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Recently within the juvenile justice system there has been a great deal of attention toward increasing family involvement, with the goal of enhancing the quality of service-delivery for youth active with the justice system and their families, and ultimately achieving better overall outcomes. Many states are adopting new initiatives and policies to improve the involvement and engagement of family members in decision-making, treatment, supervision and overall case management. To date, however, there is little published empirical evidence that demonstrates whether or how such involvement will translate into greater success, increased compliance with treatment and conditions, goal attainment, reduced length of stay/time on supervision, and ultimately lower recidivism rates, for youth active with the juvenile justice system. Furthermore, there is a need to clearly define and operationalize “family involvement” within a juvenile justice context, which has not yet been clearly conceptualized or operationalized in the literature. While there are a few studies that examine family involvement with justice involved youth, these are generally limited to youth in out-of-home placement facilities. With the majority of youth remaining in the community during their involvement with the juvenile justice system, conducting research within a community-based setting is an integral part of understanding family involvement. The current study sought to provide an understanding of how best to measure and operationalize family involvement in a broader juvenile justice context. In addition to developing a working definition of, and framework for, family involvement, this dissertation examined whether or not family involvement influences recidivism. To examine the relationship between family involvement and recidivism from a community corrections lens, the current study used case record data from a random sample of 300 youth referred to the Dauphin County Pennsylvania Juvenile Probation Department in 2010. In Pennsylvania juvenile probation officers are involved with a case from referral to case closing; therefore, in addition to providing a community corrections setting, the juvenile probation department provides the opportunity to measure family involvement from case beginning to end. Employing a longitudinal cohort design, two years of retrospective data were collected for the 97 females and 203 males included in the study sample. Multivariate analyses were used to measure the relationship between various indicators of family involvement and youth outcomes. Findings show that family member presence at court hearings is a significant predictor of recidivism. Youth whose family members missed at least one court hearing were significantly more likely to have a violation of probation filed, to recidivate, and to have a shorter time to rearrest. Additionally, when exploring familial characteristics that may contribute to family involvement, risk assessment results and family member criminal justice history were significantly related to various family involvement measures. This research helps lay the conceptual and empirical foundation for understanding and testing the impact of family involvement, and its findings contribute to the knowledge of the role of family in the juvenile justice system. This dissertation also suggests new areas of research to assess the effects of family involvement on juvenile justice outcomes. These initial findings assist in understanding the nature and impact of such initiatives, and provide important feedback to policy makers and program officials as they continue to shape the role of a family involvement strategy in juvenile justice, with the primary goal of increasing overall youth success and reducing recidivism. / Criminal Justice

Fractures, one of the most common findings in paleopathology, can reveal information about behaviour and social identity in the past. A new methodology for assessing the healing stages of fractures has recently been proposed, which could allow for additional data to be gathered from the study of fractures. Trauma, post-traumatic time interval, and injury recidivism were studied in five late Roman (c. 3rd – 4th centuries AD) British and Spanish skeletal samples. The aims of this thesis are: 1) record fractures and their healing stage using new post-traumatic time interval estimation methods; 2) determine how trauma profiles vary in the Romano-British and Spanish samples; 3) employ biocultural and life course approaches in the analysis of the results to reveal information about the culture, social identities, and environmental circumstances in the two Roman provinces under study. The remains of 214 adults from two Romano-British and three Romano-Spanish sites were examined for the presence of long bone and rib fractures. Fracture data was analyzed by age, sex, site, bone element, and fracture type to build a profile of trauma at each of the sites. In addition, cases of multiple injury were assessed using new post-traumatic time interval methods in order to discern cases of injury recidivism. A total of 44 individuals were identified as having 89 fractures across all the skeletal samples. Sixteen individuals had multiple fractures, eight of which were determined to have fractures of different ages using methods for determining post-traumatic time interval. Males and females had similar rates of fractures and multiple injuries. Fractures peaked among economically active young and middle-aged adults. A number of differences between the Romano-British and Spanish sample were observed with regards to trauma patterns and fracture prevalence. The results of this research contribute to our understandings of trauma profiles and injury recidivism in Roman populations, and provide the first comprehensive trauma study of a Romano-Spanish skeletal sample. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his acclaimed novel Crime and Punishment, "if he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be punishment as well as the prison."1 The plague of guilt on the mind of a criminal is a key element in this book and is quite applicable to the case study at hand which examines why some juveniles are habitual criminal offenders. What prompts a youth to commit crimes? How does a child deal with his conscience for the unlawful acts? Does he understand right from wrong, truth from falsehoods, and freedom from repercussions? And should there be more stringent punishments by the state for committing the offenses? Society has developed ideas on what is acceptable in handling problem children. The justice system has turned from the idea of punishing offending youths to rehabilitating them. However, given the many problems our country faces with crime rates for juvenile offenders, perhaps society should question if the methods currently employed are effective. This examination specifically reviews the crime rates in Florida and how the law is applied to youths. This thesis aims to discover aspects of what encourages children to commit violent acts and which governmental and societal methods employed are successful or ineffective in treating this behavior. The purpose of this thesis is to probe the boundaries of our society and provoke social imagination to find resolutions in how the state may bring down crime rates for this age group.

The issue of juvenile drug abuse and criminal career continuity has become a nationwide concern in the last 3 decades. Social scientists and policymakers alike are concerned with the plausible relationship between juvenile drug abuse and adult crimes of high seriousness. This study represents an effort to examine the connection between juvenile drug abuse and criminal career continuity. This study has been conducted to examine the life course of the individual. The data came from Lyle Shannon's longitudinal study of the relationship between juvenile delinquency and adult crime in three birth cohorts from the city of Racine, Wisconsin The traditional social control approach toward reducing the likelihood of criminal career continuity is deterrence. The deterrence model asserts that people engage in certain kinds of behavior only after rational calculation of the costs versus the benefits. People who obey the law strive for the rewards of conformity and try to avoid the costs of criminal behavior. The threat of punishment increases the potential costs of breaking the law. Punishment is one sanction inducing such compliance. It must be realized, however, that deterrence does not have a linear effect across all types of offenders. The degree of deterrent effect on future criminal activity is often mitigated by the circumstances unique to an individual. The offender who is involved with drug abuse and the lifestyle that surrounds it best exemplifies this situation. This way of life diminishes the effectiveness of official deterrence techniques to an extent, because drug abuse is a biopsychosocial problem. In this study, the researcher pursued a number of concerns dealing with the question of whether juveniles who are delinquents and drug users are more likely to commit crimes as adults. The focus was on the juvenile recidivist and the juvenile drug user. The results indicate that those juveniles having a contact with the police are more likely to have a criminal career than are those who do not. Furthermore, those juveniles having a police contact for drugs are far more likely to commit crimes of high seriousness in adulthood than are those juveniles having police contact for non-drug crimes. In an analysis of sanctions, the results support the hypothesis that those juveniles receiving a sanction are less likely to commit a crime of high seriousness in adulthood than those who received no sanction. In addition, the empirical findings support the hypothesis that those juveniles receiving a sanction for a drug crime are more likely to commit an adult crime of high seriousness than are those juveniles who received a non-drug sanction. This result is likely due to the biopsycosocial nature of drug abuse. The results do not support the hypothesis that juvenile drug distributors are more likely to commit a crime of high seriousness in adulthood than are consumers. Also, the results suggest that there is no support for the hypothesis that juveniles who used hard drugs are more likely to commit adult crimes of high seriousness than are those who used marijuana only. These results suggest that once a juvenile is in the drug web, he/she becomes an active participant in a network of criminal activity.

This study explores recidivism rates of gang-related adolescents newly enrolled in the Project BRIDGE (Building Resources for the Intervention and Deterrence of Gang Engagement) Program. The goal of this project is to reduce the incidence of youth gang violence, gang membership, and gang related activities in the city of Riverside, California.

Researchers within the criminal justice field have examined recidivism to discover effective methods to deter criminals from re-offending. Typically, incarceration provided specific deterrence for offenders but recidivism after release proved problematic. Using secondary data analysis, the present study evaluates a cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT] program, Reasoning and Rehabilitation, which the state of Colorado implemented in 1995 among juveniles on intensive probation. The original research team collected the data through pre- and post-questionnaires and interviews with probation officers. The pre- and post-test data are utilized to specifically analyze certain variables including self-control, empathy and problemsolving abilities. The focus of the present study is to determine the level of change in these particular variables as an outcome of completing the CBT program. This analysis also explores the value of CBT programs and examines how the programs alter an offender's level of selfcontrol, empathy and problem-solving abilities thus reducing recidivism after completion.

Serious and violent juvenile offenders cause a disproportionate amount of harm to society, yet this population receives very little attention within the realm of empirical research. This research study examined the recidivism outcomes of 296 serious and violent offenders previously exposed to rehabilitative treatment in the Capital and Serious Violent Offender Program provided by the Texas Youth Commission. This group of juveniles was followed for three years following their release from institutionalization. This analysis revealed that 52% of those released were rearrested at least once during the follow-up period for any offense, while 48% of those released desisted from crime altogether. Of those 296 released, 34% were rearrested for at least one new felony offense. The analyses indicate that those involved in various forms of institutional misconduct during institutionalization were significantly more likely to recidivate. African-American race and institutional misconduct in the form of rule infractions emerged as the most consistent predictors of recidivism for this sample. This study concludes with a discussion of policy implications and risk assessment related to the decisions that are made to release this population of violent juvenile offenders.

South Africa is one of the countries that have a high rate of recidivism, especially amongst adult male 1offenders; this is evident in the large numbers flocking into the prisons. The high rate of recidivism is a serious problem in that it not only affects the offender and his immediate family, but also other vulnerable groups in society, as well as the government. The study intended to uncover various factors which contribute to this recidivism, as a phenomenon; South Africa has a notable dearth of research on factors contributing to recidivism. Unavailability of scientific research data has a negative impact on the fight against recidivism because it is empirical findings that can inform appropriate efficient and effective remedies to the challenge of recidivism. This qualitative study utilised explorative, contextual, phenomenological and descriptive research designs with the ecological system theory as a framework. Data were collected by means of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with adult males who have re-offended after being reintegrated with their families. Data analysis was guided by thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013:175) while Lincoln & Guba’s model in Bryman (2012:392) was employed for data verification. Ethical considerations were upheld throughout this study. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Work)

Syfte: Syftet var att undersöka vilka sociala riskfaktorer för återfall i brott hos unga kriminella som presenteras i aktuell forskning. Metod: Studien genomfördes genom en allmän litteraturöversikt med systematiska inslag. Sökningen gjordes i Criminology Collection och Sociology Collection. För utformning av sökstrategi användes SPIDER och de huvudsakliga inklusionskriterierna var kvantitativa, 2010-, riskfaktorer och recidivism. Syntetiseringen gjordes narrativt och studien hade en deduktiv ansats på grund av teoretisk referensram samt induktiv då slutsatserna dras från de delar av resultatet som svar på studiens syfte. Resultat: Resultatet baseras på de 14 artiklar som inkluderats varav inga artiklar från Sverige återfanns i sökningen. De huvudsakliga riskfaktorerna som visade association med recidivism var familjeförhållanden, skola och arbetsliv, umgänge, fritidsintressen och rekreation samt attityder och värderingar. Inga nya riskfaktorer presenteras i denna studie utan redan kända sammanställs och redogörs för. / Aim: The aim was to compile current research to see which kind of social risk factors presented for recidivism in youth delinquents. Method: This study is a general literature review with systematic elements. The search was conducted in Criminology Collection and Sociology Collection. The search strategy was formed by SPIDER and the main criterias for inclusion were quantitative, 2010-, risk factors and recidivism. The synthesizing was done narratively and the study had both an inductive and deductive onset. Results: The results are based on the fourteen articles included in the study, no articles from Sweden were found in the search. The main risk factors that were associated with criminal recidivism were family relations, school and work, socializing, leisure and recreation and also attitudes and values. No new factors of risk were found in this study, instead already known risk factors were summarized and explained.