Improving the livelihoods of justice-involved youth: Study protocol for a replication and extension of Functional Family Therapy-Gangs.

BACKGROUND: This study will evaluate Functional Family Therapy-Gangs (FFT-G), an extension of a family-based therapeutic intervention-Functional Family Therapy (FFT)-designed to help troubled youth exhibiting mild to severe behavior problems overcome delinquency, substance abuse, and violence. FFT-G, however, addresses risk factors that are typically more salient among gang than delinquent populations. A randomized control trial with adjudicated youth in Philadelphia revealed reductions in recidivism over an 18-month period. The purposes of this paper are to outline the protocol for replicating FFT-G in the Denver metropolitan area, document the design and challenges of the prospective research, and promote transparency. METHODS: As a condition of pre-trial or probation supervision, 400 youth/caregiver dyads will be randomly assigned to FFT-G or a treatment-as-usual control group. Preregistered confirmatory outcomes include recidivism (i.e., criminal/delinquent charges and adjudications/convictions) measured using official records (Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/abyfs). Secondary outcomes include measures of gang embeddedness, non-violent and violent recidivism, and substance use measured using interview-based surveys and arrest, revocation, incarceration, and crime type indicators of recidivism from official records. Exploratory mediation and moderation analyses are also planned. Intent-to-treat regression analyses will estimate intervention effects 18 months post-randomization. CONCLUSION: This study will contribute to advancing high-quality evidence-based knowledge on gang interventions for which there are few known effective responses.

Gang intervention during COVID-19: A qualitative study of multidisciplinary teams and street outreach in Denver.

Gang and violence intervention programs have become a staple in American cities. These programs often find themselves navigating turbulent political environments, a challenge that can be exacerbated during times of societal upheaval, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study examines how the pandemic impacted the forms and functions of the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver (GRID). While GRID coordinates many strategies and collaborates with government and community groups across Denver, its centerpiece intervention entails multidisciplinary teams and street outreach, the focus of this qualitative study. We draw on 197  hours of field-based observation and 19 semi-structured interviews gathered as part of an evaluation of this intervention-initiated prior to the pandemic-to arrive at three key conclusions on the impact of COVID-19. First, upper-level administrative support can be a critical factor in agency efficacy and morale. City government's tenuous familiarity and ties with GRID was consequential to non-essential classification at the early stage of the pandemic. Second, agency leaders are crucial advocates for their agency, as GRID navigated many challenges without stable leadership and suffered as a result. Finally, interagency collaboration and relationships are slow to develop and easy to lose, made even more fragile in times of crisis. We discuss these findings in the context of large-scale federal investment in community violence intervention.

Reforming solitary confinement: the development, implementation, and processes of a restrictive housing step down reentry program in Oregon.

BACKGROUND: Over the past decade there have been numerous and impassioned calls to reform the practice of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. This article examines the development, implementation, and processes of a restrictive housing reentry program in the Oregon Department of Corrections. It draws on data from official documents, site observations, and interviews with 12 prison officials and 38 prisoners. The Step Up Program (SUP) seeks to improve the living conditions in restrictive housing over business-as-usual, alleviate physiological and psychological harms of solitary confinement, and use rehabilitative programming to increase success upon returning to the general prison population or community. RESULTS: The impetus to change the culture and structure of restrictive housing was primarily the result of internal administrative reform. Prisoners assigned at random to housing assignments offered accounts of their daily activities suggesting that the SUP provides more time out-of-cell and greater access to other services and activities. Program participants preferred the living conditions in the SUP because they had more opportunities for social interaction and incentives for compliant behavior. However, views on the value of programming among respondents were mixed. CONCLUSIONS: The launch of the SUP occurred in early 2020, which was soon followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the program was never fully implemented as intended. As Oregon returns to more normal operations, it is possible that the SUP will be able to include even more out-of-cell time, greater socialization opportunities, and increased access to programming and other beneficial activities. As we await the opportunity to conduct prospective psychological and behavioral analyses, this study provides tentative support for the use of step down reentry programs in restrictive housing units. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Open Science Framework, Preparing adults in custody for successful reentry: An experimental study of a restrictive housing exit program in Oregon. Registered 4 October 2019, https://osf.io/t6qpx/.

The National Death Index as a Source of Homicide Data: A Methodological Exposition of Promises and Pitfalls for Criminologists.

Criminologists largely rely on national de-identified data sources to study homicide in the United States. The National Death Index (NDI), a comprehensive and well-established database compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, is an untapped source of homicide data that offers identifiable linkages to other data sources while retaining national coverage. This study's five aims follow. First, we review the data sources in articles published in Homicide Studies over the past decade. Second, we describe the NDI, including its origins, procedures, and uses. Third, we outline the procedures for linking a police gang intelligence database to the NDI. Fourth, we introduce the St. Louis Gang Member-Linked Mortality Files database, which is composed of 3,120 police-identified male gang members in the St. Louis area linked to NDI records. Finally, we report on preliminary cause-of-death findings. We conclude by outlining the benefits and drawbacks of the NDI as a source of homicide data for criminologists.

What if They Are All High-Risk for Attrition? Correlates of Retention in a Longitudinal Study of Reentry from Prison.

Longitudinal data are essential to research in criminology and criminal justice. Despite attrition's implications for validity, understanding its sources is underexplored empirically. We examine the correlates of retention using covariates organized into domains of prediction, prevention, and projection. Data from the LoneStar Project, a three-wave longitudinal reentry study of 802 males recently released from prisoners in Texas, were analyzed to examine the correlates of proximal, distal, and any study retention. The best correlates of study retention are prevention techniques used by researchers to reduce attrition. In contrast, only a few covariates traditionally associated with attrition and no covariates used for attrition projection were related to retention. What researchers do matters more for retention than the characteristics of individuals they are trying to retain. The findings underscore how researchers can improve study retention in longitudinal research while also correcting for non-random attrition in current longitudinal data sources.

The imprisonment-extremism nexus: Continuity and change in activism and radicalism intentions in a longitudinal study of prisoner reentry.

There is considerable speculation that prisons are a breeding ground for radicalization. These concerns take on added significance in the era of mass incarceration in the United States, where 1.5 million people are held in state or federal prisons and around 600,000 people are released from prison annually. Prior research relies primarily on the speculation of prison officials, media representations, and/or cross-sectional designs to understand the imprisonment-extremism nexus. We develop a tripartite theoretical model to examine continuity and change in activism and radicalism intentions upon leaving prison. We test these models using data from a large probability sample of prisoners (N = 802) in Texas interviewed in the week preceding their release from prison and then reinterviewed 10 months later using a validated scale of activism and radicalism intentions. We arrive at three primary conclusions. First, levels of activism decline upon reentry to the community (d = -0.30, p < .01), while levels of radicalism largely remain unchanged (d = -0.08, p = .28). What is learned and practiced in prison appears to quickly lose its vitality on the street. Second, salient groups and organizations fell in importance after leaving prison, including country, race/ethnicity, and religion, suggesting former prisoners are occupied by other endeavors. Finally, while we identify few correlates of changes in extremist intentions, higher levels of legal cynicism in prison were associated with increases in both activism and radicalism intentions after release from prison. Efforts designed to improve legal orientations could lessen intentions to support non-violent and violent extremist actions. These results point to an imprisonment-extremism nexus that is diminished largely by the realities of prisoner reentry.

Exceptional mortality risk among police-identified young black male gang members.

Gang membership is associated with many risky behaviors but is often overlooked as a source of mortality among young Americans. Gang Member-Linked Mortality Files (GM-LMFs) match St. Louis, Missouri gang members listed in a law enforcement gang database to mortality records in the National Death Index. We created three analytic samples composed of black males aged 15-35 years by merging cases of the GM-LMFs with National Vital Statistics System and Census data in years 1993-2016. Mortality rates standardized to the 15-35-year-old 2010 U.S. male population were estimated for all-cause (1477.4, 99% CI = 1451.5-1503.3), homicide (950.1, 99% CI = 932.2-967.9), non-homicide injury (314.0, 99% CI = 308.8-319.2), and non-injury (213.3, 99% CI = 202.3-224.4) deaths in the GM-LMFs. We fitted Poisson rate models to estimate mortality rate ratios (RR) between gang members and demographically-matched comparison groups. Black male gang members in St. Louis were at an elevated mortality risk from all causes of death, and homicides contributed substantially to this risk. Compared to black males in St. Louis, gang members experienced greater relative risk of all-cause (RR = 2.9, 99% CI = 2.4-3.5), homicide (RR = 3.2, 99% CI = 2.5-4.1), and non-homicide injury (RR = 4.0, 99% CI = 2.8-5.8) mortality between 1993 and 2016. Relative risk was greater when compared to black males in St. Louis MSA, Missouri, and the USA. These results identify a key source of excess mortality among young black Americans. Health policies and interventions may be most efficacious when they acknowledge, address, and incorporate information about and target high-risk populations, including gang members, that contribute to relatively high mortality risk in the USA.

Gang membership between ages 5 and 17 years in the United States.

PURPOSE: This study determined the frequency, prevalence, and turnover in gang membership between ages 5 and 17 years in the United States. METHODS: Data were from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, which is representative of youth born between 1980 and 1984. Age-specific patterns of gang joining, participation, and leaving are estimated based on youths (N = 7,335) self-reported gang membership at the baseline and eight subsequent interviews, which were combined with population age estimates from the 2010 U.S. Census to produce national estimates of gang membership. Sampling variance-adjusted bounds were estimated based on assumptions about missing cases and survey design effects. Demographic and socioeconomic variables are used to compare differences between gang and nongang youth. RESULTS: Youth gang members were disproportionately male, black, Hispanic, from single-parent households, and families living below the poverty level. We estimated that there were 1,059,000 youth gang members in the United States in 2010 (bounds ranging from 675,000 to 1,535,000). The prevalence of youth gang membership was 2.0% (1.2%-2.8%), peaking at age 14 years at 5.0% (3.9%-6.0%). Annually, 401,000 (204,000-639,000) juveniles join gangs and 378,000 (199,000-599,000) exit gangs, with a turnover rate of 36%. CONCLUSIONS: We discovered that significantly more people are involved with gangs than previous estimates would suggest. Clinicians and policy makers must recognize that youth gang members may not conform to popular perceptions of gang demographics. The patterns of youth gang membership observed in this study support prevention programs aimed at children before the teen years. This strategy is more likely to succeed than gang intervention or suppression strategies aimed at teens.

From 'What the F#@% is a Facebook?' to 'Who Doesn't Use Facebook?': The role of criminal lifestyles in the adoption and use of the Internet.

Concerns about a digital divide persist and recent calls have been made for understanding how lifestyles influence Internet adoption and use. Online criminal behaviors have drawn attention from law enforcement, but diffusion of innovation theory suggests higher propensities for crime, particularly street crime, reduces the likelihood of Internet use. Drawing from this theory and research on the role of street criminal lifestyles on technology adoption, this study examined patterns of Internet use among a sample of 585 individuals at-risk for and involved in street crime. Results from our logistic and negative binomial regression analyses lead to two general conclusions: (1) compared to research on the general population, similar predictors and lower rates of Internet participation and usage are observed, and (2) mixed evidence suggests participation in criminal lifestyles contributes to digital inequality. The results support a theory of technological diffusion to marginalized populations. We conclude by discussing the expansion of technology, digital inequality, and crime.