Thomas G. Blomberg

Comparison of the Educational Deficiencies of Delinquent and Nondelinquent Students

This article assesses the differences in educational deficiencies between a statewide sample of delinquent students and a matched sample of nondelinquent students. Employing a research design that controls for a series of relevant individual and school variables, the study’s findings document that delinquent students are characterized by a series of disproportionate educational deficiencies as compared to their nondelinquent student counterparts. Delinquent students were found to attain lower grade point averages, have poorer school attendance records, be retained more often in the same grade, and receive more school disciplinary actions. The article concludes that these documented educational deficiencies may play an integral role in the process of delinquency and, therefore, pose a number of public policy implications in relation to the prevention and treatment of delinquency.

Diversion's Disparate Results and Unresolved Questions: an Integrative Evaluation Perspective:

In 1967 a nationwide effort began in the United States to &dquo;divert&dquo; youths from the formal juvenile justice system into various forms of community treatment. A major conceptual rationale underlying diversion policy was that reducing penetration of youths into the juvenile court system would lessen the dangers assumed to be associated with delinquency stigmatization and delinquent associations, thereby lowering the likelihood of subsequent delinquent behavior. Until the early 1970s, the literature on diversion was largely without a critical or an empirical focus; this deficiency reflected, in part, broad and unquestioning support for this liberal reform. Starting in the early 1970s, critical concern began to be given to diversion’s potential to produce &dquo;unintended consequences,&dquo; and helped stimulate evaluative studies of diversion programs. To date, the reported findings from various evaluations of diversion programs have been mixed and fragmented. Specifically, characteristic evaluation studies of diversion programs have been focused upon determining either the positive or the negative outcomes of these programs. Notably absent from the literature evaluating diversion programs have been broadly based studies concerned simultaneously with the positive and negative outcome potential of diversion programs and the program operations producing these outcomes for particular youth groups. This paper assesses the literature evaluating diversion in order to identify an evaluation orientation capable of describing and differentiating the positive and negative out-

Intermediate punishment: Redistributing or extending social control?

During the past two decades, a major area of debate has been about the meaning and consequences of the community corrections movement that has now evolved into intermediate punishment. A question underlying this debate is whether or not this movement accomplishes its expressed purpose of reducing reliance on prisons by redistributing control into the community or merely extends community control without altering previous reliance on prisons. This study assesses Floridas intermediate punishment strategy of home confinement. Data from observations of program practices and interviews with home confinement officers, offenders on the program and various family members living in the home address the operational features of the program. Pre and post program statistics (1980–1987) on state population, felony convictions and forms of correctional sanctions explore the programs impact upon the states characteristic sanctioning trends. The findings provide no support that home confinement has reduced Floridas reliance on prisons. Specifically, throughout the decade of the 1980s, and despite the operation of a home confinement program that has involved over 100,000 offenders, Floridas use of prisons experienced major increases disproportionate to the states population, and conviction increases. The paper concludes with discussion of ironies associated with correctional reforms and related empirical and theoretical implications.

Juvenile Court and Contemporary Diversion

Research Summary The juvenile court was established to help children through the use of punishment and rehabilitation and, in so doing, “save” them from a life of crime and disadvantage. Diversion programs and policies emerged in the 1970s as one way to achieve this goal. Despite concerns about its potential harm, diversion became increasingly popular in subsequent decades. We examine the logic of a prominent contemporary diversion effort, civil citation, to illuminate tensions inherent to traditional and contemporary diversion. We then review extant evidence on traditional diversion efforts, examine civil citation laws, and identify the salience of both traditional and contemporary, police-centered diversion efforts for youth and the juvenile court. The analysis highlights that diversion may help children but that it also may harm them. It highlights that the risk of net-widening for the police and the court is considerable. And it highlights the importance of, and need for, research on the use and effects of diversion and the conditions under which it may produce benefits and avoid harms. Policy Implications This article recommends a more tempered embrace of diversion and a fuller embrace of research-guided efforts to achieve the juvenile courts ideals. Diversion may be effective under certain conditions, but these conditions need to be identified and then met.

Pre-, Post-, and Longitudinal Evaluation of Juvenile Justice Education

This article describes two stages of the Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program’s pre-, post-, and longitudinal evaluation research. Pilot studies were used to explore how to design statewide research of pre- and postassessment scores and community reintegration outcomes. Preliminary findings suggest that higher performing educational programs produce greater educational gains as measured by academic achievement tests, credits earned, and pupil progression rates. The findings also indicate that these programs have more students returning to school and lower recidivism rates. Building on the pilot studies, refinements were made to the research designs to enable more comprehensive statewide evaluation. Current research includes collection of pre- and postassessment scores from official sources on approximately 16,000 juvenile justice youths. In addition, a research design has been developed to examine program effectiveness by measuring community reintegration variables. Multiple data sources, including official and self-reported data on family, school, employment, and subsequent crime involvement, will be used in the longitudinal study.

An Assessment of the Development and Outcomes of Determinate Sentencing in Florida

The prior literature on determinate sentencing has been largely descriptive, critical, and without a comprehensive empirical focus regarding the development and consequences of this major justice reform. A common claim made in these prior studies is that determinate sentencing has resulted in our current prison overcrowding crises (i.e., Austin & Irwin, 2007). This paper responds to this empirical void through an assessment of Floridas efforts to implement determinate sentencing over the past 30 years. Included in the assessment is a study of the comparative effectiveness between indeterminate and determinate sentencing in terms of post-prison recidivism. The major findings are that Floridas incremental shift from indeterminate to determinate sentencing that culminated in the 85% time-served law passed in 1995 has not been as punitive as expected and has not been the primary reason for Floridas exponential increase in the prison population. Rather, the major increase in Floridas prison population is found to have been driven by the increase in felony convictions. Moreover, in a comparison of recidivism outcomes between indeterminate and determinate sentences, it is found that the 85% law has been associated with significant reductions in the likelihood of recidivism. While these findings are limited to Florida and, therefore, await further validation with other states and jurisdictions, it appears that some of the pessimistic conclusions in the literature on determinate sentencing could be premature.

Evaluation Research, Policy, and Politics.

This article discusses the role of politics in the Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program’s effort to use evaluation research data to inform Florida’s juvenile justice education policies and practices. Through consideration of the Juvenile Justice Education Enhancement Program’s experiences with privatization and the tough love and economy of scale rationales for larger and more custodial juvenile institutions, the variable role of politics is examined. Although the two examples are different, the discussion demonstrates that by maintaining an overriding commitment to its evaluation research purpose, the Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program has been able to continue its data-driven policy efforts despite operating in a politically charged environment.

An Assessment of Victim Service Needs

During the past decade various victim-witness programs have literally exploded across the United States. However, despite the unprecedented growth in the number ofprograms, available services to crime victims and witnesses remain largely uneven and fragmented. This study provides the first major effort any jurisdiction has made in providing systematic assessment and planning for the development of comprehensive crime victim-witness services. Detailed descrip tions of the various methods employed in the studys victim projections and the methods used in developing specific program component recommendations are provided. The study concludes with an identification of the program model and a discussion of the implementation and operation of the various program components comprised in the model.

Inmate tattoos and in-prison and post-prison violent behavior

Despite more than a century of interest and extensive literature on tattoos and crime, the potential relationship between inmate tattoos and in-prison violence and post-prison recidivism for violent crimes has been largely ignored in prior criminological research. The present study responds to this research void by providing a comprehensive empirical assessment of inmate tattoos and in-prison violence and post-prison recidivism for violent crimes. The study employs a cohort of 79,749 adult inmates in Florida prisons between 1995 and 2001 and follows the cohort both while incarcerated and over a three year post-release period to determine any potential relationship between tattoos and in-prison violence and post-prison recidivism for violent crimes. Among the findings are that inmates with at least one tattoo, and particularly those inmates with numerous tattoos, are more likely to commit in-prison infractions for violent behaviors and post-prison recidivism for violent crimes. The study concludes with a summary and discussion of the findings in relation to theory and policy. Keywords: Inmates, tattoos, violence, recidivism. Language: en

Implementing an Evaluation Research and Accountability-Driven System for Juvenile Justice Education in Florida

Since the late 1990s, education reform has been at center stage in political campaigning at the local, state, and national levels. Calls for more individualized instruction, more technology, smaller class sizes, better teacher training, improved physical space, and more qualified teachers have been some of the reform strategies championed by various political candidates. The general reasoning underlying the school reform movement has been the belief that our fast-paced, ever-changing, and technologically based society mandates various school reforms to better prepare all youths, including delinquent and other at-risk children, for the numerous challenges they will face in the workplace. Major initiatives emerging from this national educational reform movement have included calls for higher educational standards associated with various accountability measures. In Florida, these increased quality and accountability initiatives culminated in the establishment of the Florida Sunshine State Standards followed by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The Florida Sunshine State Standards is a set of educational goals that