Examining the Long-Term Effects of Afterschool Programming on Juvenile Crime: A Study of the LA’s BEST Afterschool Program

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which participation in a large urban afterschool program had an impact on reducing participants' future juvenile crime rate. The research tracked the academic and juvenile crime histories for a sample of 6,000 students, including 2,000 participants in LA's BEST and 4,000 matched control students not participating in the program. Multilevel propensity scores were used to match control to treatment students, and applied to multilevel longitudinal models and multilevel survival analyses methods to analyze the data. Results indicate that LA's BEST positively impacted the probability of juvenile crime. Furthermore, analyses indicated that students who were actively and intensely engaged benefited the most from the program.