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Despite considerable attention to gun violence, crime gun investigations have received limited empirical focus. Research suggests that reliance on specialized investigators and long periods of time between gun crimes, evidence collection, and evidence processing are barriers to timely intelligence. The Phoenix Police Department Crime Gun Liaison Program (CGLP) intended to close this gap by increasing the capacity of patrol officers to investigate gun-related offenses. To examine the impact of the CGLP, a randomized control trial was used to select 16 treatment and 16 matched control officers. We supplement quantitative analyses with qualitative results from focus groups. Treatment officers were referred to and responded to significantly more firearm-related incidents, which resulted in collecting significantly more casings, firearms, fingerprints, and DNA samples during the six-month study period than control officers. Treatment officers also generated a significantly higher number of NIBIN leads and arrests. However, incident-level analyses provided less consistent results, though incidents involving treatment officers remained more likely to result in arrest. Qualitative results support these findings, with officers finding value in the program and reporting improved ability to respond to gun crime and reduced time spent processing scenes. Leveraging patrol officers can improve police agency capacity for responding to gun violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incarcerated youth across the English-speaking Caribbean engage in high levels of offending before their detention. However, we know little about whether youth detained in juvenile justice systems in the region are those with the highest offending levels. As in nations beyond the region, some groups of youth in the Caribbean may be disproportionately overrepresented in the system despite their offending levels, such as by race or gender. Using samples of secondary school students and incarcerated youth, the present study examines: (1) do incarcerated youth self-report engaging in more delinquency prior to being detained than those not incarcerated and (2) are there demographic or risk/protective factors differences between incarcerated and nonincarcerated youth? We find that, compared to nonincarcerated youth, incarcerated youth self-report higher levels of delinquency, in general, and across violent offending, property offending, and drug involvement. When we used propensity score matching to match youth by their involvement in delinquency, disparities in multiple demographic and risk/protective factors emerge between incarcerated and nonincarcerated youth. Our findings point toward racial disparities in the use of incarceration, with African descent youth more likely to be incarcerated. We contextualize our results for youth justice in the Caribbean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal socialization is the process by which individuals obtain their attitudes and beliefs about formal social control mechanisms such as the police, including how these are formed through domains of social life. These attitudes and subsequent beliefs toward the police, whether positive or negative, have been found to impact individuals' compliance with the law and cooperation with legal authorities. Despite research advancements on legal socialization, the theoretical hypotheses drawn from this perspective have not been tested in the Caribbean context, a high crime and violence setting where the police are often viewed as corrupt, untrustworthy, and ineffective. This study uses data from 4,293 youths to examine the effect of socializing agents (i.e., family, school, and peers) on youth perceptions of the police in three nations - Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia - and whether these perceptions impact delinquency. We find that legal socialization domains and perceptions of the police are important factors that influence delinquency in the Caribbean. Implications are discussed in light of future research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing up in a household without two parents present is an established risk factor for youth delinquency. However, much of the research on family structure and delinquency derives from U.S. samples, limiting applicability to the developing world. The present study explores the role of traditional and non-traditional family structures on self-reported delinquency in eight English-speaking Caribbean nations. We further examine the moderating role of family processes (parental attachment and parental supervision) and commitment to negative peers on this relationship. We find that youth from intact nuclear families, with a mother and father present, engage in less delinquency than youth from intact blended, single-parent, or no-parent households. Further, family structure moderated the relationship between delinquency, parental attachment, and commitment to negative peers. Theoretical and research implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent advancements in juvenile justice across the Caribbean have occurred, little academic inquiry has examined youth incarceration. Using data from the Caribbean Youth Detention Survey collected in nine nations between 2014 and 2015, we examine descriptive statistics and assess country-level differences in youth incarcerated in the Caribbean. Many of our study nations have a small number of detained youth. While the average youth detainee is 16 years old, male and of African descent, some are as young as 8 and 10 years. Over a quarter of detainees are awaiting sentencing; however, this total is almost 50 per cent in Trinidad and Tobago and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. While only about a quarter of detained youth have been remanded or sentenced for a violent offence, the majority self-report serious levels of offending prior to incarceration. Given the relatively small number of youth incarcerated, alternative responses that are highly personalized and empirically identified as effective can be implemented with this sub-population that is at risk of future delinquency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]