Journal of Experimental Criminology

article

The impact of TASERs on police use-of-force decisions: Findings from a randomized field-training experiment

William Sousa, Justin Ready, Michael Ault

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 1 > 35-55

This paper presents findings from a randomized field-training experiment designed to study the impact TASERs on police officers’ use-of-force decisions. Officers were randomly assigned to either a treatment group (with TASERs) or a control group (without TASERs) and then participated in training scenarios involving different levels of suspect resistance. The study investigates whether and to what...

article

Prison-based chemical dependency treatment in Minnesota: An outcome evaluation

Grant Duwe

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 1 > 57-81

Using a retrospective quasi-experimental design, this study evaluated the effectiveness of prison-based chemical dependency (CD) treatment by examining recidivism outcomes among 1,852 offenders released from Minnesota correctional facilities during 2005. Because recidivism data were collected on the 1,852 offenders through the end of 2008, the average follow-up period was 42 months. To minimize the...

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Partial program evaluation with observational data: the effect of treatment on drug addiction

Michael Beenstock

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 1 > 83-113

A partial identification methodology is proposed in which self-selection into treatment is motivated by the expectation that treatment is beneficial. Identification is partial because it is not possible to establish empirically that treatment is effective. However, it is possible to establish that treatment is ineffective or even harmful. The evaluation methodology combines control function estimation...

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Simulated evidence on the prospects of treating more drug-involved offenders

Avinash Singh Bhati, John K. Roman

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 1 > 1-33

Despite a growing consensus among scholars that substance abuse treatment is effective at reducing offending, strict eligibility rules and budgetary considerations greatly limit the impact that current models of therapeutic jurisprudence can have on public safety in the United States. A question of pressing importance for U.S. drug policy is whether it is beneficial to expand application of this model...

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Low-intensity community supervision for low-risk offenders: a randomized, controlled trial

Geoffrey C. Barnes, Lindsay Ahlman, Charlotte Gill, Lawrence W. Sherman, more

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 2 > 159-189

The Philadelphia Low-Intensity Community Supervision Experiment provides evidence on the effects of lowering the intensity of community supervision with low-risk offenders in an urban, US county community corrections agency. Using a random forests forecasting model for serious crime based on Berk et al. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 172(Part 1), 191–211, 2009, 1,559 low-risk...

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Fast Track intervention effects on youth arrests and delinquency

Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 2 > 131-157

This paper examines the effects of the Fast Track preventive intervention on youth arrests and self-reported delinquent behavior through age 19. High-risk youth randomly assigned to receive a long-term, comprehensive preventive intervention from 1st grade through 10th grade at four sites were compared to high-risk control youth. Findings indicated that random assignment to Fast Track reduced court-recorded...

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How damaging is imprisonment in the long-term? A controlled experiment comparing long-term effects of community service and short custodial sentences on re-offending and social integration

Martin Killias, Gwladys Gilliéron, Françoise Villard, Clara Poglia

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 2 > 115-130

Since the 19th century, short custodial sentences were said to foster re-offending through alienating inmates from families and work. The present study is one of the few randomized controlled trials comparing short custodial sentences with community service orders. Between 1993 and 1995, 123 subjects were randomly assigned to community service or immediate custody (of a maximum of 14 days) in the...

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When second best is good enough: a comparison between a true experiment and a regression discontinuity quasi-experiment

Richard Berk, Geoffrey Barnes, Lindsay Ahlman, Ellen Kurtz

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 2 > 191-208

In this paper, we compare the results from a randomized clinical trial to the results from a regression discontinuity quasi-experiment when both designs are implemented in the same setting. We find that the results from the two approaches are effectively identical. We attribute the comparability in part to recent statistical developments that make the model required for the analysis of data from a...

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Justifying the use of non-experimental methods and disqualifying the use of randomized controlled trials: challenging folklore in evaluation research in crime and justice

David Weisburd

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 2 > 209-227

The key limitation of non-experimental evaluation methods is that they require an assumption that all confounding factors related to treatment are identified in the statistical models developed. The key advantage of randomized experiments is that this assumption can be relaxed. In this paper, I describe and explain why this assumption is so critical for non-experiments and why it can be ignored in...

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The correspondence of family features with problem, aggressive, criminal, and violent behavior: a meta-analysis

James H. Derzon

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 3 > 263-292

Family features and characteristics are often identified as central to the development of antisocial behavior and are thus attractive targets for risk-focused preventive intervention. Using meta-analytic techniques, we examined the covariation between 21 family constructs with the current or later display of problem, aggressive, criminal, or violent behaviors. The 80 mean relationships, based on 3,124...

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Perceptions of safety and victimization: does survey construction affect perceptions?

Sue-Ming Yang, Laura A. Wyckoff

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 3 > 293-323

Surveys are commonly used in the field of criminology and criminal justice; however, the effects of survey design on study findings are rarely examined. Using a randomized experiment, this study examined the effects of question order in a victimization survey on respondents’ perceptions of safety. The interactions between respondents’ characteristics and question-order effects were also explored....

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Comparing the effects of community service and short-term imprisonment on recidivism: a matched samples approach

Hilde Wermink, Arjan Blokland, Paul Nieuwbeerta, Daniel Nagin, more

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 3 > 325-349

This study uses longitudinal official record data on adult offenders in The Netherlands (n = 4,246) to compare recidivism after community service to that after short-term imprisonment. To account for possible bias due to selection of offenders into these types of sanctions, we control for a large set of confounding variables using a combined method of ‘matching by variable’ and ‘propensity score matching’...

article

Are criminologists describing randomized controlled trials in ways that allow us to assess them? Findings from a sample of crime and justice trials

Amanda E. Perry, David Weisburd, Catherine Hewitt

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 3 > 245-262

Descriptive validity is an important factor in assessing the transparent reporting of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Measures of validity in crime and justice have reported on this issue but there has been a lack of standardization in comparison to other discipline areas (e.g., healthcare) where tools such as the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement have improved reporting...

article

Deviancy training: understanding how preventive interventions harm

Denise C. Gottfredson

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 3 > 229-243

Joan McCord’s follow-up study of the Cambridge–Somerville Youth Project showed that even well-intentioned, well-implemented prevention programs sometimes have harmful effects on participants. She reported that peer reinforcement of delinquent behaviors or bragging about delinquent behaviors that occurred during summer camp experiences provided as part of the project might explain the negative outcomes...

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Exploring gender differences in dating violence/harassment prevention programming in middle schools: results from a randomized experiment

Bruce G. Taylor, Nan Stein, Frances F. Burden

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 4 > 419-445

In this study, we randomly assigned 123 sixth and seventh grade classrooms from seven middle schools in the greater Cleveland area to one of two five-session curricula addressing gender violence/sexual harassment (GV/SH) or to a no-treatment control group. A baseline survey and two follow-up surveys were administered immediately after the treatment (Wave 2) and about six months post-treatment (Wave...

article

Foreword

Lawrence W. Sherman

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 4 > 351-354

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Lessons learned from the implementation of two randomized trials in a criminal court setting

Melissa Labriola, Michael Rempel, Amanda Cissner

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 4 > 447-473

Randomized trials represent the most rigorous type of research design to measure the impact of a social policy intervention. However, such designs are difficult to implement and require the consent of multiple parties, including researchers and non-researchers. Unique challenges arise when seeking to implement such a design in a criminal court setting, due to the need to revise legal procedures, uphold...

article

Lessons from a successful and failed random assignment testing batterer program innovations

Edward W. Gondolf

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 4 > 355-376

With increasing pressure to conduct experimental evaluations of domestic violence interventions, it is important to weigh further the most challenging aspect of experimental designs: the implementation of random assignment. This paper reviews two attempted experimental evaluations of counseling programs for domestic violence offenders, and formulates implications for conducting and interpreting program...

article

Reviewer list for 2010

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 4 > 499-501

article

The impact of length of domestic violence treatment on the patterns of subsequent intimate partner violence

Christopher D. Maxwell, Robert C. Davis, Bruce G. Taylor

Journal of Experimental Criminology > 2010 > 6 > 4 > 475-497

Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) have been used for several decades in criminal justice research to assess the benefits of interventions. RCTs have been employed with some frequency in evaluating batterer intervention programs (BIPs); between 1990 and 2005, there were five RCTs of BIPs. While most of these studies failed to find positive findings, one conducted in Brooklyn, New York, appeared to...

INFONA - science communication portal

Journal of Experimental Criminology

The impact of TASERs on police use-of-force decisions: Findings from a randomized field-training experiment

Prison-based chemical dependency treatment in Minnesota: An outcome evaluation

Partial program evaluation with observational data: the effect of treatment on drug addiction

Simulated evidence on the prospects of treating more drug-involved offenders

Low-intensity community supervision for low-risk offenders: a randomized, controlled trial

Fast Track intervention effects on youth arrests and delinquency

How damaging is imprisonment in the long-term? A controlled experiment comparing long-term effects of community service and short custodial sentences on re-offending and social integration

When second best is good enough: a comparison between a true experiment and a regression discontinuity quasi-experiment

Justifying the use of non-experimental methods and disqualifying the use of randomized controlled trials: challenging folklore in evaluation research in crime and justice

The correspondence of family features with problem, aggressive, criminal, and violent behavior: a meta-analysis

Perceptions of safety and victimization: does survey construction affect perceptions?

Comparing the effects of community service and short-term imprisonment on recidivism: a matched samples approach

Are criminologists describing randomized controlled trials in ways that allow us to assess them? Findings from a sample of crime and justice trials

Deviancy training: understanding how preventive interventions harm

Exploring gender differences in dating violence/harassment prevention programming in middle schools: results from a randomized experiment

Foreword

Lessons learned from the implementation of two randomized trials in a criminal court setting

Lessons from a successful and failed random assignment testing batterer program innovations

Reviewer list for 2010

The impact of length of domestic violence treatment on the patterns of subsequent intimate partner violence

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