Court-Ordered Mentoring Programs for Adjudicated Juveniles: When Should Youth be Referred?

Most mentoring programs target at-risk youth, but programs for those already adjudicated in the juvenile justice system have been less extensively studied. We examined the referral process, rates of program completion and recidivism for 97 mentored and 287 non-mentored youth on probation in a large, urban, Hispanicdominated county. Youth who were referred to mentoring were already showing a pattern of technical violations on probation. As a result, mentored youth had higher odds of program failure and recidivism. Policy implications for mentoring programs for juvenile offenders include revisiting when youth are first referred to mentoring, better selection and more extensive training of adult mentors. 1 University of Texas at San Antonio. 2 Department of Criminal Justice, University of Texas at El Paso. 3 Department of Criminal Justice, University of Texas at San Antonio. Corresponding Author: Leanne Fiftal Alarid, Ph.D. 500 W. University Avenue El Paso, TX 79968 [email protected] 816-536-8393 Tapia et al. Justice Policy Journal, Fall 2013 2 Court-Ordered Mentoring Programs Introduction Mentoring programs for disadvantaged and at-risk youth have grown at a rapid pace over the last two decades. There are now over 5,000 mentoring programs serving about 3 million youths throughout the U.S. (DuBois, Portillo, Rhodes, Silverthorn & Valentine, 2011). Mentoring programs are interactive helping relationships between two individuals over an extended period, wherein an approved adult mentor develops trust, spends quality time, and passes along knowledge and skills to the mentee. Mentees are typically from disadvantaged family or neighborhood contexts, may show signs of emotional or behavioral problems and/or lack the social support to navigate maturation and development (Tolan, Henry, Schoeny, & Bass, 2008). Compared to the number of programs for younger children who are at-risk of entering the juvenile justice system, mentoring programs for youth already in the system are rather scarce. Moreover, programs for justice system-involved youth might be expected to have a lower success rate than traditional programs, given that youth in the former are older and more likely committed to a delinquent identity or lifestyle. In large cities with high birthrates, and consequently, high delinquency rates, mentoring services might be relied upon to cover a broad spectrum of risk types from the younger status offenders to the older, more serious, and chronic offenders. The current paper examines the referral process and outcomes of one mentoring program in a large Hispanic majority city with a large proportion of youth in their prime delinquency ages. We begin by addressing the theory and logic of mentoring prior to reviewing the literature on programs for system involved youth. We then analyze recidivism using data on mentored and non-mentored youth on probation within the same agency and discuss our findings in the context of policy. The Theory and Logic Behind Mentoring A variety of factors contribute to youth at risk of justice system involvement. These factors include alcohol and drug use, family violence, low parental involvement, poor school performance, and deviant peers. The protective factors against system involvement tend to be supportive relationships, positive recognition in school and having friends committed to conformity. The belief is that further escalation into more serious criminal involvement may be reduced if the ratio of protective factors was higher than the number of risk factors (Farrington, Loeber, Jolliffe, & Pardini, 2008). The logic of mentoring is that youth who are provided access to positive and Tapia et al. Justice Policy Journal, Fall 2013 Court-Ordered Mentoring Programs 3 supportive role models can improve their emotional well-being and social development (Herrera, Sipe & McClanahan, 2000), but also help with academic achievement and reduce other problem behaviors. Regular meetings in an adultyouth mentor relationship can lead to engagement in beneficial activities (Parra, DuBois, Neville, Pugh-Lilly, & Povinelli, 2002) and a deeper integration into the youth’s social networks (Dubois, Neville, Parra, & Pugh-Lilly, 2002). Mentoring programs are thus designed for disadvantaged youth with little access to legitimate resources and high-status social networks. The youth are provided with guidance and support from adult mentors who are embedded in such networks, ultimately empowering the youth to gain access to these resources on their own (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). While many kinds of “institutional agents” can be effective, mentoring is theorized by some as the most likely method to actually change a mentee’s path of behavior if they possess four critical characteristics. First, they must be aware of the social stratification issues that present barriers to resources and success. Second, they must possess the means of building the youths’ social capital—i.e. links to people with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and social networks to help make the desired change in youth. Selected mentors who have high-status positions of authority and institutional ties (to schools, places of employment, etc.) can offer such resources. Third, mentors must be willing to be viewed by outsiders as “empowerment agents” or advocates for changing lives of disadvantaged youth. Finally, trust and reciprocity is important within any mentoring relationship for sustained behavior change (Stanton-Salazar 2011). It is argued that mentoring programs make the most appreciable impact if they target youths who originate from disadvantaged neighborhoods and/or family environments, and if the program follows “best practices” outlined by MENTOR (DuBois, Holloway, Valentine, & Cooper, 2002; DuBois, Doolittle, Yates, Silverthorn, & Tebes, 2006). This includes forming close and long-lasting bonds between the mentor and mentee (Rhodes & DuBois, 2008). Mentoring programs have been extensively studied over the years with community-based programs like Big Brothers/Big Sisters, as well as in school-based settings that target students who are struggling academically or who have exhibited disruptive problems on school grounds. About 112 studies of mentoring programs were conducted between 1970 and 2005. These analyses concluded that mentoring relationships generally improved youth academic achievement and social development compared to youths who did not participate in a mentoring program (DuBois et al., 2011; Tolan et al., 2008). Much less is known about referral patterns to mentoring programs for adjudicated youths on probation. Tapia et al. Justice Policy Journal, Fall 2013 4 Court-Ordered Mentoring Programs Mentoring Programs for Adjudicated Youth Mentoring programs for youths who have already come to the attention of the juvenile justice system are locally supervised through post-adjudication probation or parole supervision. In the case of probation, referrals to mentoring programs are typically recommended to the court by a probation officer and ordered by the judge. The mentor is an adult volunteer who is outside of the juvenile justice system. Youths in post adjudication mentoring programs are likely to have had problems in school and to be already involved in more serious and/or chronic delinquency than youths in school-based or traditional community-based programs. These youth may be on supervision for delinquency that is equivalent to a felony crime or have had repeated contacts with the juvenile justice system.Chronic offenders are defined in the literature as youth who accrue five or more arrests before the age of 18 (Loeber et al., 1998). A review of the mentoring program literature revealed a small number of studies on programs for delinquent youths that used a comparison group in the evaluation (Anderson, 1977; Barnoski, 2002; Berger & Gold, 1978; Blechman, Maurice, Buecker, & Helberg, 2000; Bouffard & Bergseth, 2008; Jarjoura, 2009). In one of the earliest known studies, Anderson (1977) examined the likelihood of future delinquency with boys and girls who were found to be truant or delinquent. There were 76 mentored youth compared with 76 youth who did not receive mentoring. Anderson (1977) found that while the juveniles were in the program, mentoring reduced both the likelihood and severity of delinquent behavior, but there was no apparent post supervision follow-up. One year later, Berger and Gold (1978) examined three randomly assigned groups of juveniles on probation. One group received services such as volunteer mentoring, tutoring, and group counseling. The second group was referred for services but never participated. The third control group was not referred for services. The juveniles were tracked using four waves of self-reported delinquency and official police contacts for up to 12 months after probation and mentoring ended. The researchers concluded that volunteer mentoring had “negligible if not negative effects” on self-reported delinquency (Berger & Gold, 1978, p. 332). Research on mentoring programs for adjudicated youth did not appear to resurface until over two decades later. Forty-five youths mentored while in a diversion program for misdemeanants and first-time felons were compared with 137 diverted youths who were not mentored. The two groups were followed for 30 months after beginning the diversion program, and the researchers detected that 51% of the mentored youth and 46% of the control group were rearrested, with no significant differences between the groups (Blechman et al. 2000). Tapia et al. Justice Policy Journal, Fall 2013 Court-Ordered Mentoring Programs 5 Barnoski and colleagues (2002) examined confined juveniles who were returning to the community and followed 78 mentored offenders, comparing them with 78 non-mentored offenders for 12 months after release. They determined that 23% of the mentored youth and 35% of the control group were reconvicted after 12 months. A similar approach was taken by Roger Jarjoura in a program he implemented in Indiana in 1997 (Jarjoura, 2009). Youthful offenders who were released from Plainfield juvenile correctional facility were randomly assigned to one of three groups: pre-release preparation with an individually assigned mentor; prerelease planning without a mentor; and a control group that received no services. While the first group that received both the pre-release and the mentoring services had the lowest recidivism rates of all three groups, that difference was most pronounced four years after release (reincarceration rate after 4 years was 44%, 50% and 62% respectively). Youth who agreed to work closely in a sustained relationship with their assigned mentor had a 28% reincarceration rate after four years (Jarjoura, 2009). This study showed that mentoring was even more important for youth classified as high-risk. A recent study by Bouffard and Bergseth (2008) measured court contacts for delinquency of boys and girls who were placed out of their home and were adjudicated for a misdemeanor or felony. The mentoring program incorporated paid adult mentors as part of a reentry program, and the findings were compared to traditional probationers. The authors examined service delivery as well as outcome measures, including time to first new offense and number of new official contacts within six months’ release. Results indicated that well-implemented reentry programs can work and that paid professional mentors could contribute to strengthening prosocial bonds compared to those on traditional probation. Of the 63 mentored youth, 29% had a new court contact, compared to 43% of the 49 youth in the comparison group. Like many of the previous studies, the group differences were not statistically significant, likely due to small sample size.