The Effect of a Juvenile Diversion Program On Rearrests

Abstract

Authors' Note: The authors are indebted to Jonathan Peck, president, and Michael Cahn, director of operations, of Learning Systems, Inc., as well as to David Vinikoor and Peter Parrado, directors of JSP during the period covered by this evaluation.Four hundred thirty-six participants, ages 12 to 16, in a pretrial intervention project were compared to an equivalent group of 132 cases who were treated by whatever other means were available to the juvenile justice system. The experimental group incurred significantly fewer rearrests over an average exposure period of 311 days. Differential results were obtained for subgroups of the experimentals, and certain factors were also found to be predictive of outcome. arious approaches to the diversion of juveniles from the criminal justice system have been advocated and a variety of these have been implemented. While evaluation of these efforts has also been advocated, the criteria for success and the evaluative designs have differed widely. This paper reports on the effects of a diversion program on rearrest experience of participants and of an equivalent control group.

The course of aggression in first-grade children with and without comorbid anxious symptoms

“…The Yes responses are counted to deter mine a Total Anxiety score. The R-CMAS has demonstrated good internal consistency and there is evidence supporting construct validity (Reynolds and Richmond, 1985). For the Total Anxiety score, the median reliability estimate was .82 (range .79 to .85).…”

“…The R-CMAS (Reynolds & Richmond, 1985) is a 37-item, self-report instrument designed to assess the level and nature of anxiety in children and adolescents from 6 to 19 years old. The child responds to each statement by marking a Yes or No answer.…”

“…For the Total Anxiety score, the median reliability estimate was .82 (range .79 to .85). Stability coeffi cients for the Total Anxi ety score ranged from .98 for a 3-week interval to .68 for a 9-month interval (Reynolds & Richmond, 1985).…”

“…Importantly, however. Quay and Love (1977) found a self-report measure of anxiety-withdrawal received a greater weight in predicting recidivism.…”

“…More recently, utilizing a sample of 177 school-aged boys, referred to one of three uni versity-based outpatient clinics, Walker et al (1991) found that boys diag nosed with conduct disorder (CD) and a comorbid anxiety disorder were markedly less impaired than boys with CD alone in terms of peer nomi nations for aggression ("fi ght most" and "meanest"), and of confl ict with social systems (number of police contacts and school suspensions). Finally, Quay and Love (1977) report that juvenile delinquents who exhibited greater anxiety on a behavioral rating scale had lower rates of recidivism than nonanxious delinquents. Importantly, however.…”