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With over 4 million adults under community supervision and an average of 30% that do not fare well, an unanswered question is which strategies reduce the likelihood of technical, absconding, and new arrest violations during the early phase of supervision. Utilizing data on 32,335 moderate to high-supervised individuals on supervision in North Carolina, the study found that success during the first 6 months is due to probation officers' use of incentives to promote positive behavior and swift community-based consequences to address negative behavior, prioritizing treatment services or cognitive programs, increasing monitoring requirements, and using skill-building worksheets to increase engagement and build rapport. Officer actions are more important than individual characteristics, and can promote success for those that are under the age of 31, have more complex needs, and are identified as at-risk for violating supervision. Future studies should explore these concepts more directly regarding their relationship with recidivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) uses meta-analyses to help program administrators identify effective programs that reduce recidivism. The results are displayed as summary effect sizes. Yet, many programs are grouped within a category (such as Intensive Supervision or Correctional Education), even though the features of the programs might suggest they may be very different. The following research question was examined: What program features are related to the effect size in the WSIPP program category? Researchers at ACE! at George Mason University reviewed the studies analyzed by WSIPP and their effect sizes. The meta-regression global models showed recidivism decreased with certain program features, while other program features actually increased recidivism. A multivariate meta-regression showed substantial variation across Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy programs. These preliminary findings suggest the need to further research how differing program features contribute to client-level outcomes, and develop a scheme to better classify programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Today, the ability of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence to place persons at crime scenes with near certainty is broadly accepted by criminal investigators, courts, policy makers, and the public. However, the public safety benefits of investments in DNA databases are largely unknown and research attempting to quantify these benefits is only gradually emerging. Given the inherent difficulty in randomly assigning offenders to treatment and comparison groups for the purpose of inferring specific deterrence and probative effects (PREs) of DNA databases, this study developed an alternate strategy for extracting these effects from transactional data. Research Design: Reoffending patterns of a large cohort of offenders released from the Florida Department of Corrections custody between 1996 and 2004 were analyzed across a range of criminal offense categories. First, an identification strategy using multiple clock models was developed that linked the two simultaneous effects of DNA databases to different clocks measuring the same events. Then, a semiparametric approach was developed for estimating the models. Results: The estimation models yielded mixed results. Small deterrent effects—2-3% reductions in recidivism risk attributable to deterrence—were found only for robbery and burglary. However, strong PREs—20-30% increase in recidivism risk attributable to PREs—were uncovered for most offense categories. Conclusion: The probative and deterrent effects of DNA databases can be elucidated through innovative semiparametric models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural crime victimization--including theft of farm crops, livestock, pesticides, and equipment--and efforts to address it remain largely ignored despite the potential of such crime to adversely affect the lives and businesses of farmers and increase the costs of food to consumers. The Agricultural Crime, Technology, Information, and Operations Network (ACTION) initiative, located in California's central valley, was recently developed to combat such crime. The authors present findings from a process and outcome evaluation of this program. The findings are limited by the design of the study but nonetheless suggest that efforts to increase guardianship measures among farmers (e.g., marking equipment and livestock and using surveillance equipment), to "harden targets" (e.g., locking tractors and storing chemicals in locked storage sheds), and to arrest and prosecute offenders may help reduce agricultural crime victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe a semiparametric information-theoretic framework for modeling the determinants of rare events aggregated at intracity areal units while allowing for various forms of error correlation structures. The approach is applied to an examination of the effects of socioeconomic and demographic macrocharacteristics of communities on the amount of violence they experience. We investigate and find evidence of some instability in these processes across types of violence and level of areal aggregation. However, we also find evidence of a stable predictor—resource deprivation—for all the types of violence analyzed and at both levels of areal aggregation considered. In addition, we find evidence of a spillover effect of a community's resource deprivation on the level of violence its neighboring areas can expect. We discuss our findings in light of their substantive, methodological, and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]