Agenda - 12-16-1997 - 10e - Laserfiche WebLink

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Report on the Teen Court Pro----- - Analyses Relating to Future Court Involvement. For both samples, we included-as future involvement with juvenile intake any new presentation by the juvenile to Intake, including undisciplined consultations and other status offenses. For adult record checks, we excluded any infraction-level offenses. Because the minimum period for which we were able 4 to follow-up Teen Court participants was 7.4 months, we truncated our comparative recidivism f analysis at 7.4 months for each individual in both samples. In addition, for the comparative analysis, the entire Teen Court sample was used, regardless of the outcome of their Teen Court participation, since we could not know what the outcomes of the individual Pre-program juveniles would have been if they had actually been referred to Teen Court. t First, we conducted a logistic regression analysis to determine the association of variables we measured that are often found to be significant predictors of recidivism. We had € sketchy data on the prior record for these juveniles (if the referral source indicated that there was a prior record, we were fairly confident of the accuracy of this information; however, we were not confident that the absence of such a notation accurately reflected that the individual had no prior record), but using the data available, prior record was not significantly associated with recidivism within the 7.4-month follow-up period. Similarly, neither race nor sex was significantly associated with recidivism. The age of the juvenile at the time of the offense showed a strong trend toward older individuals tending to recidivate, although it did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance. Finally, using the three categories of offense type outlined above (Property, Minor Assault, and Other), we found that current offense type . was significantly related to recidivism, with the tendency being for offenders whose primary offense was "Other" (which included driving, weapon, minor controlled substance, alcohol,. public disturbance, pyrotechnic, and other non-property and non-assaultive offenses) being more likely to recidivate. Note that these offenses; especially driving, drug, and alcohol offenses, are also those more likely to be committed by older teens, and as noted, age was positively correlated with recidivism. At a gross level of analysis, without taking into account any of the common predictors of recidivism discussed above, 19 individuals (20.0%) in the Teen Court sample and 9 individuals (9.3%) in the Pre-program sample recidivated within the 7.4 month follow-up period. However, because of the differences in the samples noted above, and the association between age and offense type that existed in our data, our statistical analysis needed to control for age and type of offense. We conducted a logistic regression analysis to predict recidivism (within 7.4 months) based on membership in either the Teen Court or the Pre-program sample, while controlling for age and type of offense. Results indicated no significant relationship with recidivism beyond that accounted for by the differences in age and current offense type between the samples. For those who re-offended during the 7.4 month follow-up, the average time from the initial processing of these individuals for their current offenses and the date of their new offense did not significantly differ between the two samples, with the average for Teen Court participants being 4.1 months and the average for the Pre-program individuals being 4.6 months.