Scared Straight and Other Juvenile Awareness Programs for Preventing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review

Programs like ‘Scared Straight’ involve organized visits to prison facilities by juvenile delinquents or children at risk for becoming delinquent. The programs are designed to deter participants from future offending by providing first-hand observations of prison life and interaction with adult inmates. Results of this review indicate that not only does it fail to deter crime but it actually leads to more offending behavior. Government officials permitting this program need to adopt rigorous evaluation to ensure that they are not causing more harm to the very citizens they pledge to protect

Police and policing : an introduction

viii, 216 p.; 23 cm

Are police-reported driving while Black data a valid indicator of the race and ethnicity of the traffic law violators police stop? A negative answer with minor qualifications

Are police-reported driving while Black data a valid indicator of the race and ethnicity of the drivers police stop? This research answered that question by advancing the first multivariate analysis of race and ethnicity missingness in the traffic stop data reported by Boston police during April and May of 2001. The most important multivariate story the data tell was that race and ethnicity missingness was significantly nonrandom on multiple dimensions, including the second month of data collection, for drivers living in zip codes with above average and average people of color, for drivers living in zip codes with above average and average poor people, and for drivers whose stop ended in a ticket. The results therefore supported a clear answer to a fundamentally important question about the validity of the driving while Black data reported by police. Based upon the present research and with minor qualifications, police-reported driving while Black data were not valid because they underestimated the frequency with which police stop drivers of color.

Officer gender and traffic ticket decisions: Police blue or women too?

Contradictory scholarly arguments and limited previous research currently compromise understanding of whether officer gender affects street-level police actions. This research probed those contradictions and added to the limited previous research by examining traffic ticket decisions by women and men Boston police during April and May of 2001. The multivariate story the data tell was one of no differences between women police and men police. If gender propels women and men police in different directions, as some scholars argue, then evidence of those differences simply was not visible when viewed through the lens of the present research.