The Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Public versus Private Management

This paper uses data on juvenile offenders released from correctional facilities in Florida to explore the effects of facility management type (private for-profit, private nonprofit, public state-operated, and public county-operated) on recidivism outcomes and costs. The data provide detailed information on individual characteristics, criminal and correctional histories, judge-assigned restrictiveness levels, and home zipcodes—allowing us to control for the non-random assignment of individuals to facilities far better than any previous study. Relative to all other management types, for-profit management leads to a statistically significant increase in recidivism, but, relative to nonprofit and state-operated facilities, for-profit facilities operate at a lower cost to the government per comparable individual released. Costbenefit analysis implies that the short-run savings offered by for-profit over nonprofit management are negated in the long run due to increased recidivism rates, even if one measures the benefits of reducing criminal activity as only the avoided costs of additional confinement.Juvenile Crime; Juvenile Correctional Facilities; Recidivism; Prison Privatization; Provision of Public Goods: Nonprofit, For-profit, Public

Building Criminal Capital behind Bars: Peer Effects in Juvenile Corrections

This paper analyzes the influence that juvenile offenders serving time in the same correctional facility have on each other’s subsequent criminal behavior. The analysis is based on data on over 8,000 individuals serving time in 169 juvenile correctional facilities during a two-year period in Florida. These data provide a complete record of past crimes, facility assignments, and arrests and adjudications in the year following release for each individual. To control for the non-random assignment to facilities, we include facility and facility-by-prior offense fixed effects, thereby estimating peer effects using only within-facility variation over time. We find strong evidence of peer effects for burglary, petty larceny, felony and misdemeanor drug offenses, aggravated assault, and felony sex offenses; the influence of peers primarily affects individuals who already have some experience in a particular crime category. We also find evidence that the predominant types of peer effects differ in residential versus non-residential facilities; effects in the latter are consistent with network formation among youth serving time close to home.

Building Criminal Capital Behind Bars: Social Learning in Juvenile Corrections

This paper analyzes the influence that juvenile offenders serving time in the same correctional facility have on each other's subsequent criminal behavior. The analysis is based on data on over 8,000 individuals serving time in 169 juvenile correctional facilities during a two-year period in Florida. These data provide a complete record of past crimes, facility assignments, and arrests and adjudications in the year following release for each individual. To control for the non-random assignment of juveniles to facilities, we include facility fixed effects in the analysis. This ensures that the impact of peers on recidivism is identified using only the variation in the length of time that any two individuals serving a sentence in the same facility happen to overlap. We find strong evidence of peer effects for various categories of theft, burglary, and felony drug and weapon crimes; the influence of peers primarily affects individuals who already have some experience in a particular crime category.social learning, peer effects, social interactions, recidivism, juvenile crime, human capital accumulation

Graph curves

AbstractWe study a family of stable curves defined combinatorially from a trivalent graph. Most of our results are related to the conjecture of Green which relates the Clifford index of a smooth curve, an important intrinsic invariant measuring the “specialness” of the geometry of the curve, to the “resolution Clifford index,” a projective invariant defined from the canonical embedding. Thus we study the canonical linear series and its powers and identify them in terms of combinatorial data on the graph; we given combinatorial criteria for the canonical series to be base point free or very ample; we prove the analogue of Noether's theorem on the projective normality of smooth canonical curves; we define a combinatorial invariant of a graph which we conjecture to be equal to the resolution Clifford index of the associated graph curve, at least for “most” graphs; and we prove our conjecture for planar graphs and for graphs of Clifford index 0. Along the way we prove a result of some independent interest on the canonical sheaves of (not necessarily arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay) face varieties. The Appendix establishes a formula connecting the combinatorics of a trivalent graph G and the minimal degree of an admissible covering of a curve of arithmetic genus 0 by the corresponding graph curve

The Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Public Versus Private Management

This paper uses data on juvenile offenders released from correctional facilities in Florida to explore the effects of facility management type (private for-profit, private nonprofit, public state-operated, and public county-operated) on recidivism outcomes and costs. The data provide detailed information on individual characteristics, criminal and correctional histories, judge-assigned restrictiveness levels, and home zip codes – allowing us to control for the non-random assignment of individuals to facilities far better than any previous study. Relative to all other management types, for-profit management leads to a statistically significant increase in recidivism, but relative to nonprofit and state-operated facilities, for-profit facilities operate at a lower cost to the government per comparable individual released. Cost-benefit analysis implies that the short-run savings offered by for-profit over nonprofit management are negated in the long run due to increased recidivism rates, even if one measures the benefits of reducing criminal activity as only the avoided costs of additional confinement

The Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Public Versus Private Management

Abstract This paper uses data on juvenile offenders released from correctional facilities in Florida to explore the effects of facility management type (private for-profit, private nonprofit, public state-operated, and public county-operated) on recidivism outcomes and costs. The data provide detailed information on individual characteristics, criminal and correctional histories, judge-assigned restrictiveness levels, and home zip codesallowing us to control for the nonrandom assignment of individuals to facilities far better than any previous study. Relative to all other management types, for-profit management leads to a statistically significant increase in recidivism, but relative to nonprofit and state-operated facilities, for-profit facilities operate at a lower cost to the government per comparable individual released. Cost-benefit analysis implies that the short-run savings offered by for-profit over nonprofit management are negated in the long run due to increased recidivism rates, even if one measures the benefits of reducing criminal activity as only the avoided costs of additional confinement

TB177: Evaluation of an Experimental Filter Medium for Water Re-use Systems

This report describes the development and testing of a new material for use as a filter medium in recirculating aquaculture systems and other water quality control situations. The material consists of a combination of activated carbon and a hydrophilic urethane foam in a homogeneous matrix. Its physical properties relevant to filtration were determined. It was then tested for its ability to remove various dissolved organic compounds and inorganic nitrogenous compounds in the form of a synthetic waste-water containing ammonia and nitrite. Finally it was subjected to long-term use in the biofilter of a fish culture system. It proved to be a successful filter medium for several applications and showed great potential for use in biofilters installed in recirculating aquaculture systems and other fish and shellfish culture facilities.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_techbulletin/1031/thumbnail.jp