Persuasion Reducing Youth Crime?

Though this treatment program, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, which uses the hammer of criminal evidence behind the words of persuasion, and its cousin restorative justice, may be effective in turning some youthful offenders from a life of crime—according to larger studies like the Los Angeles study documented in the book No Matter how Loud I Shout and the Orange County study documented in the book the 8% Solution—effectiveness is as often as much due to the arrest itself as any subsequent treatment.

The study in Los Angeles looked at first-offenders, as noted by Edward Humes, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter in his book about the juvenile justice system in Los Angeles, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court:

“In 1990, researchers began watching first-offenders arrested in L.A. County in the first six months of that year, Richard among them—11,493 kids in all. Five men and women sat in a special secure room at probation headquarters and read file after confidential file, tracking every one of those kids—for three years. They did not intercede in any case, but merely watched, omnipotent and removed, part of a grand experiment that let each case spin out as it always had, even horror stories like Richards.

“By the end of 1993, the results of their painstaking work had become so appalling to the Probation Department and the juvenile court—and so profoundly threatening to the future of both bureaucracies—that officials have made no public announcement of the findings. But they boil down to this:

“A little over half—57 percent—of kids who are arrested for the first time are never heard from again. They go straight, shocked by the system, mostly ordinary kids who make one mistake, and know it.

“Of the rest, just over a quarter—27 percent, to be precise—get arrested one or two more times, then they, too, end their criminal careers. But the last 16 percent—that’s sixteen kids out of every one hundred arrested—commit a total of four or more crimes, ranging from theft to murder. They become chronic offenders.” (pp 29-30)

The 8% Problem

A six year study, that was published in neighboring Orange County, California covering the period between 1987-1993 and based on a different cohort structure, corroborated many of these finding, but came up with the figure of 8% of youthful criminals who were responsible for fully 55% of juvenile crime.

As Schumacher and Kurz (2000) note.

“To answer these questions, our research staff examined two groups of first-time offenders, one with 3,304 youths who were charged with crimes during the first 6 months of 1985 and another with 3,164 juveniles facing criminal charges in the first 6 months of 1987. All these youths were initially tracked for 3 years, and representative subsamples were followed for 6 years.

“What our research staff discovered surprises most people. As table 1.1 shows, the vast majority of these kids (70%) committed just one crime during the 3-year tracking period. They committed no additional crimes in Orange County, which the police sought to bring to juvenile court’s attention during these 3 years…Another 22% were accused on one or two more crimes (for a total of two or three crimes) during the 3-year follow-up period, but their criminal careers also appeared to end.

“In addition, there was this small, but very troublesome, 8%. These youths, like Gina, were arrested repeatedly. In fat, this 8% of first-time offenders went on to comprise 55% of our repeat cases…

“From our 7-year study, we found that more than half of the 8% Problem kids continued lives of crime as young adults. As Table 1.2 shows, these serious, chronic juvenile offenders were formally handled by Orange County’s justice system an average of eight times and served nearly 20 months in adult and juvenile custody facilities in the 6-year follow-up period.” (The 8% Solution: Preventing Serious, Repeat, Juvenile Crime) pp. 4-5)

An excerpt from the Wall Street Journal article.

“Developed by David Kennedy, a criminologist at John Jay College in New York, the crime program combines elements of initiatives run in the 1990s in Boston and in High Point in 2004 that were credited by authorities with helping reduce youth gang and drug violence. Boston authorities say their program cut youth homicides by two-thirds and homicides citywide by half. The High Point plan eliminated drug markets citywide, the city says.

“Under the project, law-enforcement officials and prosecutors in the cities identify individuals operating in violent-crime areas who haven't yet committed serious violent crimes, and build cases against them, including undercover operations and surveillance. The culmination is a "call in" when the case is presented to the would-be suspect in front of law enforcement, community leaders, ex-offenders and friends and family.

"The prosecutor talks to them and lets them know: 'we could arrest you now but we won't because the drug dealing stops today, the violence stops today,'" said Jeremy Travis, president of John Jay. "If you continue, you now know the consequences and you've seen the case against you but we don't want to send you to prison."