WidePrevention

The most successful of prevention programs donot fit neatly into a single program category. Theyare not strictly recreation programs, or conflictresolution, or remedial education or job training.Rather, most programs with impact are multi-dimen-sional: they intervene simultaneously on severalfronts to address participants' varied needs, tap theirhidden potential, provide them individualized attention from caring :,.hilts -he they counselors,

coaches, teachers, youth agency staff, or volunteermentors.

Thus, the best school-based violence preventionprograms supplement classroom instruction withoutreach to parents and members of the community.Recreation programs affect behavior most whenthey provide counseling and life skills training aswell as sports and arts and crafts. "The use ofmulticomponent programs is reasonable becausemany high-risk behaviors and conditions co-oc-cur,- writes Alan Kazdin of Yale University. "Nar-rowly focused and-or brief programs would ,lot heexpected to have significant and enduring impact.Moreover, multiple components may be required toaddress the many influences (family, peers, media)that may unwittingly promote or contribute to at-risk behavior.-99

Community-Wide Action. In fact, many expertsbelieve that the greatest potential for prevention liesnot in any single program, multi - dimensional orotherwise, but in ,comprehensive, community-driven continuum of programswhat Hawkins andCatalano have dubbed a "communities that care"strategy. "Because community approaches are likelyto involve a broad spectrum of individuals, groups,and organizations, they create a greater base ofsupport for behavior change," they write. "Thecommunity-wide focus creates a unique synergy:the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.oo

A recent study by the Search Institute in Minne-apolis demonstrates the crucial contihution ;)fcommunity's environment to the delinquency ofyouth. Investigators interviewed young people andassessed them as -vulnerable", "average", or "high -asset" based on their answers to 30 questions aboutfamily, school, peers, and personal habits andbeliefs. Investigators also rated communities ashealthiest, average, or least healthy based on thepercentage of 9th-12th grade youth engaged in at-risk behaviors (i.e., tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs.sex. anti-social behavior, etc.). Though the studylooked at primarily white, middle class areas in theMidwest, its findings are instructive: In all commu-nity types, vulnerable youth are more likely thanother youth to engage in risky or delinquent behav-ior:~. However, vulnerable youth in the healthiestcommunities are far less apt to engage in at-riskbehaviors than vulnerable youth in least healthycommunities.

"A healthy community not only benefits youthwho already have many assets in their favor, but isparticularly oowerful in protecting vulnerable youthwho have lewer personal assets (such as strongfamilies) in their lives,- the study found. "Schools,

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churches and synagogues, youth organizations, andthe general support of structured activities areclearly influential in shaping a healthy communityfor youth..."

"Rather than simply /cunning in on single seg-ments of society,- the Search Institute concluded,"it's time to pull back to a wide-angle view andexamine how whole communities have an impact

youth, both(111and negatively:1oz

One city that has :Ricci on this belief is Fort flyers,Florida, which used a SI." million federal grant toimplement its comprehensive "Success ThroughAcademic and Recreational Support" (STARS) pro-gram for high risk youth ages The programs,developed through a city-wide planning processand involving a dozen public and private agencies,provides a variety of academic enrichment, orga-nized recreation, and other activities. Since STARSbegan. juvenile crime rates have declined for threeconsecutive years in Fort Myers with the overallrate falling by almost one-third. Among 11 and 12year-old offenders city-wide, the rate of repeatcriminal behavior dropped 6-1.3 percent. For 13 and1.t year-olds the rate dropped 26.3 percent. "As themayor of a city that totally committed itself to usingrecreation and academic support as the vehicle forcombating violent juvenile crime, I can tell you firsthand that it works,- said Fort Nlyers Mayor WilburSmith.io3Smith.m3

As one of seven cities participating in the TexasCity Action Plan to Prevent Crime, San Antonio.Texas has also employed a comprehensive. commu-nity-wide prevention approach to excellent effect.Its approach includes recreation and academic en-richment for youth in after-school programs, newanti-crime partnerships between community resi-dents and police (including training for city resi-dents in community policing techniques), and newpenaltiesboth lot youth and their parc'n/.c whenyouth under 1" carry weapons, paint graffiti, orviolate a curfew banishing them hum the streetsduring late night or school hours. In the first yearalter this approach was implemented, San Antonio

saw a I() percent drop in criminal arrests for juve-niles and a -co percent drop in ill N. it:6111111:1.-

0010°4

Incorporating Youth Leadership and Service.One of the more innovative features of the SanAntonio program is a "Leadership Program forTeenage Girls- in eight middle schools. Rather thanmerely keep youth -off the streets- and "fix"problems behaviors, San Antonio leaders elected torecognize and cultivate young people's desire andcapacity to contribute. Their program reflects a

growing understanding among prevention and youthdevelopment experts that, in the words of Hawkinsand Catalano, "children must be procided withopportunities to contribute to their community.their school. their family and their peers.-1'

Another demonstraticm of this philosophy comesin the National Clime Prevention Council's "Teens,(.;rime, and the Community'' ("F(C) program, inwhich youth learn crime prevention techniques andapply the knowledge in community service projectsaddressing crime problems in their schools andneighborhoods. An evaluation of the program foundthat in addition to providing valuable service to theircommunities, participating ....owl) know more abouthow to avoid becoming crime victims and are lesslikely to exhibit attitudes associated with delinquenthdliIVIOr or to associate with delinquent peci.s.loe

Probably the nation's most widespread teen c( wn-!nullity service initiative is "Youth As Resources-( YAR ), developed and administered by the NationalCrince Prevention Council. Forty-five thousand youthparticipated in 39 YAR programs between 19$" and1993, including many from high risk as well asmiddle class neighborhoods. Among youth residingin juvenile detention or foster care settings whoparticipate in YAR, 91 percent report that they feelproud or very pr(mid of their efforts. and $7 percentfeel that they have helped someone or something.'"Research is clear that :I sound sense of self-esteemis a key to averting self-destructive behaviors likedelinquency and drug use,- writes National CrimePrevention Council executive director, JackCalhoun.' -11 there's one thing kids in the treat-ment system... have in common,- Calhoun says,"it's that they don't feel they ha e anything tocontribute.-1°9

Ant ether impressive group of. programs employ s"teen empowerment- !nuclei to attacl. the problems()I' urban crime directly. These programs rely on paidyouth organizersincluding many from high riskbackgroundsto sponsor events and activities forother neighborhood youths and engage their peersin a process to address common concerns. \\ hen it

3

was first developed in Somerville, Massachusetts inthe 19-0s, Teen Empowerment was credited bylocal police with helping to reduce crime rates. Themodel has since been replicated in nine otherNlassachusetts communities, as well as a city-wide initiative in IA Kentucky 10

In April 1991. Teen Empowerment youth orga-nized and ran a day -long "peace conference- for600 youth in Boston's South End area where gangmembers and other feuding y(11.1411 agreed to resolvelingering disputes. In August 190-i, 200 youth andadultsincluding members of rival gangsjoinedin a Teen Empowerment peace march."' ThoughTeen Empowerment has not been evaluated for-mally, its impact is widely appreciated. Commentingon former Boston Nlayor Raymond Flynn's choice tocut funding for Teen Empow. rinent in the late1980s. the Busum Gtobe editorialized that the city"lost valuable Years in identifying and training thoseneighborhood adolescents who are best able toexert positive social control over their peers... TheSouth End-based nonprofit Teen Empowermentorga nization... remains an untapped resource ..1'

As a multi-agency federal task force on violenceconcluded in January 1994, "Quite simply, theproblems of youth violence and high-risk behaviorwill never be solved without the leadership andactive involvement of young people themselves.-"3

Coupling Youth Initiatives with CommunityPolicing. Perhaps the most impressive crime pre-vention demonstrations to date have been in cit-ieslike San Antoniothat incorporate youth-ori-ented prevention programs into larger ctmimunity-driven anti-crime initiatives. Lansing. Michigan re-duced crime by 00 percent in two troubled neigh-borhoods after opening a "neighborhood networkcenter- led jointly by a community police officerand representatives of a social service agency andlocal schools. Initially. the effort focused on coordi-nating responses to drug dealing, vandalism. tru-anc, open consumption of alcohol, feuding anumgfamilies, and child abuse. An extensive youth pro-gram soon became central to the initiativebegin-ning ith a club for ten boys in the Sth grade, thenexpanding to girls and involving In Ali the Boy andGirl Scouts of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters.Also, the Neighborhood Network Center frequentlysupervises delinquent Lansing youth sentenced tocommunity service--helping them dek clop workskills and build a sense of 0 91111111114 ownershipand anZIC11111(111.114

In Norlolk, virginia. the Police Assisted commu-nity Fitton. ement prog,rain likewise forgeda fit.\\ partnership between ("Intinin0 police,

31

human service agencies, and local citizens to servesix troubled public housing projects and four otherhigh crime neighborhoods. Athletic leagues wereformed to give young people the opptintinity toparticipate in team sports, and a Norfolk YouthForum was organized to provide opportunity for250 high school students to speak out and proposesolutions to community problems that affect them.Through these youth efforts, combined with steppedup community-aided law enforcement and en-hanced social services, PACE led to a 29 percentdrop in crime in the 10 targeted neighborhoods anda citywide reduction in violent crime."5

Summing Up: The Case for PreventionWhile more and more communiti:s throughout

America are launching comprehensive, jurisdiction-wide strategies to promote prevention, successeslike those in Norfolk. Lansing, San Antonio and FortMyers are not yet the norm in crime prevention.

Rather, youth-oriented prevention efforts haveproduced a mixed bag of results. Experience showsthat some prevention programs work well and reallydo seem to reduce crime and delinquency. Othersreduce problem behaviors in the short-term but mayor may not result in reduced criminality over time.Still other programs simply don't workproducingno immediate or' Icing -terns reduction in delinquentconduct.

Given the deep psychological and sociologicalroots of delinquency, and given the large andheterogeneous target population serk ed byunderfunded prevention programs, these mixedresults are hardly surprising. Prevention is no pieceof cake.

But in light of the tremendtms economic andsocial costs our nation is liable to incur by proceed-ing only with law-and-order approaches to crime.the many promising efictrts presented here providemore than sufficient testimony to prevention's po-tential. A concerted national elfort to build on andreplicate effectke prevention models would seeman excellent investment.

Treating Troubled. YouthThis section examines targeted interventions for

,otith already exhibitin.,, problem t)eltayiors, in-cluding shock incarceration, individual and groupcounseling, outdoor ticlventures, behavioral andattitudinal training, and family-1)aset1 interventions.It also rek it.\\ 5 3 iiriej.) of (le\ eic,pmi,ntal and

19

rehabilitative treatments and dispositions for al-ready convicted juvenile offenders.

Prevention can work. By engaging children andtheir families early in life to set them on a trajectorytoward healthy development, by providing recre-ational and educational opportunities tied to caringadults in prosocial environments, by teaching cm-ffict resolution, mediation, and ether social skillsand tying these skills into the context of youths'every day lives, and by linking these efforts togetherin comprehensive community partnerships againstcrime. prevention programs are finding ways to helpkeep kids out of trouble.

But on their own, these initiatives are not suffi-cient. It is unlikely that primary prevention will heunequivocally successful across the full range of at-risk behaviors and conditions that contribute toaggression," writes Yale's Alan Kazdin."6

"A significant disadvantage of primary preventionprograms is that they typically consist of a uniformintervention provided to all members of a givenpopulation," explain University of Illinois at Chi-cago prevention scholars 'I'olan and Guerra, writingwith Rodney Hammond of Wright State University.The general orientation and short duration of most

programs suggests that they may have only limitedimpact on changing the behavior of more seriousand chronically violent youth," Guerra, Tolan andlammond conclude. "It is likely that such programs

are most beneficial for adolescents who displaymilder forms of age-typical aggressive and antisocialbehavior."'"

Given the great danger to public safety posed bya small number of serkmsly violent children andyouth, targeted interventions are also required tohelp (or push) high risk youth off of the pathway tochronic crime and violence. "It is unlikely that youthwho have progressed from childhood aggression tomore serums and habitual adolescent violence willrespond to broad-based educational and. or socialdevelopment programs," write Guerra, To lan andI lammoncl. Treatment programs, on the other hand,"target those individuals who sin benQ.'it mostfrom the services. Not only are overall costs re-duced. but programs can be tailored more specifi-cally to the needs of the targeted go itip.""8

What works and doesn't work in the treatment ofaggressive and delinquent behavior among youth?The record reveals several clear findingsboth forand against the use of specific treatment approaches.

Family Therapy and Parental SkillsTraining

Interventions focused on the family systems ofpli)blem youth have proved a powerful weapon fOaddressing delinquent and aggressive conduct. Sev-eral family-oriented treatment strategies have dem-onstrated strong and lasting positive effects on evenhighly disturbed youth. As the Office of TechnologyAssessment reports, -Several studies have shownthat, in the chop term, family systems approachescut recidivism I.",.' by half in comparison withmoretraditional forms of psychotherapy... and no- treat-ment comparison groups and have a greater impacton child and family functioning than other types oftherapy "s

Functional Family Therapy is one model withproven results. This approach aims to identifyunhealthy patterns of interaction within the family.then provide family members remedial instructionin communication, negotiation, problem- solving,and other family management skills. In a carefullycontrolled study, functional family therapy (I T)lowered the recidivism rates of delinquent youth upto 18 months after treatment, while siblings oftreated youth showed significantly lower rates ofdelinquency two and one-half years after treat-

positive results workingment.'2° 1:1.1. also showedwith 30 chronic adolescent offenders with an aver-age record of 20 prior offenses each. After beingtreated with 1-7, 40 percent were not subsequentlycharged with a criminal offense, compared withonly 7 percent of a matched sample of chronicoffenders receiving traditional treatment. 121

Parent Management Training is another modelthat has documented strong effects. One experi-ment training the parents of 3-8 year-old childrenwith conduct problems yielded significant improve-ments in child behavior in comparison with controlgroup youth, and the changes had persisted oneyear after treatment. Overall, 67 to 78 percent of thechildren whose parents received the training re-turned to a tumnal range behavior 722 otherstudies have also documented the effectiveness ofparent training.

While most research has focused on youngerchildren ages 3-12, recent studies have found parenttraining effective with older adolescents as well. Inone study working with parents of S.S boys (meanage 1.1) who had committed at least two offenses,youth in the treatment group committed signifi-cantly fewer offenses than control group youthduring the treatment year and spent significantlyfewer days incarcerated during both the treatmentyear and the 14wing year.123

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.Another promising family intervention strategy isitultisystemic Family Therapy (Nisi.). In this model,L11111 ly therapy and parent training are combinedwith assistance to help families address practicalproblems. The reported re 's are clramatic: In onestudy, youths receiving MST were arrested abouttwo-thirds as often as control group youth. and MST)(10111s spent an average of -3 fewer days incarcer-ated than control youths in the i9 weeks alterreferral to the program. Overall. 3$ percent of theN1ST youth were arrested following treatment, com-pared xvith .S8 percent of youth receiving conven-tional ser)ices.124

"There is clear evidence that family targeted inter-ventions that focus on improving parent behaviormanagement skills. promoting emotional cohesionwithin the Limi ly, and aiding family problem solvingare effective,- 'Polar and Guerra conclude. "(Familytreatment( has the most evidence for effectivenesslot any treatment modalityl.125

Cognitive and Behavioral Skills Train-ing

If family therapies have "the most evidence- ofeffectiveness of any approach for treating delin-quency, then cognitive and behavioral skills train-ing ranks second.

Psychological research has found that aggressiveand delinquent youth typically display thoughtpatterns far different than other youth. As Kazdinexplains. "Aggression is not merely triggered byenvironmental events, but rather by the way inwhich these events are perceived and processed.-126

Delinquents tend to he deficient in identifyingnonviolent solutions to conflict situations and fore-seeing the consequences of violent actions. Theytend to act impulsive!), unable to control anger andother emotions. In many ambiguous social situa-tions, they attribute hostile intentions when none isintended. \Ian). delinquent and iu gable-1)1one youthalso hold attitudes and beliefs justilying the use of

aggression; many clerk e self-esteem and improvetheir self-images through aggressive behavi; r. 127o

In recent years, a host of programs has beendeveloped and tested to redress these gaps in socialproblem-solving skills. Several approaches haledocumented positive crime-prevention effects.

One method is socia/perpectine-iaking, in whichdelinquent youth are asked to develop, act out andcritique skits related to real-life conflict situations. Inone study of social perspective-taking conducted inthe early 19-0s, 15 serious juvenile offenders met insmall groups three hours per day over ten weeks.Compared with control groups, these youth im-proved their social perspective skills :and signifi-cantly reduced recidivism for up to 1$ months aftertreatment.'

.\ closely related method is moral wasaningtraining. Here, km), the effects have been positive."Behavior disordered" 'th through 10th gradestudents who were randomly assigned to weeklysmall group discussions about moral dilemma situ-ations reccived fewer disciplinary actions and hadfewer police contacts than similar students assignedto a control group. Treatment and control youthcontinued to diverge one year after the program wascompleted.'

Another often-used strategy is anger manage-ment or self-cc witrol training, but here the researchevidence is less conclusive. Since 1983 ArnoldGoldstein and his colleagues in Syracuse, New Yorkhave been developing. testing and packaging forreplication a process called "Aggression Replace-ment Training" (ART). In a 1989 monograph theypresented data finding that ART dramatically re-duced the recidivism of youth recently releasedfrom detention. 13o Itowever, a 199.t research reviewby Tolan and Guerra dismisses these findings andcomplains instead that "the evaluation of its effectshas been minimal and results are not promising interms of reductions in aggressive and violent behav-ior...131

Social problem-solving typically «imbines sev-eral cognitive *behavioral skill training techniques.In a 198- study by Kazdin and colleagues, 7-13 year-old children hospitalized for uncontrolled aggres-sion and antisocial behavior were trained by thera-pists to apply prosocial skills in their interpersonalinteractions. Compared to children receiving con-ventional psychotherapy or simple play therapy,these children showed significant behavioral inrpre vements.'32

In a 11111111U:1 01. ',111(11C`, \\ 1111 1111,11111111111;111/Cd

del111(11.112111S, social problem-solving programs have

BEST COPY AVAILABLE 21

reduced criminal conduct. After youthful offendersand their parents in one study were trained ininterpersonal and problem-solving skills, recidivismrates dropped to barely half those of a control pimp(21.3 percent versus 12.7 percent), and those whodid recidivate committed less serious offenses thandid recidivating control vouth.133

To lan and Guerra attribute these successes to theprograms' broad scope: "The efficacy of socialproblem-solving programs may he tied to the factthat they typically are more comprehensive in scopethan other cognitive interventions and frequentlyinclude training in self-control. anger management,perspective-taking, and attitude change134

Shock IncarcerationThe most popular approach in recent times nit.

straightening out wayward youth has been "shockincarceration: better known as hoot camps. Sincethe first :orrectional hoot camp opened in Okla-homa in November 1983, the idea has spread like awild fire. Today, 30 states and 10 localities operateNSA camps, as does the federal pwemment.136

"Born in the first wave of official desperation overhiioming prison populations in the 19-70.s and earl).80's. boot camps were supposed to take youngcriminals, most of them first-time offenders whowere engaged in nonviolent acts like burglary anddrug dealing, and shock them back into goodbehavior,' explains the .Vet' York Times. -Severalmonths of tough treatment, of minute-hy-minutesupervision by uncompromising drill instructors.would instill discipline and a desire never to repeatthe experience or, perhaps worse yet, he sentencedto a regular prison: 136

l'.nforturrately, the strategy does not work. Out-come research has consistently found that therecidivism rates of boot camp graduates are nobetter than those of convicts sentenced to tradi-tional prisons. Doris MacKenzie and Claire Souryalof the University of Maryland recently completedthe most comprehensive study to date. evaluatingthe hoot camp programs of eight states. "The impartof hoot camp programs on offender recidivism is athest negligible... they found.

Despite these chilling results, 1)11(it camps haveretained their popularity among lawmakers, fueledby countless newspaper and television accountsv hich \ ily perspiring, straining lawbreakers areendlessly drilled, routinely shouted at and un-equivocally required to undertake drug and alcoholrehaltilitation. do Nt 11()1)1\ ( ink .111(1 perform laborlike highway cleanup °137 But In Avever photogenicand politically appealing, hoot camps cannot es-

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cape their disappointing record. As the MacKenziestudy concluded: If success is me cured in terms ofrecidivism alone, there is little evidence that the in-prison phase of boot camp programs have beensuccessful.-138

Boot camps. apparent failure echoes the experi-ence of another popular intervention for young,first-time offenders: "Scared Straight." In that pro-gram, rather than being subjected to the rigors ofintensive physical training at the hands of a drillsergeant, young first-time offenders were beratedby adult convicts with the realities of prison life.Evaluations of Scared Straight found that the pro-gram actually increased the recidivism of participat-ing youth.136

From all evidence. it appears that juvenile offend-ers cannot he shocked into abiding the law: theycannot be scared straight. Scare-oriented programs"create more delinquency than they cure, sayscriminologist Mark Lipsey. "The idea of taking anacting-out adolescent and giving him a note modelfor verbal abuse and macho behavior scents to mea poor strategy:140

No one should delude themselves that this hootcamp, military drill instruction alone is going tostraighten everybody out,- New York State Assent-Hyman Daniel Feldman told the New York Times. "Ithought it would. A ICA Of us thought it would. Butit doesnt141 .

Psychotherapy and Other Counseling"Individual psychotherapy has traditionally been

a ccirnersnme of rehabilitative efforts with delin-quent youth,- report Guerra, Titian and liammond.142Yet, research has not found psychotherapy all&coke strategy for reducing delinquent behavior."When the treatment goals are global and vaguesuch as self-awareness) and when the treatment

description is similarly nonspecific and extremelybrief (such as providing a warm relationship withtb therapist and helping the delinquent achievein,ight into his her behavior), reductions in subse-quent delinquent helm\ ion are rarely achieved,"report Donald Gordon and lack Arbuthnot (if Ohio

'clic ersity.-143

In many cases. psychotherapy is offered in con-junction ith 'social casework.'' In effect, troubledyouth are assigned a social worker who bothprovides counseling and coordinates whatever so-cial services might be required. According to Tolanand Guerra:"Although this approach is a mainstayof juvenile justice and social services, the literatureindicates that it is not effecti) 1. in pre)enting ormitigating serious antisocial and violent hehavior,

34

even when s..rvices are carefully delivered andcomprehensive."144

Behavior Modification. Behavioral therapieshave also been used \videly in the treatment oftrouble -prone youthboth in schools to reinforceattendance, academic achievement and good class-room behavior. and by juvenile justice programs toreward positive behavior among youth in detentionor on prohation.

Research finds that these eff.tirts often producepositive results in the short term. Yet, as Gordon anclArbuthnot conclude, -Very few of the studiesdemonstrating successful behavior change haveshown reductions in recidivism, long-term mainte-nance of behavior change; or generalization acrossdifferent settings. Thus the individual behavioralapproaches offer only limited promises and direc-tions:145 Tolan and Guerra reach a similar conclu-sion: -One of the most common problems withclinic-based behavior modification programs hasbeen that treatment effects do not persist over timeafter reinforcement contingencies are withdrawn.and often there is a lack of generalization of theresults across settings.- 146

In one experiment where behavioral techniqueswere applied in a community setting, results didpersist over time. In this program, chronic delin-quents were paid by street-corner workers to partici-pate in discussions intended to recruit them out ofgangs and into more 'positive activities. Over thecourse of one year, participating offenders wereonly one-half as likely as the control group to hearrested, and three years after the interventionparticipants had significantly fewer arrests and hadspent significantly less time incarcerated than thecontrol group.'47

Peer Group Counseling. Another set of delin-quency treatments has Moused on shifting peergroup norms and recruiting at-risk adolescentsaway from deviant groups. The results have beenmostly disappointing. Probably the most %vide-spread approach to peer counseling has been a dailydiscussion group process called Guided GroupInteraction ((,GI). Evaluations in community-basedtreatment settings and juvenile institutions haveft GGI ineffective, while for participating highschool students GGI has actually worsened behav-iorincreasing lateness, "waywardness,- and self-reported delinquent behavior compared with a no-treatment control group. 148

One community-based treatment program hasused peer group counseling successitilly, but onlyw hen problem ,kli descents are grouped together

ith non-antisocial peers. In this "tit. Louis Experi-

merit," youth referred by schools and courts forbehavioral problems were placed in activity andcounseling groups. Some included only referredyouth; others mixed referred youth with non-re-ferred peers. Evaluators found that antisocial behav-ior decreased almost twice as much in the integratedgroups as the delinquent-only groupsthough eventhe integrated groups did not yield significantimprovements in behavior or lawfulness over a notreatment control group.'"

The record of interventions to recruit at-riskadolescents away from youth gangs or to influencegang members toward less antisocial activity is lessclear. What evidence exists is not promising, how-ever. In one study, 800 gang members were treatedto athletic and social events and provided academictutoring. Perhaps because these activities increasedthe amount cif time gang members spent together,the intervention actually led to more criminal behav-ior. "Although gangs have been identified as asignificant factor in adolescent violence,- Tolan andGuerra report, -very few data have supported theefficacy of interventions aimed at redirecting gangactivities or reducing recruitment of new gangmembers:15°

Two multi-dimensional preventive treatmentprograms, both involving schools, warrant mention.The first randomly assigned problem 7th graders inan urban school to treatment and control condi-tions. Over a two-year period, treated childrenreceived a broad battery of school-based supports,including daily monitoring, structured reinforce-ment for good behavior, biweekly teacher consul-tations, and periodic meetings with parents. At theend of the two years, treated youth showed signifi-cantly better grades and sclux)l attendance thancontrol youth. A year later treatment youth hadsignificantly lower rates of self-reported delinquentbehavior. Five years after program completion, bywhich time they averaged I9.5 years of age. treat-ment youth had committed fewer delinquent andcriminal offenses than control yOLII11.151

The second noteworthy intervention is the Posi-tive Adolescent Choices Training (PACT) programfla high-risk African American adolescents. In a

recent study, researchers randomly assigned 169adolescents to treatment and control groups, thenprovided treatment youth 20 one -hour trainingsessions on negotiation, compromise, and givingand taking criticism calmly. The program also used aseries of culturally sensitive videotapes on angermanagement. Three years alter the training, just 1-.6percent of PACT youth had been referred toimenik.court. compared with percent of coiltrot youth. Of th(ise referred, PACT youth were less

2 i

likely than controls to he charged with a violentof Tense.' 52

Rehabilitating JuvenileOffenders

by most people's definition, programs to rehabili-tate youthful offenders are not "prevention." Butthe fact remains, selecting the proper punishment orother disposition is one of society's best opportuni-ties to influence the conduct of young offenders.

Each year approximately 700,000 youth are sen-tenced to juvenile correctional facilities, and thepopulation of juveniles serving time in adult prisonsis almost 5(X),000.153 Recidivism rates for youthleaving juvenile facilities hover as high as 70 percentin some states.154 Thus. today's incarcerated juve-niles look very much like tomorrow's criminals.

just as important are the juvenile offenders notheld in custody. More than half of the million-plusyouth referred to juvenile court each year are nevercharged with an offense. Most are referred for minordelinquent offenses. Instead of being charged thesenonpetitioned youth are either dismissed (49 per-cent). placed on probation (29 percent), or orderedto some other disposition (22 percent). Likewise,many youth who are charged in juvenile court arenever tried. Even a majority who are tried end upwith probation or an alternative (non-prison) dispo-sition. Overall, just 9 percent of youth referred tojuvenile courts are sentenced to a detention Eta-ity.155

Providing meaningful supervision and effectivetreatment before these unincarcerated delinquentslapse into serious criminality represents a furtheropportunity for preventionperhaps the last bestchance both to protect the public and save younglives. Unfortunately, in most cases, this opportunk,is being missed.

Diversion and Other Treatments forUnincarcerated Juvenile Offenders

"The juvenile justice system is based on thenotions that juveniles are more capable of reformand less responsible for their actions than adults,"writes the Office of Technology Assessment. "Con-sequently, the concept of retribution and punish-ment might be expected to he less pronounced inthe juvenile justice system than it is in the adultcriminal justice system."156

True to this philosophy. i,o-called "diY ersion-pn)grains have long been a key element of juvenile

justice. By. their nature, these programs have severalimmediate benefits: they save taxpayers the heavycost of housing youth in correctional facilities; theyprotect youth from the stigma of a juvenile record;they allow youth to remain in school (and possiblywork as well); and they shield youth from exposureto a large population of deviant and delinquentadolescent peers.

Diversion programs also have potential to offerone more benefit as important as all the otherscombined: the opportunity to provide delinquentyouth the types of effective treatments detailed inthis reportfamily interventions, carefully designedcognitive skills training. and the like. Unfortunately,research shows that historically, this opportunityhas been foregone far more often than not.

Several past studies have found that, as a whole,diversion programs have not reduced the recidivismof delinquent youth. One study examined 44 diver-sion programs reported on between 1967 and 1983.They employed a wide variety of treatment tech-niques, including group psychotherapy, casework,behavior therapy, individual psychotherapy, andeducational/vocational guidance. The investigatorsreported that for these programs "diversion inter-ventions produce no effects.- A study of fourfederally-funded diversion projects from the sameperiodthese providing individual or group coun-seling plus access to other servicesrevealed thatthe projects were no more effective in stemmingdelinquent behavior than either court processing orrelease.157

Many scholars believe that the concept is soundbut that only it's implementation has fallen short."Most programs have provided some type of vaguely-formulated, mm-specific services, rather than theo-retically-driven and solidly-developed interven-tions," explain Guerra, Tolan and Hammond. -Per-haps the most critical feature of any intervention, theguiding rationale, has been virtually overlooked." 158

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These scholars point to a number of more recent,better-formulated diversion programs that have sig-nificantly reduced delinquent behavior among di-verted youth. One carefully evaluated 18-weekdiversion program provided delinquent youth in-tensive contact (6 -H hours per week) with collegestudent volunteers trained and supervised by gradu-ate students under the guidance of university fac-ulty. Participants in the program had lower arrestrates. than comparable control group youth as longas two years after program completion. These re-sults have been replicated in several studies, andKazdin concludes that this model "represents aviable and well-replicated intervention for reducingthe severity of dysfunction in youths apprehendedfor offenses.-159

Another program, "Family Ties" in New YorkCity, has found noteworthy success with nonviolentdelinquents referred from juvenile courts. Over arintensive -8 week intervention period, programcounselors (called "family preservationists-) trainyouths in social problem solving and anger manage-ment skills, provide parenting assistance, monitoryouths' school attendance and performance, andbroker a range of other public services for both theyouths and their families. A June 1993 programevaluation found that eight in ten program partici-pants remained uninvold in the juvenile justicesystem six months after treatment. Re-arrest, re-conviction and reincarceration rates for programyouth were less than half those in a comparisongroup.160

In addition to diversion, several other approachesto treating unincarcerated delinquents have alsohad a positive impact. One promising strategy isrestitution, where youthful offenders are orderedeither to repay their victims directly or perform aspecified period of service to the community. Astudy of restitution in Utah found that "recidivismis significantly lower when restitution is included inthe disposition of juvenile cases.- This positiveimpact held for informal (non-adjudicated ) cases aswell as formal court-ordered probation decrees. 161

Youth sentenced to intensive probation in lieu ofincarceration have been t:)und to have recidivismrates roughly equal to their peers who are incarcer-ated, and the crimes committed 1)y probation youthwho reoffend are typically less serious than thosecommitted by formerly incarcerated youth. Yet thecost of intensive supervision ($26 per day) is lessthan one-third the $88.54 per day cost of a juvenilejail e(niniiment.162 when probation officers 'in PucksCounty, Pennsylvania were relocated to work di-rectly in schools, the academic performance ofprobation youth improved 22 percent and absentee-

ism dropped 29 percent. The number of in-schooland out-of-school suspensions declined dramati-callv.163

For serious delinquents (with a mean of 18 prioroffenses including 11.5 felonies), the Florida Envi-ronmental Institute (FED provides an intensive 1H-month rehabilitation program based in the FloridaEverglades. The program includes four phases: a 3-5 day outdoor orientation experience, an initialphase of work projects and education while youthsleep in a non-air conditioned military-stvle elormi-tory: a second phase where they move to an air-conditioned, military-style dormitory with televi-sion and begin to earn money toward restitution orsavings; and a final phase of intensive after-care inthe youths' home communities. Evaluations findthat FEL participants have far lower recidivism ratesthan youth assigned to training schools (45 percentversus 60 percent). even though 80 percent of thetraining school youth have criminal records lessserious than the FEI participants.'

Another promising (hut controversial) approach,"VisionQuest,- offers a year-long series of outdooradventures as an alternative to traditional incarcera-tion. The controversy emanated from allegations oftough treatment of youth at the hands of programstaff combined with injuries suffered by youthduring storms and other emergencies. An indepen-dent evaluation by the RANI) Corporation foundthat VisionQuest participantsdelinquent youthfrom San Diego with a mean age of 16.3 years andan average of 8.4 prior arrestshad a lower recidi-vism rate (55 percent) than youth sell ing time in aSan Diego County work camp (71 percent), sen-tenced to California Youth Authority training schools(88 percent), or released into community treatmentprograms (68 percent). 165

Community vs. InstitutionalDetention

The final piece of the delinquency preventionpuzzle involves reducing the future criminality ofthe million-plus youth who are in custody. Foryouth who have already amassed a long record ofserious and violent offending, rehabilitation maynot be a realistic goal. For them, if they are notlocked away for life under a "three strikes and1'01.1.1*C MI laws, the only hope may he that theywill mature out of their violence, as many do asthey grow older.

But the striking fact is that only a small proportionof y oath serving in juvenile or adult letention havebeen convicted of violent crimes. According to arecent study examining the juvenile corrections

systems of 28 states, only I4 percent of new admis-sions to juvenile corrections were youth convictedof serious violent crimes. Over half the youth incustody were committed for property or drug crimesand were experiencing their first confinement to astate institution.166 Even among youthful offenderssentenced to adult prisons. only 38 percent wereconvicted of crimes against persons (as opposed toproperty or drug crimes). and not all of theseinvolved the threat or use of serious violence.167

Given the high per capita costs of juvenile incar-ceration and the alarming recidivism rates, suchextensive detention of nonviolent youth may wellhe counterproductive. In fact. :Massachusetts lead-ers' decided just that in 1972 when they closed thestates' juvenile training schools and replaced themwith a continuum of community -based programsoffering a full spectrum of care as well as aftercaresome secured with locked doors and guards, othersnot.

Today, Massachusetts reserves its secure treat-ment beds mainly for a relatively small number ofchronic violent offenders; they are confined therefor an average of 8-12 months. After that period,these youth can he transferred to community -basedprograms so long as they abide by explicit "condi-tions of liberty." For juvenile offenders without arecord of chronic violence, the stay in secureconfinement is generally shorter before transfer toone of a range of a non-secure community treatmentfacilities. Misconduct by these youth can result intransfer either to a guarded facility or a morestructured community program.

This less restrictive approach to juvenile deten-tion, often combined with restitution, has not led tohigher crime. Less than 1 percent of persons arrestedin the state are youth in the care of the juvenilejustice system. and recidivism rates of Massachusettsjuvenile offenders are as low as or lower than thoseof most other states. More telling. Massachusetts'overall juvenile crime rate remains one of the lowestin the nation.168 Meanwhile, the states' costs toprovide this structured, community-based treat-ment system are estimated to be $11 million lessthose of operating correctional training schools.'

Though the Massachusetts juvenile justice systemexperienced some clinic ulties in the early 1990s dueto budget cuts and overcrowding,17° several states(Utah, Penns\ Ivania, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Okla-homa, and others) have begun to follow Massachu-setts' lead and close their training schools. Prelimi-nar data indicates that they too are experiencinglower recidivism and juvenile crime."'

In a recent report. Michael Jones and BarryKrisberg of the National Council on Crime andDelinquency listed the ingredients required foreffective treatment of violent youth in custody :continuous case management. close attention to thehome and community environment. clear and con-sistent consequence, fcir misconduct, enriched aca-demic and vcfcational programming. and family andpersonal counseling matched to the particular needsof the adolescent.'

The similarities between that list and the charac-teristics of programs that have prox en successfulwith other delinquent youth are striking. For troubledyouth, just as for the general youth population andthose more or less at risk, the basic ingredients ofeffective delinquency prevention are the same: fairand consistent discipline, opportunity for growthand development, and sustained access to caringadults.

Toward the FutureThe preceding pages have highlighted the prom-

ise of many emerging or established strategies tocurb the criminality of young people. Their promiseis real. It represents the best hope for America tocombat the persistent curse of violence and crime.

These pages have also documented the failure ofseveral prevention strategies and treatment pro-grams to limit adolescent misconduct. That factshould not be minimized.

"Although many pr'ogr'ams have demcmstratedpositke impact." Kazdin writes, "several humblingexceptions are available in prevention research ingeneral where programs have not worked or havedemonstrated deleterious effects."' In fact, thoughthe state of the art in prevention advanced consid-erably in recent years, many delinquency preven-tion efforts have been strung together on limitedbudgets by individuals unaware of emerging find-ings in prevention research and lacking both thefunding and the inclination to evaluate their pro-grams rigorously.

-V'ell-intentioned efforts are being applied tomany c hildren and adolescents without any indica-tion of their effects," explain Tolan and Guerra. 'Itis usually hard to imagine that a good idea put intoaction by well meaning and enlightened peoplecannot help... Also. given that adolescent violenceis such an injurious social problem. it may seem thatany effort is better than nothing. Yet our re% iew andseveral of the more long -terns and sophisticated-analyses suggest that both of these assumptionsmay be dangerously \' rang... Evaluation is urgentlyneeded to help us soif out what is helpful, what is

3

harmless but ineffectiv e, and what cvill actuallymake the problem wors,-"4 the conclude.

This issue ought not dampen enthusiasm for thecause of prevention. Rather, it only underscores thefact that. time and again. the prevention and intervention strategics that have proved successful arccarefully tailored. informed by research, and effec-tively implemented. AVe believe the key to realprogress in adolescent violence is to obtain a solidempirical base,- Tokm and Guerra argue. Thisneed for an empirical base does not imply thataction should wait. The need for research is sourgent became there currently are so many pro-grams affecting so many adolescents, families.schools, and cimmlimitics at such large cc)st andoperating under the aura of much promise."5

Violence in America is an epidemic. But unlikeother public health emergencies, there has been nonational commitment to research its causes andcures. In 1993. the National Research Council esti-mazed that federal funding for research on violencetotalled only S29 million per yearjust S31 for eachyear of life lost due to violence. That compares toS-9-t spent on cancer research for each year of lifelost. S-44 I for research on cardiovascular diseases,ancl S69- for research on AIDS.176

Careful design. rigorous implementation, andcontinuous refinement of delinquency preventionand treatment pn)grams. comhined ith sounde\ aluation and research, offers America's brightesthope to contain the crime epidemic and perhapseven begin to bring it under control.

Notes

3C

"` Less intensive early childhood interventionshave not demonstrated long -teen impacts, how-ever. Head Start programs-which generally last onlyone year and arc taught by less skilled instructorsthan the Perry Preschool program- -have shownsubstantial immediate impacts on intellectual andsocial developments, but long -term evaluations findthat these effects do not sustain themselves mei-time. (Source: r.S. Department of Health and Hu-man tier i< es, hupact of Head Start on children.Families. (ilia Onnmuniiies. head .Shirt Svnihesi.%Project. 198.1

**** For example. see the Appendix for a NationalLeague of Cities survy of municipal leaders thatgives high priority to employment training foryouth.

***** A J: )1) Cur v. evaluation using data from theIcnts found a N percent earnings gain. "significantreduction in serious (felony I crime." a large in-crease in (;1I) attainment, doubled college enroll-ment, and a social benefits return of S1.46 per dollarin\ ested. Cited in I'. S. Department of labor, Officeof the ( hid' Economist. What's tVw-king (and

.\(v)(W.,hington, 1).C. January 19911.

Conclusion

perhaps the greatest irony of the current fun u-over crime is that in absolute terms, crimerates have not been at an historic high in the

I 9 9 0 s . O erall crime rates have continued to declinefrom their all-time record in 1981, and violentcrime--though rising in recent vearsremains be-low the records set in 1981. The percentage ofAmerican households victimized by crime in 1992was the lowest since that measure was intoc'uceclin 19-5.177

This is not to say that the nation's crime problemisn't m!ri, usor growing more worrisome in impor-tam respects. Increasingly. the victims of violentcrime in America are youth. While the nation'soverall homicide rate has held steady in recentyears, the number of teenagers murdered hassoaredmore than doubling since 1988.178 liarcleris now the leading cause of death among blackmales ages 15-24. and it is the second leading causeof death among white males 15 and 24.178

Contrary to popular perception, this alarmingtrend is not clue to a substantial increase in thenumber olviolent by youth. Accord-ing to Delbert Elliott, "About the same proportionof youth are committing serious violent offensestoday as in 1980 and their frequency of offending isapproximately the same.- The difference today isthat "\ iolent acts are more lethal.'' Elliott finds."Ancl this dramatic increase in lethality is explainedalmost entirel\ by the increased use of handguns in

In a recent survey by the National Institute ofJustice, 22 percent of inner city high school studentsreported owning a gun, ind two to three times thatmany reported that a family member or a friendowned one.181 This widespread availability of fire-arms has had dramatic effects: the number ofmurders by jti en iles using guns jumped -9 percentin the past decade, .ncte:i1tirc.(0c\ir\fc1tinurders byAs one reporter explained, -An assault h\ a youngthug that might have produced bruises 10 years agois more likely to result in a gun.hot wound ordeathand c onsequentl) and arresttoday.183

The a\ ailahility uf firearms is heyond the scope ofthis report, of course. So too is the rampant g ioleneeill wit\ Isis n that ( ontrihtits directlto vi, )lent and antimg, \ for hyMI11111.11 vie \\ Cr,

2K

Yet these issues ought not he ignored completelyin a thoughtful review of the crime problem, be-cause they illustrate once more a central truth aboutcrime: The propensity of individuals to commitviolent and antisocial offensesand the likt lihoodthat each of us will be victimizeddepends onmuch more than law enf(ircement and criminal

Effective policing and a competent and surecriminal justice system are essewial to public safety.

IM,1 be engaged with police inidentifying and apprehending chronic criminals.And serious violent offenders, particularly, must belocked away for long stretches. Yet the evidence isclear: On their own, these law and order effortsstand little chance of sparing Americans the anxietyof suffering with the developed world's highestviolent crime rates.

The environment that surrounds youththe fam-ily, school, community. and media influences thathelp shape them in childhood, the presence or lackof sustained guidance from caring adults, the avail-ability Of positive recreational, educational, anddevelopmental opportunitiesare also crucial indetermining whether young people remain on theright side of the law.

For the most part, young people do not a\ oidcrime from fear of punishment, for the most part.They avoid crime out of respect for themselves,concern 1-(ir (Alters, a belief in their future prospectsand an internal sense of personal and public Irk ital-ity. Developing this internalized morality, fosteringin young people the skills and the will to avoidcrime, is the business of the whole community andthe key to youth-oriented crime prevention.

In some detail, this report has reviewed theeffectiveness of many prevention approaches. Bothamong preventive programs for the general youthpopulation and more targeted treatments for youthalready engaged in delinquent or trouble- slakingbehaviors, it hasfOund substantial pounds for op-timism. Nfany strategies show c1 insiderable protium.to rduce crime.

1(..search and evaluation must play .1 central rolein the de\ elopmettt of preetttion programs ands\ stems. Pnigram outcomes must he continuallymonitored to ensure that our ells itts an. doing somemore good than harm, ancl to tailor and re-tailor

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

4 0

efforts to the specific needs of their target popula-tions.

At the national level, we should undertake anextensive research program to refine knowledgeabout what works, why, and for whom? Muchremains to he learned about effective crime preven-tion. Available evidence suggests that indiscrimi-nate expenditures do little good. But we do knowenough to move forwardand certainly the need isurgent.

The time has come for America to use itssecond arm in the struggle for safety, to pro-vide the criminal justice the support it needs tocombat crime effectively. Prevention is thatother arm.

41

Research Notes

Congres Numal Record, August 12. 1994, 1.511390.

2. C("ign'"it mat M'coal. August I I. 199- 1-11"9-t53. lhott, Delbert S., "Serious Violent Offenders: Onset,Development, Course. and Terminatkin-the American Societyof Criminology 1993 Presidential Address... Crtmino logr, vol. 32,no 1. 1994 and Federal Bureau of Inc estigation, Cnme ut the

',Med State% /991: 1 'n 1.1 urn, Crum, Mynas, (W nt. . 1)C.: U.S.

Department of Justice. 1994).4. I let Ringer. Fred, "Sava,g Youth Fri m Violence." (.arnetneQuailed)', V'inter 1994, p.2.5. "Comprehensive Stratcw, for Serious, Violent, and ChronicJun elide Offenders.- U.S. Department tit...Justice Office of JuvenileJustice and Delinquent y Prevention. Decemher 1993, pp.5-6 andF.B.I. / ,rm Crime Reports 1993.'6. National Youth Survey, cited in Elliott, Delbert S.. "Y nal)Violence: an Overciew." Centel for the Study and Prevention ofViolence. University of Colorado. March 1994: and Elliott. DelbertS., "Serious Violent Offenders..."

Elliott. "Youth Violence." and Office of TechnologyAssessment. Ado/escort Health, Volume It Background and the

lffikliveneA,qf Pivivntion and Theannent (Washing".DC: Government Printing Office. November 19911. p.596.8. Sampsc in. Rohen J. and Charles Laub. Cme ire the Makntg.Pathayc and Turning prod., Tyyry.t!Ir Life (Cambridge. MA:Ilarvard l'fli\ersity Press. 1993). p.11.9. SI:thy, Ronald G.. "Development of Psychology Mediatorsof Violence in I .rhan Youth." in Inner City omtrihntirntsIoVirden( e, J. McCord (Ed.), prepublication cop). (New York:Oxford Universit Press, in press).10. For discussion of deveh,pinniai pathway, to violence. seeluizinga. I /avid, Rolf Locher, and Terence P. Thomberry, I ',hailI> e 'liarlta'ncpand.SttbstanceAbuse Initial Fouling\ 1.1.S. Depart-ment of lustier Office of ltnenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention, March 1994; Elliott, "Serious Violent Offenders-.(Alice of Technology Assessment, Adolescent Health; and 51;11)y,`Development of Psychological Mediators....I I. Cited in Sampson and Laub. p.11.12. Dryloosjoy (1...4thilescents.-1/ Rink- Prenden(e and Prennl.n nil (New York: Oxford University Press. 199(1), [1).38-39.13. Study by McCord (1983). cited in Wsright, Kec in N. andKaren E. Wright. tinnily I 'fr. flelinquency. and Come: .4Poitcvmaker..s Guide, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juve-nile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. May 1994. p.I8.14. V'right and Wright. p.19.15. Office of Technology Assessment, p.605.16. Brian Minty, cited in \Vright & Wright. p.I3.I- Anderson. Elijah. The Code of the Streets." Atlanta May199-1.

18. Howell. James C. "Recent Gang Research: Program andPolicc Implications." Crime and Delinquency, October 1991.19. Fill itt, "Youth Violence."20 I ini/inga, 1.4wher. Thomben-y, p.16.21. Elliott, 'Youth VIC knee."22. Thornherry. Terence I'.. Melanie Mix ire. and R.I.. Christenson,"The Fflet t of Dropping Out of High St. 'tool on SubsequentCriminal Behavior." Criminology, vol. 23, no. 5, 1985.23 Slaby, "Development of Psychological Mediators..."24. Offkefi Technology Assessment. p.616.25. I lawk`Ms.1),n id I., and Richard Catalano, (.0nummittec thatCan, Rtk-lifc used Prez cotton I :stag Nu' `'c cal Der vloInnent .Wrategv. (tic attic . A: Developmental Research and Programs, Inc,1993.)26. slaby. "I k.c elopment of l'ssrhologte,l Mediators. pp 22-23.2" I lawkins and Catalano.

28 Congressional Record, August 11, 1994, p.1 r942.29. CongressUMal ReCnrd August 11, 1994, p.11'95(1.30. Con,wymioned Reowd, August 12. 1994, 1.511391.31. /bid32. Petersiliajoan, "Crime and Punishment in California: FullCells. Empty Pockets, and Questionable Benefits,- CPC Br k./.(Berkeley: CahlOrnia Policy Seminar). May 1993.33. Cited in Petersilia, p.7.34. uminvssional Record, August 1 1. 1994, 1.11'959.35. Petersilia, p.-.36. Cited in Petersilia, p.-.3'. Roth, Jeffrey A., "Understanding and Preventing Vio-lence." Research yr limy; National Institute of Justice. February199 -i. p.5.38. /but39. Petersilia,40. Anderson. p1.86$8.4I. Petersilia. p.9.-12. Anderson.3. Glazer. Sarah. "Juc (mile Justice: Should Violent Youths GetTimgher Punishments?" CQ ReceanIter. February 25, 1994. p.1-2.

Itc.)th, p.5.45. Petersilia, 1.8.46. (bid., p.10.

Glazer. p.1"4.Petersilia, p.8.

49. /hut., p.10.50. Sampson and Laub. p.255.

Cheatwood. Derral. "Capital Punishment and the Deter-rence of Violent Crime in Comparable Communities," CriminalPolite Reelt% vol. 18, Ill,. 2. August 1993.52. Office of Technology Assessment, p.634. and Jones, hadA.. and Barry Krisherg. Images and Wahl). im.enile Crime. Iota!)I'io /eru'e. and Pub/it folic y. (San Francisco, CA: Nati, inal Councilon Crime and Delinquency, June 19941, p.32.53. Jones and Krisberg, p.26.54. (a.tzer. 11.1'6 - I,'.

1( mes and Krisl erg. p.26.56. Ibid., p.32.i-. Data from the Corrections Compendium. Telephoneconversation with the audio,.58 Petersilia, p.II.59. Hawkins and Catalano.60. American Psychological Association Commission on Vio-lence and Youth, 1714/4414 ea/k/ 1.44/14/4: I V4 4/4 RCA/hi/LW V1)1.

I (Washington. DC: American Psychological Association, 1993).

61. Zeldin, Shepherd and lit Spivak, l'io/ence Prerentunimu! Youth flrelopment !mph( atumsfin- Alech«el (.71111( tats andCOMMUndy Health Omani-zillions (Washington, DC: Academyfor Educational Devflopment. 1993). p. I0.62 Martinson, cited in I.ipse, Mauls W.. los enile DelinquencyTreatment: A Nleta-Analytic Inquiry into the Val iahility of Effects:.1Iela-Analr.ses Explanaltno, Cook el al., yds. ( New York:Russell Sage Foundation, 1992), 1.8-463. Greenberg, cited in64. Kazdin, Alan E., -Interventions rut Aggressive and Anti-

icial Children," in Reason to litiji AP.9.chncot la/Pe/vet ittr nnl'inleme and Frun, J.11. (ent!), and P. Schlegel (Eds.)twahingt,m. ix:. American Psychological A,,,ianim. 1991).11.353.

65 High St opt' Educational Resean h Foundation. .Sigmli«itil

141:1( Perrr /'rest him(' .Snair 'Ugh 1.1;4' 2-*

Ml. 1993).

4

66 Study cited in Yoshikawa, Hirokazu, "Prevention as Cumu-lative Protection: Effects of Early Family Support and Educationon Chronic Delinquency and its Risks," Psychological Bulletin,vol 115, no. I, 1994, pp.28-54.67. Cited in Yoshikawa, ibid.68. Yoshikawa; and McDonald, Gregory J., "Reducing YouthVic ilence: Coordinating Federal Efforts and Early InterventionStrategies Could Help," testimony before the Committee onGovern' cent Affairs, U.S. Senate, March 31, 1992.69. Lipsey, p.97.-(t. ibid., p.123.-l. Vanneman, Alan, "Anatomy of a Mugging: How the RightWing Made Midnight Basketball the Willie boron of the CrimeBill. Youth Today, November/l)ecember 1990, pp.40+.72. Quotations cited in Vanneman.73. Beyond Fun and Guru's: Emeqing Roles Public Re( rt,(Won (Arlington, VA: National Recreation and Parks Association,1994), p.15.'74. Callahan, Torn, "The Game Starts at Midnight," ParadeAlagazine, April 10, 1994, pp.I7-18.75. Shinke, Peter P., Mario A. Orlancli, and Kristin C. Cole."Boys & Girls Clubs in Public Housing Developments: PreventionServices for 'Youth at Risk,"purna/ qifCammunity Psycho/0,u.OSAP Special Issue, 1992.76. Webster, Daniel \('., "The Unconvincing Case for School-Based Conflict Resolution Programs for Adolescents," HealthAffairs, Winter 1993, pp.126-141.77. "Peer Review," in Health Affairs, Fall 1994, pp.163-177.'8. Posner, Marc, "Research Raises Troubling Questions AboutViolence Prevention Programs." I lartard Education Letter May'June 1994, p.179. "Peer Review," in Health Affairs, p.163.80. Posner, p.3.81. belong, William, "School-Based Violence Prevention:From the Peaceable School to the Peaceable Neighhorhood,"orunt, National Institute for I )ispute Resolution. no. 25, Spring

1994,151).8-1.5.82. "Resolving Conflicts Creatively Program: 1988-1989," SUM-mary of Significant Findings ( New York: Metis Associates. Inc.,Ma 1990).83. Wilson-Brewer. Renee, Stu Cohen, Lydia O'Donnell andIrene F. Goodman, Vio/encePrerentionji/r /OungAdo/esc err/A: A

SuireyoltheStateolthe Ad (Washington, DC: Carnegie Councilon Adolescent Development, September 1991), pp.28-30.8 I. I 'cc-flinger. P.7.85. 'It ilan, Patrick and Nancy Guerra, 114;a1 IV/irks AtRe& wit ig

Adolescent l'iolence: An Empirical Review (Obi, Field (Boulder,CO: Center for the Study and Prevention olViolencejuly 1994),p.33.86. I )ryfi ous, p.136.87. Webster, p.138.88. Posner, pp.3-4.89. Ur; fool, pp. 235-236.90. Berlin, Gordon in and Andrew Sum. %inn/rel a Alon, Perk('buon: Basic Skills, Poor Families. and Our Economic FutureNew York: Ford Foundation, 1988), p.43.

91. /bid, p.48.92. \Vine. Ann Dryden. .S'or. la! Benefits uJ I:ducal:on crime(draft ), paper prepared for conference on Social Benefits ofEducation: Can They Be NleasurecP U.S. I )epaninent of EducationOffice of Research, 8-9 September 1994, p.32.93. Dryfi HY., p.139.9. Hahn, Andrew. with Tom Leavitt and Paul Aaron, Et ahra/ion n /' the Quantum Opportunities Proivam (QOM: Did theProgram Witrk) I Waltham, MA: Center for Human Resources,Brandeis Ilniversity, June 1994 ).95. I Cryloos, p.205; and Lincoln. Carol and Richard Mendel,GuidotgChildrot toSttc«tss: What Si hoot% and CommuntnesCan

winpanionpublic ation Iodic telecast, "Making the AmericanDream 'Work for Our Children: A New Vision of School Guid

4

ante" (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Educational Television,1990), pp.1,2.96. Huizinga, Locher, and Thornherry, p.19.97. Witte, p.10.98. Wilson, William Julius, TheTndynisadrYtnicced; The InnerCity, the 14tderclass, and Public. Policy (Chicago: Ilniversity ofChicago Press, 1987.)99. Kazdin, p.367.100. Hawkins and Catalano.101. lib,/th, Dale A. with Eugene C. Rohlkepartain, HealthyCommunities, Healthy lOuth: How Communilies Contribute tol'itsitive Youth Oevehonent,(Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute,1993). P-5;102. /bid.103. Beyond Fun and Games, pp.21-23.104. "T-CAP RECAP," National Crime Prevention Council, Sum-mer 1994; additional data provided by Theresa Kelly, NCPC.1(15. Hawkins and Catalano.106. Youth bi.S'emice, Bulletin of the National Teens, Crime, andCommunity Program (Washington, DC: National Crime Preven-tion Council, September 1994); additional program informationprovided by "heresa Kelly, NCPC.107. inform akin on Youth As Resources, including data fromthe 1992 evaluation conducted by PSI. and Associates, Inc.,provided by David Yates, NCPC.108. Calhoun, Jack, "An Invitation to Adult Citizenship," Balti-more Sun, February 9. 1993.109. Calhoun, ohn A., -Youth As Resources in the Fight AgainstDrags," Aid/ma/arkRetleut, INovemher/December 1990, p.490.110. Interview with Stanley Pollack, Founder and ExecutiveDirector, Center for the Development of Teen EmpowermentPrograms.111. Gorov, Lynda, "600 City Youth Seek End to Violence,"Boston Globe, May 1, 1994; and Comandini, Michele, "South EndRivals March to Fight Gang Violence," Boston Globe, August 28,199.112. "The Bonds of Youth to Community," (editorial) BostonGlobe, June 12, 1994.113. Edelman, Peter, Philip Heymann, and Madelaine Kunin,-Report to the President and the Domestic Policy Council fromthe Interdepartmental Working Group on Violence," January1994, p.-i5.114. CroninAcherta, hounatiltCommunityParoterships: Work-ing litgetherf or change, RS. De partment ul I List ice. Office ofJuvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. May 1994, pp.11-18.

115. /bid_ pp.18-25.116. Kazdin, p.372.117. Guerra, Nancy G., Patrick II. Tolan, and W. Rodneylammond, "Prevention and Treatment of Adolescent Violence,"

in Reason to Mope: A Psrchosocial Perspective oil I 'iolence andYouth, (Washington. DC: American Psychological Association,1994), pp.385-88.118. Ibid., pp.386,389.119. Office of Technology Assessment, p.637.120. Studies by Alexander, Parsons, and Klein (1973, 1977),cited in Icazdin, pp.364.121. Study by Barton el al. (1985), cited in Guerra, Tolan, andI lammond, p.398.122. Study by Wehster-Stratton, Kulp:wolf, and llollingsworth( 1988), cited in Kazdin, pp.362-63.123. Study by Nlarlowe el at (1986), cited in Gordon andArbuthnot, p.309.12.1. Henggeler, Sc ctt W., Gary I. Melton, and Smith, "FancilyPreservation Ilsing NIukisystemic Therapy: An Effective Alterna-tive to Incarcerating Serious Juvenile Offenders," Journal ofConsulting curt! Psychology, v(4.60, no. 6, 1992, pp.953961.125. Tol,m and Catena. p.-18 -0).126. Kaidin, p.360.

im

( iuerra, Nancy G. and 12( maid G. Slaby. "Cognitive ledia-tors of Violence in Adolescent Offenders," Developmental PNy(bolo/;)', vol. 26, IN ).2, 1990, pp.269-270.128. Study by Chandler (19"3). cited in GuOrrtt. Tolan, andlia mint mcl, p.396.129. Study by Arbuthnot and ( lordon (19861, cited in Tolan andGuerra. p.19.130. Goldstein, Arnold P., Barry Glick, Nlary Jane Irwin, ClaudiaPask-McCartney. and Ibrahim Rubama. Reducing Deli nquency:Interreitilim Ur the Communily (New York: Pergamon Press,19891.

131. Study by Collingwood and Genthner (198)1. cited inGordon and Arbuthnot, p.298.132. Tolan and Guerra, p.22.133. Described in Kazdin, p.361.134. Iola', d Guerra. p.20.135. Nossiter, Adam. As Boot Camps for Criminals Multiply.Skepticism Grows," ,\i'/. York limes, December 18, 1993. pp.I,9.136. ibid.137. Nossiter.138. MacKenzie, Doris L. and Claire Sotu-yal, AluiticiteEvaina.non ty'Sbock Incarceration, Washington. DC: National Instituteof Justice, November 1994. p.3(1.139. Lipsey, pp.123-124.140. Cited in Glazer, p.175.141. Fisher, Ian, "Prison Boot Camps Prove No Sure Cure,- NewYork nines. April 10. 1994. pp.37,43.142. Guerra. Tolan, and flammond, p.395.143. Gordon, I )onald A., "Individual, Group. and Family Inter-entions," Ilandhookt fbirenile Delinquency, I lerbert C. Quay,

ed. (New York: Wiley, 1987), pp.294-295.144. Tolan and Guerra, pp. 2.4, 15.145. Gordon and Arbuthnot. p.295.146. Tolan and Guerra, p.16.147. Studies by Schwitzel eta (1964), cited in 'Eolan and Guerra,p.17.148. Tolan and Guerra, p.31.149. Study by Feldinan ( 1992), cited in Tolan and Guerra .1)1).31-32.150. Tolan and Guerra, pp.32-33.151. Studies by Bn and George (19-9, 1980,Kazdin, pp.355-56.152. Guerra, -Bilan, and Ilamnumd, p.390.153. Office of Technology Assessment, p.629.154. Krisberg, Barry. James Austin, and Patricia A. Steele.'nlocking Juvenile Corirctiuns (San Francisco, CA: National

Crime Prevention Council, 1989),11.19.155. I him cited in Office of Technology Assessment, p.627.156. Office of Technology Assessment, p.632.15". Studies by ( Iensheimer el al. ( 1986 ) and I )unford, Osgood.and Weichselbaut n (1982), cited in Guerra.n Atm. and Ifammond,pp.392.158. Guerra, Tolan, and I lammond. p.392.159. Studies by 1)avidson and colleagues ( 198', 1988). cited inKazdin, p.357.160. Collier, Walter V. and Robert II. 1 till, Duni!). Tie IntensiveDun 0.PIrSeri y Won , \C111( ProgniM An Et Mtn/font /A/ton. NewYork City Department of Juvenile Justice, June 1993.161. Butts, Jeffrey A. and I loward N. Snyder, "Restitution andJuvenile Recidivism.- U.S. Department of Justice Office ofJuvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Septemher 1992.162. Office of Techm)logy Assessment. p.637.163. Sillery, Jack, -Bucks County School Based ProbationProjet t,- P(:(.7/Quartetly, Pennsylvania Cc munission on Crime1)elitutuency, vol. 8, no. 2. Spring 'Stu nmer 1994.164. Weaver, Robert S.. "The Last Chan( Ranch: The FloridaEnvironmental Institute Program rot Chronic and Violent Ito entle( )flenders,"Pnwynn.gor S'eruttn.and l'to/engurettlleOffintden( Ann A rINic M1.1 'niversitv of mit lugan Regents. November 1989),pp 2-_39

1982), cited in

;2

16S. Greenwood, Peter \X'. and Susan Turner, The isn't/01es!Program An El Milani »t,tianta NIonica,CA: RANI) Corporation.November 1987.166. Jones and Krisberg. p.27.167. /bid, p.33.168. Krisberg, Austin, and Steele.169. Junes and Krisherg.170. Flynn, Sean, "Juvenile Justice in Massachusetts: Model orMess?," January': February 1995, p.40.171. Krisherg, Austin, and Steele.1-'2. Jones and Krisberg. p.39.173. Kazdin, p.358.171. Tolan and Guerra, p.54.17S. lbid., pp.53-54.1"6. Tulin and Guerra, pp.61-62.177. Broiler, David S., "Crime Scare.- 1V-itshinginn Po.q, January26, 199 .178. Elliott, "Youth Violence.-179. Wilson-Brewer, Cohen, O'Donnell, and Goodman. p.2.180. Elliott, "Youth Violence.-181. Sheley. Joseph F.. and James D. Wright, "Gun Acquisitionand Possession in Selected Juvenile Samples." Mwearch in Brig/.National Institute of Justice, December 1993.182. Glazer. p.171.183. find., p.1'2.

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APPENDIX

Alter the completion of this report, the National League of Cities published its annual survey of municipalofficials. "Assuring public safety" was among the three highest priorities of the 383 elected municipal officials(drawn from a random sample in cities with populaticms of 10,000 or more) who responded to the survey.

Relevant to Richard Nlnders study are the municipal leaders' beliefs about the measures most likely toimpn we public safety. According to Nation's Cities Vreekly (January 23, 1995), these officials expressed a strongpreference for "a mix (y strategies designed to achieve desired outcomes instead of focusing strictly onenforcement or prevention. (Emphasis added.) The most preferred policy--strengthening and supportingfamily stability, selected by 64 percentreflects a growing sentiment that public safety needs to be consideredin a much broader context than traditional anti-crime solutions."

'Flue policies and programs believed by municipal officials in the NLC survey as most likely to reduce crimeare:

Strengthening and supporting family stability 63.6%

Jobs and targeted economic development 48.4%

More police officers 39.8%

After-school programs 33.0%

Neighborhood Watch programs 33.0%

More police foot patrols 32.2%

School-to-Work programs 31 .rh,

More recreational programs 30.4%

Early childhood education (e.g. Head Start) 29.8%

Reintroducing punishment into schools 18.1%

Mandatory sentencing 17.8%

Conflict resolution programs 17.03/o

Court/bail reform 16.8%

Funding of drug treatment 14.9%

Boot Camps 13.1%

Citizens reporting crime 12 (Pio

Gun control 11.8%

Elimination of parole 9.9%

Building more prisons 8.4%

More death penalties 8.1%

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