Restorative Justice: Introducing Juvenile Hall Students to Computer Science

Computer Science is an increasingly important field in regards to (in)equity in the United States and our world. Equal access to adequate Computer Science education is an issue in schools. Incarcerated youth in Juvenile Halls are often unable to obtain classes / resources that would foster interest in the field of engineering. This paper presents findings from a revitalized and revamped computer science course that was originally taught in San Luis Obispo’s Juvenile Hall in 2019 [7]. This iteration of the project introduces modified curriculum and different tools for learning the art of programming that was not included in the 2019 class. By adding more structured curriculum such as a scaffolding of base code and worksheets to work on key concepts, this course is more digestible for the Juvenile Hall students and is more repeatable for future Cal Poly students. The data collected shows an increase in students’ efficacy in programming from the beginning of the course compared to the end of the course

The Effect of Education Policy on Crime: An Intergenerational Perspective

A number of studies have shown that education reforms extending compulsory schooling reduce criminal behavior of those affected by the reform. We consider the effects of a major Swedish educational reform on crime by exploiting its staggered implementation across Sweden. We first show that the reform reduced crime rates for the generation directly affected by the reform. We then show that the benefits extended to the next generation with large reductions in the crime rates of the children of those affected. The effect operates only through the father and points in the direction of improved parenting rather than resources.comprehensive school, economics of crime, returns to education, returns to human capital

The Effect of Education Policy on Crime: An Intergenerational Perspective

The Swedish comprehensive school reform implied an extension of the number of years of compulsory school from 7 or 8 to 9 for the entire nation and was implemented as a social experiment by municipality between 1949 and 1962. A previous study (Meghir and Palme, 2005) has shown that this reform significantly increased the number of years of schooling as well as labor earnings of the children who went through the post reform school system, in particular for individuals originating from homes with low educated fathers. This study estimates the impact of the reform on criminal behavior: both within the generation directly affected by the reform as well as their children. We use census data on all born in Sweden between 1945 and 1955 and all their children merged with individual register data on all convictions between 1981 and 2008. We find that the educational reform decreased crime substantially for men who were directly affected by it. We also find that the crime rate declined for the sons of those fathers directly affected by the new educational system; we interpret this results as implying that improved education increased resource and parenting quality, leading to improved child outcomes.Comprehensive school; economics of crime; returns to education; returns to human capital

Relationship Between State Educational Fiscal Effort and State Juvenile Incarceration Rates

The issue surrounding the effect of education funding using state per pupil index spending has been the subject of research studies in connection with various student outcomes since the advent of the Coleman report in 1966. Education is indeed an investment as it alleviates a myriad of social issues, but it needs to be made wisely. Included among social concerns is incarceration. Adults in prison show a disproportionate amount of illiteracy and most lack a high school education. An analysis of each state\u27s educational fiscal effort, viewed as a ratio of gross per capita state product and per pupil index spending, when correlated with juvenile incarceration rates, sheds light on the association between funding and incarceration. This study examined each state\u27s and the District of Columbia\u27s educational fiscal effort and its impact on state juvenile incarceration rates. Using a linear regression, bivariate correlation, and time-lagged correlation design, generalized estimating equation (GEE), state fiscal effort and state juvenile incarceration rates were examined over a 25 year time period, to include 5, 10, 15, and 20 year lag analysis to account for delays in effect. A statistically significant inverse association between state educational fiscal effort and state juvenile incarceration rates was found using a GEE with raw data at a 5-year time lag across the United States. Statistically significant associations were found using Pearson\u27s Product Moment analysis in 10 states as well

The JJIE Virtual World Journalism Project: Experimenting with Virtual Worlds as an Emerging Journalism Platform

Although immersive journalism in the virtual world was pioneered by journalist and documentary filmmaker Nonny de la Peña years ago, traditional journalists are just now discovering its potential as an alternative platform to report the news. This study explores the singularities of immersive journalism in virtual worlds using the Marginalized Youth Voices Amplified on Virtual Worlds project, which a journalism professor at a southern public university received a grant to develop. The grant came from an Online News Association Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education, and has been involved in efforts to produce 3D-scenario machinimas (action videos inside virtual worlds) to tell real-life journalism stories of the youth in the juvenile justice system. The project deploys the principles of traditional journalism in the virtual world to re-create the experiences of youth in the Georgia juvenile justice system. As the project\u27s student researcher, I plan to discover what journalism professors, students and professionals can learn from this nine-month experience of using virtual world platforms to tell real-world journalism stories. Using a combination of ethnographic and survey research, this study will undertake a structural analysis of not only the production practices of immersive virtual journalism - such as the reporting and recording of stories in virtual-world scenarios via Open Simulator, an open source multi-platform, multiuser 3D server application - but of the impact of this emerging, evolving form of journalism on audiences, especially media-averse youth audiences. At the conclusion of this experiment, the answers to the following questions will be more clear: Does the immersive, personalized nature of virtual world journalism resonate more with youthful audiences than in traditional journalism? Do college students believe that it provides a richer, more empathetic experience in news consumption? What can traditional journalism learn from immersive virtual world 53 journalism? Can it be the savior of or at least a consequential complement to traditional journalism

Be Careful What You Wish For: Legal Sanctions and Public Safety Among Adolescent Offenders in Juvenile and Criminal Court

Three decades of legislative activism have resulted in a broad expansion of states\u27 authority to transfer adolescent offenders from juvenile to criminal (adult) courts. At the same time that legislatures have broadened the range of statutes and lowered the age thresholds for eligibility for transfer, states also have reallocated discretion away from judges and instituted simplified procedures that permit prosecutors to elect whether adolescents are prosecuted and sentenced in juvenile or criminal court. These developments reflect popular and political concerns that relatively lenient or attenuated punishment in juvenile court violates proportionality principles for serious crimes committed by adolescents, and is ineffective at deterring or controlling future crimes. This legislative activism has reshaped the boundaries of the juvenile court, and animated calls for its elimination. Yet these developments have taken place in a near vacuum of empirical analysis of the efficacy of these measures to increase punishment or reduce crime. Jurisprudential analyses of the fit between the traditional doctrines of immaturity and reduced culpability of juveniles also has lagged far behind the pace of legislative change. The redrawing of the boundaries of the juvenile court also has not reflected new knowledge on adolescent development, the legal socialization of adolescents, and their responsiveness to criminal sanctions. The new boundaries of the juvenile court also threaten to reify and intensify social and racial dimensions of criminal punishment. To address these questions, we conducted a natural experiment to assess whether prosecuting and sentencing adolescent felony offenders in the criminal court leads to harsher punishment, and whether that harsher punishment translates into improved public safety. We show that serious adolescent offenders prosecuted in the criminal court are likely to be rearrested more quickly and more often for violent, property and weapons offenses, and they are more often and more quickly returned to incarceration. Adolescents prosecuted and punished in the juvenile court are more likely to be rearrested for drug offenses. These results suggest that law and policy facilitating wholesale waiver or categorical exclusion of certain groups of adolescents based solely on offense and age, are ineffective at both specific deterrence of serious crime, despite political rhetoric insisting the opposite. Such laws may increase the risk of serious crimes by adolescents and young adults, by heavily mortgaging their possibilities to deflect their criminal behavioral trajectory and enter a path of prosocial human development. Returning to a discretionary, judge-centered transfer policy, rather than wholesale waiver or surgical exclusion of entire categories of adolescent offenders, would limit the number of youth subjected to criminal court prosecution and harsh punishment conditions in adult corrections. A policy of discretionary transfer of only the most serious offenders, whose eligibility for transfer would be transparently assessed with full access to evidence and expertise, would ensure proportional punishment for the few adolescents whose severe crimes demand greater punishment than is available in the juvenile court, and whose punishment as juveniles might corrode the legitimacy of the juvenile court

The Business Case for Racial Equity: New Orleans and Louisiana

The purpose of this report is to highlight the business case for racial equity -- stressing the importance of racial equity as both an imperative for social justice and a strategy for New Orleans' and Louisiana's economic development and growth. As advancing racial equity requires the work of many stakeholders, we hope that the information in this report will be meaningful, useful and actionable for leaders, change agents and influencers within New Orleans' and Louisiana's businesses, communities, and institutions