Meta-Analysis of Scared Straight and other Juvenile Awareness Programs For Preventing Juvenile Delinquency By: Anthony Petrosino, Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino, and John Buehler.

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Meta-Analysis of Scared Straight and other
Juvenile Awareness Programs For Preventing
Juvenile Delinquency By Anthony Petrosino,
Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino, and John Buehler.

• Presented by Mike Formichella
• June 2004
• Radford University

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What are Scared Straight Programs?

• New Jersey (1970s)
• Documentary (1979)
• 16 out of 17 remained law abiding for 3 months
• Replicated in more than 30 jurisdictions
  nationwide.
• Goal is deterrence

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Finckenauer 1982

• Conducted a randomized controlled trial of the
  New Jersey program
• Found no effect on criminal behavior
• Found that participants are more likely to be
  arrested than those in a control group
• Yet belief in the program continued

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Panacea Phenomenon

• Phrase coined by Finckenauer
• process by which policy makers, practitioners,
  media reporters, and others some-times latch onto
  quick short-term, and inexpensive cures to solve
  difficult social problems.

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Goal of this Meta-Analysis

• Assess the effects of Scared straight and other
  deterrence programs aimed at Juvenile delinquents
  and predelinquents.
• Do they work?

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Selection Criteria

• Must be randomized or quasi-randomized
• Must have controlled trials or a true control
  group
• Must include only juveniles who are delinquents
  or predelinquents
• Intervention must include a prison visit as main
  component

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Selection Criteria Continued

• Focused on crime measures
• At least one outcome measure

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Search Strategy

• Tried to identify published and unpublished
  studies
• Bias towards significance
• Searched databases in different fields to
  minimize discipline bias

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Search Strategy Continued

• Guided by Petrosinos initial review of field
  trials in crime reduction
• Found initial 300 studies
• Handsearch of journals
• Bibliography search of previous studies
• 6 Electronic databases
• 18 bibliographic databases
• Mail Campaign
• Solicitations in association newsletters

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More Search Strategy

• Search was further augmented by searches designed
  to find relevant articles published after
  Petrosoinos review
• Electronic databases
• Bibliography search of more recent systematic or
  traditional reviews
• E-mail correspondence with selected researchers

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Even More Search Strategy

• More specific search of 14 different electronic
  databases
• Conducted searches on the World Wide Web through
  Hotbot, Altavista, and later with Google.

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Methodology

• Over 500 studies were identified
• 9 were found to meet the admission criteria
• Major problem was randomization

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Data Analysis

• Organized information into four indexes
• Prevalence rates
• Average incidence rates
• Offence severity rates
• latency

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Data Analysis Continued

• The only measure which was consistently reported
  in all 9 studies was prevalence.
• Due to this measures dichotomous nature Odds
  Ratios were used

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Data
K N Odds Ratio 95 CI Lower 95 CI Upper
9 794 1.72 1.13 2.62
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Results

• Juveniles who participate in prison oriented
  deterrence programs are almost twice as likely
  (1.75/1) to re-offend than those in the control
  group

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Discussion

• Not only are these interventions unsuccessful,
  they also do harm.
• In spite of results like these, programs persist
  nationwide.
• Programs may benefit the prison population
• May be effective as part of a multicomponent
  package

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Limitations

• Sample of studies too specific