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Research has consistently suggested that individuals from high-risk environments who experience multiple risk factors are most susceptible to becoming delinquent. A substantial portion of these individuals, however, are resilient to the pressures within high-risk environments and thus do not become delinquent. While past research has identified protective factors that are independently correlated with resiliency, relatively few studies have investigated the cumulative effects that protective factors possess in promoting resiliency. Using a sample of 711 individuals from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Child-Mother data set, this study investigates the cumulative effects of protective factors in fostering resiliency. The findings suggest that the accumulation of protection is positively correlated with resiliency over and above the effects of risk. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed. KEYWORDS Resiliency, protective factors, delinquency, developmental criminology, early intervention

This evaluation of the Baltimore City Drug Treatment Court randomly assigned 235 eligible clients to either drug treatment court or 'treatment as usual.' The program provides an alternative to incarceration for drug-involved, nonviolent offenders. Drug court judges imposed harsher sentences but suspended these sentences conditional on compliance with the drug court regimen. Drug court clients were more likely than controls to participate in drug testing and treatment and to attend status hearings. During the 12 months following the date of randomization into the study, 48 percent of drug treatment court clients and 64 percent of controls were arrested for new offenses. Among the more serious cases heard in the circuit court, 32 percent of drug court clients versus 57 percent of controls were rearrested. When differences in the opportunity to reoffend are taken into consideration, controls were arrested at a rate nearly three times that of drug treatment court clients.

Researchers commonly use hypothetical intentions to offend as proxies for real-world offending behavior. The current study examined the predictive validity of these hypothetical intentions, as well as the consequences of using offending intentions in statistical models of decision-making. Undergraduate students were asked to self-report their intentions to cheat on a hypothetical online exam for which they were unprepared. Minutes later, they completed a difficult online trivia test for course credit. Students who performed well on the trivia test were presumed to have cheated. Hypothetical intentions to cheat were found to predict actual cheating at a rate no better than chance. Furthermore, while several factors were found to be predictive of hypothetical cheating, none were predictive of actual cheating. This incongruence between intentions and behavior may be attributed to the different emotional reactions evoked by hypothetical and real-world offending opportunities. Implications for research on offender decision-making are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deterrence research supports the idea that punishment curbs offending; however, results for the specific deterrent effects of drunk driving are more nuanced. This research is often limited in its use of non-offender samples, its failure to examine links between past sanctions and subsequent risk perceptions, and in its use of aggregate-level data, thereby precluding any exploration of individuals’ perceived sanction risks. The current study examines the relationship between 824 felony inmates’ experiences with formal legal sanctions for drunk driving and their risk perceptions for driving drunk as well as their hypothetical intentions to drive drunk. Results generally fail to support deterrence theory’s propositions, and instead uncover some positive punishment effects (higher drunk driving intentions among those sanctioned previously) net of important theoretical controls. Implications for subsequent research and policy making are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Spousal Assault Replication Program, the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, was identified as a site where arrest did not deter misdemeanor domestic violence. Shortly after these findings were published, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department developed a Domestic Violence (DV) unit to combat the problem of intimate partner violence. The mission of the Charlotte DV unit is to reduce future offending through intensive investigation and victim assistance. The current study evaluates the impact of the Charlotte DV unit versus standard patrol on official accounts of offender recidivism in a random sample of 891 domestic violence cases. Controlling for offender demographics, prior criminal history, case severity, and additional criminal justice responses, suspects processed through the DV unit had significantly lower rates of re-offending across an 18- to 30-month follow-up period. Theoretical explanations for the DV unit effect are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There has been a renewed interest among some prison policy makers to hold inmates more accountable for their actions. The belief is that inmates require more structure and discipline in their daily activities and must demonstrate that they have earned privileges that can lead to their early release. A meta-analysis and narrative review was undertaken to determine the utility of contingency management (CM) programs for improving inmates’ performance (e.g., prison adjustment, educational/work skills) and to generate a list of program principles for managing CM programs effectively. The study finds that CM programs produce robust gains in a variety of behaviors (e.g., pro-social behaviors, education, work assignments, etc.) in prison settings. As a result, the authors provide a list of “what works” principles, categorized into implementation and treatment strategies for administering effective CM programs in prison. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study meta-analyzes 23 independent studies that included information from 28,265 homicide offenders across nine countries. On average, 48% of homicide offenders were reportedly under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offense and 37% were intoxicated. We found no demographic variations across age, gender, or race, although the proportion testing positive within the United States appears to be decreasing over time. Further, the proportion of offenders who were under the influence of alcohol was lower among those who committed the homicide with a firearm. Communities that have high homicide rates should work to reduce alcohol consumption rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the efficacy of situational crime prevention (SCP) strategies on convenience store safety has received considerable attention, the security of fast-food restaurants has been virtually ignored. This study was based on a population of convenience stores (n = 295) and fast-food restaurants (n = 321) in Charlotte, North Carolina. The study examined whether the crime control strategies commonly recommended to the convenience store industry were effective at reducing robbery in the fastfood industry. Relatedly, the study examined whether target-hardening strategies have similar effects on robbery prevalence rates across the two types of businesses. In general, the article found that many target-hardening strategies derived from the literature failed to impact robbery rates for either type of establishment. For those factors that did emerge as statistically significant predictors of robbery, the preventative effects generally appeared in one type of establishment or the other, but not in both. These findings suggest that effective SCP strategies are truly situation specific and not "one size fits all." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]