Geographic Analysis for Program Evaluation (GAPE)
    Riverside County, California
           P.A.C.T.
           Y.A.T.

Geographic Analysis for Program Evaluation: Riverside County Juvenile Crime Prevention Act (A.B. 1913) Evaluation of Juvenile Diversion Programs

General Contact: Dr. Gisela Bichler

Juvenile diversion programs, such as Riverside County Probation’s Youth Diversion Program are designed to intervene with youth in order to prevent further involvement with the criminal justice system. Outcome measures include reduced numbers of juvenile arrests countywide as well as specific improvements in the performance of these youth in the community, to include improved family interaction and school attendance.

The Crime Analysis Division is providing research support to this large multifaceted evaluation led by Dr. Sechrest. Geographic analysis of key factors will supplement program evaluations. Below each of these research initiatives are detailed.

Police Action Counseling Team (P.A.C.T.)
The PACT or Family Violence Prevention Program operates in Coachella Valley and is fully supported by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. This program involves collaboration between the Sheriff's Department, contracted licensed mental health professionals, educators, county child protective services, mental health, and probation. Given the breadth of the area serviced and the limited resources available, the program evaluation being conducted by the faculty of CSUSB under the Center for Criminal Justice Research will include a geographical analysis to control for geographic limitations.

The Police Action Counseling Teams (P.A.C.T.) program was designed to provide immediate crisis assistance to children that experienced trauma associated with violence in their homes (i.e. domestic violence) and to link these young clients to community services. The program was not designed to include services that would guarantee that linkages are maintained throughout the client's course of treatment; however, the Board of Corrections requires the program to be assessed against the ability of clients to avoid future involvement with the juvenile justice system. As such, any evaluation of this program must account for the challenges posed by access to community services. For this reason, the evaluation team decided to include a geospatial component to the P.A.C.T. assessment.

Given that P.A.C.T. operates in the Coachella Valley area of Riverside County, CA—a vast region with diverse communities—differences between the treatment and comparison groups were assessed to identify factors that should be included in the final program assessment. The comparison group included clients residing in the city of Palm Desert and those from adjacent urban areas, and the treatment group includes clients residing in the unincorporated areas serviced by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, Palm Desert Station.

Reviewing 2000 Census data, it is clear that the residential populations of the study areas show important differences. Socio-economic factors show significant variation; the urban areas were generally populated with older, white, well-educated residents while the unincorporated region had more diverse communities. The high level of Spanish speaking residents suggests that important cultural differences exist. Additionally, the unincorporated region appears to be financially challenged with higher levels of poverty, lower median household incomes, and a higher number of female-headed households. The unincorporated region shows higher levels of carpooling and fewer vehicles per household. These factors combined may indicate transportation challenges and other risk factors that could impact on the ability of program participants to successfully be serviced by P.A.C.T.

Youth Accountability Teams (Y.A.T.)
As specified by the California Board of Corrections, the success of the YAT program will be measured against prior performance standards stated in terms of the rate of contract completion, number of youth taken into custody, detained, or placed on probation, probation violation rates, and completion of restitution and community service orders. The assessment will also use truancy and family violence rates. Despite the fact that YAT involves 16 separate programs, the data will be aggregated across all programs, to assess the overall effectiveness of the program.

An important limitation of this mandated assessment strategy is that aggregating the data without accounting for important regional and programmatic differences may dilute the measures of success. A wider range of measures is necessary given the dramatic differences among YAT programs across the county; these differences reflect the diverse communities served. Additionally, at the neighborhood level, ecological factors (e.g. poverty levels, land use, and residential density) combine to facilitate neighborhood conditions that foster crime problems. Individually, areas where people spend their time—living, working, attending school, and playing—are all important to their likelihood of being involved in delinquent activity. If individuals live within a noxious neighborhood and are in close proximity to places (less than a mile) that generate or attract crime, the level of crime toxicity of their surroundings is even higher. Further, the length of time spent in such neighborhoods and one's ability to escape or avoid such places also affects one's exposure to toxic environments. Since these factors are generally beyond the control of program administrators and they may influence performance (success or failure) of YAT participants, the assessment team agreed that including geographic factors in the assessment would strengthen the fairness of the evaluation process.

Mobility and the nexus between central locations (i.e. home, school, and various recreation facilities) are inherently linked to the degree a youth is exposed and affected by the social ecological characteristics of their environment. Neighborhood toxicity will be measured through an index that combines information about 20 ecological factors, including: low supervision of children (high levels of dysfunctional families), proportion of unrelated cohabitation, residential mobility, racial and/or ethnic heterogeneity, poverty, unbalanced population age distribution, community stability, household density, access to alcohol, population density, topography (land use or zoning), presence of unsupervised activity nodes, and proximity of residential units to commercial areas. Information about juvenile movement patterns is being gathered through a survey administered to program youth during their assessment. The primary objective of these questions is to identify how far juvenile delinquents travel, their mode of transportation, and where they are likely to spend their discretionary time.