TooLittleTooLatePDF

Too little, too late:
Prevention and Intervention in
Addressing Youth Violence
Report presented to
The Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation
Prepared by
Mark A. Biernbaum, PhD
Institute for Strategic Inquiry and Study (ISIS)

Too Little, Too Late,
Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………. 3
Terminology and other considerations…………………………………….. 5
Characteristics of Violent Youth…..………………………………………... 9
The Development of Violent Youth…………………………………………. 10
Family Environments of Violent Youth…………………………………….. 14
The Communities of Violent Youth…………………………………………. 16
Sociocultural Factors…………………………………………………………. 17
Chronically Violent Kids…………………………………………………….. 19
Key Loci for Intervention……………………………………………………. 22
What About Prevention?.............................................................. 27
Concluding Remarks……………………………………………………….... 30
APPENDIX A:
Special section on truancy: Eight models that work.……………….... 33
Notes……………………………………………………………………………. 51
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Introduction
According to the Department of Justice, in 1970, 168,504 youth (all children
up to 24 years in age) were arrested for violent crimes. By 2000, that number
had jumped a full 40% to 276,920 youth arrested for committing a violent
crime.1
Data now available from the FBI’s Preliminary Semiannual Uniform
Crime Report for the frst half of 2006, shows an increase in violent crimes of
2.3% -- the largest such increase since 1991. In a 2007 interview on this topic,
former Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales cited statistics that suggested that
the country’s increasing level of violent crime was being fueled largely by
increases in violence by youth. The federal government has pledged over $80
million dollars this year to address youth and gang violence.2
Research on violent youth has been going on actively since the 1940s. In
1996, researchers Stephen P. Hinshaw and Carolyn A. Anderson observed:3
The Unites States is currently witnessing an unprecedented
surge in rates of violent crime among youth…, with ever-
increasing numbers of children and adolescents serving
as perpetrators of aggression, assault, and murder…Indeed
newspaper headlines that include graphic descriptions of
violence among children and adolescents are commonplace…
Among youth, the highest rate of referral for mental health
services involve aggressive, acting-out, and disruptive
behavior patterns, tendencies that have shown a detectable
increase over the past 20 years…The threat—or reality—of
violence has created climates of fear, intimidation, and
deprivation in many communities.
What is startling about this paragraph, is that over a decade later, the statistics
and sentiments expressed by Hinshaw and Anderson continue to motivate
funders, policy-makers, and agencies; in other words, our deep concerns about
youth violence have not abated in the intervening decade. Clearly, we have
not found, as a nation, the answers we sought to curb youth violence. We do
have a handful of programs that show good outcomes, but too many good
programs are not funded adequately or at all in these diffcult economic times.
Thus, overall, we are left with the same “climates of fear, intimidation, and
deprivation” discussed by Hinshaw and Anderson.
It is the hope of this report to shed some light on the characteristics of those
youth who engage in aggressive, violent, and delinquent behaviors, and that
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some information regarding potentially promising avenues for prevention and
intervention can be offered for consideration by funders, agencies and
governments, as we all struggle with this particularly wrenching societal ill.2
Terminology and other considerations
It is important to discuss terms used in this area, and general approaches as
well. There are four primary ways we attempt to infuence unwanted
conditions, like youth violence, in our society.4
 Primary Prevention refers to the amelioration of the conditions that can
give rise to an increased risk of youth crime and violence. These
include, but are not restricted to: poverty, violent communities, racism,
fractured family environments, child abuse, malfunctioning parent-child
relations, and parental psychopathology. Addressing these factors is
addressing those things that establish fertile ground for the development
of violent youth in our society.
 Secondary Prevention refers to the amelioration of behaviors that are
not aggressive or violent, but that serve as risk factors for the
development of such behavior. These include school
absenteeism/truancy, defant and unmanageable classroom and home
behavior, poor peer relationships, drug use, and academic
underachievement. These situations foreshadow the potential
emergence of aggressive and violent behaviors.
 Early Intervention occurs when programs intervene after early signs of
violence and antisocial behavior have already emerged, including
getting into fghts at school, vandalism, stealing, and other behaviors
often associated with the term delinquency.
 Late Intervention refers to those programs that intervene after there have
been serious consequences for violent behavior, like incarceration and
probation. These programs have as a goal the reduction or elimination
of the already present violent behaviors and the prevention of
recidivism.
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These strategies are then focused on addressing problems within a particular
locus for intervention. There are 4 major loci:4
 Individual approaches to violence focus on characteristics of violent
young people as the primary venue of investigation and
prevention/intervention.
 Familial approaches look at the family systems of at-risk youth and
attempt to make changes to those systems that will favor more positive
youth development.
 Community models put their focus on making larger-scale changes in
discrete communities as a way of discouraging youth violence and
encouraging positive youth development.
 Sociocultural models focus on addressing key cultural and social
variables, like poverty and racism, and in their attempts to reduce those
cultural-level conditions, they indirectly create policies that diminish
youth crime and violence.
We can observe these 4 methods of infuence along with the 4 loci of change,
in the fgure below:
Method of
Infuence
Location of intervention
Individual Familial Community Cultural
Primary Prevention
A
Secondary Prevention
B
Early Intervention
C
Late Intervention
D
“A” in the table above, might be a public awareness program delivered to
new mothers regarding the importance of attachment and love for proper brain
development. “B” could represent a community-based strategy for reducing
truancy, where all neighborhood residents agree to call a truancy offcer to
report any youth they see who are not in school. Program “C” could be a
family therapy that focuses on reducing the expression of aggression by family
members while increasing family cohesion. “D” could be a piece of legislation
that creates special resources for job placement and training for juveniles
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leaving secure facilities and returning to the community. All the various
programs and interventions that are available could be located somewhere
within the fgure.
Undoubtedly, all types of prevention and intervention and all approaches to
the problem of youth violence are necessary for a community’s strategy to be
called comprehensive. And although programs and funders often choose to
focus on discrete areas of impact, an examination of their work often shows
that while, for example, their direct focus may encompass primary prevention
by funding early childhood programs that help young children prepare for
school, therefore decreasing the possibility of academic underachievement,
suspension, and school drop out, there are often indirect positive effects of such
programs, on things like child self-esteem and parental involvement in their
child’s education. Thus, most funders and most programs are operating on
multiple levels of prevention/intervention, and from multiple perspectives at
once.
However, the literature o n youth violence is clear on one thing for certain:
prevention beats intervention in terms of long-term, positive effects.4,5
This is
intuitively understandable and should guide program and funding priorities,
but it doesn’t always do so. This is because evidence of the positive impact of
prevention programs is often years in the future, and intervention programs
look attractive because they address an already visible problem. Society has
to move, however, towards prevention as primary – to lose the obsessive focus
on change now and think clearly about how to not end up in a place where an
intervention program is necessary. The long-term positive effects of prevention
programs are often amplifed and diversifed across time, while late
intervention can only hope to remediate an already established problem.
Characteristics of violent youth
Whom are the youth committing violence acts in our society? Where did they
come from and how did their violent behavior patterns develop? The answer is
not simple. In fact, the general rule in research on child development states
that there are multiple pathways to violent behavior and multiple different
types of young people engaging in such behavior, for a variety of reasons.6
Some of these young people have psychiatric conditions which contribute to
their antisocial behaviors, while some are motivated by involvement in gangs
and other deviant peer groups, and still others are involved in delinquent
patterns of behavior which include some violence. Given that this group is
heterogeneous, is there anything that can be said regarding these youth in
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general? The answer is “yes”—each of these groups shares certain overlapping
risk factors in the development of their violent behavior.
The Development of Violent Youth
Researchers in child development, psychology, and education have created a
substantial literature on the development of aggressive and violent behavior.
Across a multiplicity of studies, several fndings emerge as hallmark in the
development of violent youth.
Risk for developing into a violent young person begins in infancy with the
formation of key relationships with caregivers and others.7
“Attachment,” has
to do not with the intensity of these affectional bonds, but with their quality.8
Many studies on violent young people indicate that those bonds with primary
caregivers were insecure or disorganized, rather than secure. Having an
insecure or disorganized attachment is thought to impact brain development
negatively, resulting in problems with impulsiveness and self-regulation of
emotions. They are also associated with an increased risk of mental illness, as
well as underachieving in school – among many undesirable outcomes.9
Insecure infants experience rejecting, punitive, neglectful, and/or potentially
abusive relationships with primary caregivers.10
Also, it is these primary infant
relationships that serve as general relationship models – guiding both the
developing brain and the developing child -- in future relationships, thus
perpetuating the insecurity or disorganization and its associated risks.11
Science has confrmed that those earliest social relationships have long-term
and profound effects throughout life.12
Some research has indicated that there is an in-born tendency towards
aggression and violent behaviors. Many theorists assume that aggression is a
natural human instinct,13
which emerges slightly differently across individuals
and circumstances. Researchers are beginning to gain information on genetic
contributions to aggression and violence. The study of Temperament in infancy
assumes that some biological given creates the main aspects of our emerging
personalities. Some babies have what scientists call Diffcult temperament.
These babies are born arrhythmic, tend to distress, seem hypersensitive, and
are diffcult to calm. They are not always gratifying to parent. Having a
diffcult temperament can predispose babies to form insecure attachment
relationships with caregivers. Later in life, infant temperament is predictive of
impulsivity, hostility, poor coping skills, mental illness, and other unfavorable
outcomes.14
As infant temperament becomes adult personality and seems
biologically-driven, people assume that a diffcult personality cannot be
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modifed, which is incorrect. Therapies have been developed that don’t
necessarily “change” personality, but that create coping skills to modify its
impact and increase awareness.15
Existing data also suggest that having a lower IQ and/or learning diffculties
and underachievement in school, can contribute to the development of
violence.16
A lower IQ undoubtedly makes learning harder, and can therefore
make school a place that is disliked by children who struggle academically, as
they don’t receive much positive reinforcement from academic work. These
kids experience academic failure more regularly and more frequently, and
those experiences can negatively impact self-esteem development, as well as
social opportunities.17
Less intelligent kids are disadvantaged in some social
interaction.18
Poor social and academic skills are often reasons for teasing and
exclusion by other, more capable kids. These fndings support the use of
educational remediation programs for those who don’t learn as well or as
readily.
Socially, young people who exhibit violent behavior show a pattern of poor
and confictual social relations. Insecure and disorganized attachments
combined with diffcult temperaments produce kids that interact awkwardly,
confictually, or not at all with peers. Some violent kids are part of deviant
peer groups that engage in delinquent behaviors, with group pressures tending
to promote more delinquent behavior in group members than would be
facilitated without the group.19
Other violent kids are more likely to be socially
isolated and ridiculed/tormented by their peers. In both cases, the impact is
manifold and resoundingly negative. These kids develop a hostile attributional
bias in social interaction.20
They assume, even if there is no evidence of this,
that the other party in the interaction has hostile intent towards them. They
preemptively respond to this assumption --- and not in the most optimal ways.
They show evidence of having developed poor coping skills for confict
situations, so they often escalate the confict with an impulsive and hostile
response.21
Family Environments of Violent Youth
Aggressive youth are more likely to have been raised by a parent with mental
illness.22
Parental Psychopathology creates inconsistency in parenting,
especially if left untreated, which is unfortunately the case for the majority of
mental illness in our country. We say that we want to raise healthy kids, both
physically and mentally, but we underfund mental health and substance abuse
services, and we allow the continuation of our society’s negative attitudes
towards mental health treatment, psychiatry, and psychology. These negative
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attitudes create a stigma regarding behavioral health that discourages people
from getting the help they need.23
And this stigma is especially pronounced in
certain segments of society, including those from which violent kids are most
likely to emerge.
Even when no mental illness or substance abuse is present, parents of violent
kids are less likely to engage regularly in positive interactions and activities
with their children.24
This lack of regular positive interaction can have multiple
causes, including impossible work schedules or other demands, like having to
care for an elderly relative, parental psychopathology, and marital discord. It
could also be one long-term impact of insecure and disorganized attachments
– in that parents that are not adequate to the parenting task when their
children are infants, simply continue to parent poorly. Parents also might
simply not understand the vital importance of positive interactions with their
children for their child’s healthy development.
Parents of violent youth also show defcits in parental monitoring – meaning
that they are less likely to know where the kids are, who their kids hang out
with, and what activities they engage in.25
Again, the causes of this lack of
close monitoring are many. Whatever the reason, poor parental monitoring
leaves kids out supervising themselves, often in situations with adults and other
kids, forced to make decisions which they are likely not equipped to make
without good parental support. Lack of parental monitoring also has an
emotional impact, in that parents who are poor monitors, convey by this lack of
monitoring that their child is not good enough or important enough to be kept
track of. This can contribute to the development of low self-esteem because
self-esteem, especially in the early phases of its development, is always
partially defned by the caregiver’s attention and interest, which are equated
with love by the child. Children whose parents fail to monitor their activities
are more likely to feel unloved and unsupported by their parents, and are
therefore more likely to turn to a gang or deviant peer group for a sense of
belonging.
The Communities of Violent Youth
Violent youth are more likely to live in neighborhoods and communities that
are low on resources and high on need.26
These youth are concentrated in
urban areas. Schools in the immediate area are more likely to be sub-
standard. Crime rates in their neighborhoods tend to be higher – violence
tends to breed more violence. There is a lack often of community cohesiveness,
which is evidenced by low levels of organized community activity and lack of
cooperation with law enforcement offcials during the investigations of violent
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crimes. Unemployment levels are likely to be signifcantly higher, and
opportunities are likely to be signifcantly lower. The neighborhood is also
more likely to be in disrepair, containing more substandard housing, boarded
up houses, and empty lots. Overall, conditions in the communities and
neighborhoods of violent you are depressing and oppressive. Strategies to
prevent violence in youth must focus not just on the youth, or the youth and
their parents – but in fact, the entire neighborhood as well.
Community development agencies can play an important role by working to
draw down funds for new housing development and existing housing
rehabilitation. They can act as community organizers, bringing neighborhood
residents together to discuss important issues like public safety and drug use.
They can facilitate helpful contact between local law enforcement and
residents. Finally, they can also institute programs, like after-school and
summer enrichment programs that are preventative in nature. Because so
many of the problems existing at the community level are so diffcult to tackle,
the important role of community development organizations cannot be
understated. One of the greatest advantages community-based agencies have,
is that they are trusted within the community they want to change, and thus
have access and intimacy with residents that local governments often do not
have.
Sociocultural Factors
The burned out cores of many small industrial cities contain amazing numbers
of people living in poverty. In Rochester’s central core, it is estimated by the
Federal Reserve that up to 80% of the people are living in poverty.27
These
are ghetto-ized environments – they do not attract visitation by those who live
in other areas – in fact, they tend to repel such behavior. Simple family
economics create miles of economically-depressed homes in cities like
Rochester. There is a sense of hopelessness that can’t help but develop in
these poor urban centers.
In Rochester, the issue is also a racial one – as center city’s youth are
predominately African-American. The wide economic divide between the city’s
Caucasian and African-American residents agitates the relationships between
the “haves” and the “have-nots.” And the have-nots often have very little
political power to implement change. For the middle and upper-classes, these
ghettos in the center of our cities are too easy to ignore. We ignore them at
our own peril, because out of these ghettos, violence grows too easily. Poverty
robs a person of hope for the future, so they strive for less, and as a result,
generations have grown up under these conditions. Generations of people
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have come up in extreme poverty. That’s a hard fact to face when we sit and
wonder why certain programs and initiatives seem ineffective in the face of
such multigenerational adversity. Crime is the culture in these neighborhoods,
gangs are the keys to membership and all too often, criminal activity is the
primary way to achieve any type of economic prosperity. None of this ever
excuses violent behavior, but it goes a long way towards explaining it.
Municipal governments can begin to address poverty – but doing so often
means taking money away from other programs and services. In these days of
municipal budget defcits, there is little call to address urban poverty, much less
to create policy that when implemented, might ameliorate it. But all taxpayers
pay for this lack of attention, as the effects of allowing large numbers of
people to live in poverty creates a burden in the hearts, minds, and
pocketbooks of the more economically stable in our community. Funds are
diverted from programs that might reduce poverty, to those that deal with the
consequences of poverty, like the court system and law enforcement. And
those consequences come with very high price tags. Although researchers
have demonstrated the enormous cost savings of prevention, the message
appears not to be getting through to those who create economic and social
policies for our region, as well many others in the nation. New York City is
embarking on a controversial new program where the city is actually paying its
lowest-income residents in order to elevate their standard of living. The
outcome of this new policy should be closely watched by all municipalities
struggling with high levels of urban poverty.
Chronically Violent Kids
Decades of developmental research has demonstrated that there are 4 central
characteristics that distinguish the most seriously aggressive and violent youth
from the less dangerous delinquents:4
 Frequency:
The most serious youth commit crimes more often. In other words, a lot
of crime is explained by a few criminals who commit frequently.
 Chronicity:
Violent criminals have a long history of engagement in violent,
aggressive, and hostile behavior – these violent behaviors did not
appear overnight. Violent youth may have a history of getting into
fghts at school and in the neighborhood, as well as bullying and
intimidation. The problem is long-standing.
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 Severity:
More severe forms of violence are demonstrated. Although we might
view all incidences of violence as “severe,” the worst offenders are
leaving serious impairment and even death in their wake. Violent
behavior emitted in a group setting can become particularly severe as
the energy of the group reinforces the violence and creates a groupthink
situation that can create a dangerous escalation in the violence.
 Early vs. Late Onset:
This would seem intuitive and has also been demonstrated extensively in
research, but the earlier in life antisocial behaviors occurs, the more
likely the child is to become increasingly antisocial over time. Research
shows that there are indeed two groups of violent youth – one
demonstrating early onset with chronic, severe, and frequent
presentation – and the other demonstrating sporadic, less severe
antisocial behavior that does not emerge until adolescence.
Summing up, the youth engaged in serious violent behavior have often
demonstrated a pattern of antisocial behavior that could be reliably identifed
as early as the preschool years.28
In their lives, there are multiple risk factors
for violence. They are more likely to be growing up in a poor urban
environment. They have diffculties with social relationships and historically,
failed to securely attach to a caregiver. Their caregivers, for multiple reasons,
were more unavailable than available to them. These youth have a history of
struggling in school, and for all their apparent confdence and bravado, they
have low self-esteem, and are hopeless concerning their future; many are
depressed as well as antisocial.29
They are more likely to be truant from school
and engaged in deviant activities as part of a group in their out-of-school time.
They have a long history of acting antisocially. It should be no surprise that
youth facing these developmental conditions end up displaying violence. The
question becomes – what can be done about it?
Key Loci for Intervention
Intervention and prevention programs must address issues at 4 different levels:
 Individual Functioning
Psychotherapeutic work, both individually and in groups, is a must. The
therapy must address depression, self-esteem, and perception – the
hostile attributional bias of violent youth can be changed so that they no
longer pre-judge the actors in their world as hostile towards them.
Several different variants of Cognitive-Behavioral therapy have been
successful with violent youth.30
These young people must have access to
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psychotherapy, substance abuse treatment, and psychiatry, should
medication be indicated.
These youth will also require academic remediation. They need help
learning how to learn – tutoring within content areas is not enough and
will only result in a return to underachievement once the tutoring ends.
Teaching these youth strategies for learning, whether directly or
indirectly, can have long-term positive benefts on both academics and
self-esteem, as improvement in school creates more mastery and less
failure experiences for these youth.31
 Family Functioning
Chronically violent youth come from seriously dysfunctional family
environments. Parents may not even be in the picture, and if they are,
they are more likely to be involved with antisocial activities themselves,
as well as drug use and mental illness. In less severe cases where those
conditions are not necessarily present, the family tends to function as a
relationship system characterized by anger, hostility, coercive parenting
tactics, escalation, and manipulation. These environments serve to
increase hostility and negative behaviors in children. The children’s
increasingly coercive and hostile behaviors enhance these behaviors in
the parents, and a vicious cycle is established.32
The Annie E. Casey Foundation – a national leader in innovative
research and programming on juvenile offenders, has offcially endorsed
3 types of family therapy that have demonstrated success with offender’s
families. Multisystemic Therapy, Multidimensional Treatment Foster
Care a n d Functional Family Therapy. These three share many
overlapping features, including taking place in the home, using a
collaborative process between the therapist and family to set treatment
goals, an emphasis on the functioning of the whole family, and a focus
on skill building for all family members through improvements in family
functioning. For the target youth, goals focus on giving the youth new
copings skills that are effective in multiple environments, like school and
home. These therapies have been empirically validated multiple times.
For example, Multisystemic Family Therapy has been shown to reduce
juvenile recidivism and drug use and signifcantly improve family
functioning. Additionally, it is not expensive to administer. Cook and
Multnomah Counties in Oregon have implemented programs containing
Multisystemic Family Therapy for juvenile offenders and have found that
the therapy returned $2.64 to the community for every dollar spent.33
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 Social Relationships
Violent youth are disadvantaged in relationships from the start – being
more likely to be insecurely attached or disorganized when it comes to
social relations. They show early diffculties in relations with their peers
exhibiting defcits in both universal and specifc aspects of social
interaction; they utilize inappropriate methods for initiating interaction
and are not as competent in sustaining interactions. Violent youth
demonstrate very few coping skills for use when interactions contain
confict. And their hostile attributional bias makes these youth
unattractive in interaction to their peers.
These defcits encourage violent youth to either affliate with a group of
similarly disadvantaged youth – or to withdraw from the majority of
social interaction with peers. Depression, which is present in a
signifcant percentage of these youth (some studies estimate close to
50% also have serious depression34
), negatively impacts social
interaction as well. Depression can creates serious impairment in social
interactions, as depressed individuals tend to avoid interaction and have
problems when they do interact.35
Depressed children have also been
shown to be undesirable to interact with in the view of their peers.36
Adventure therapies have been shown to be effective in promoting
better self-concept and improved social orientation and relations. These
group therapies create challenge situations – both indoors and
outdoors, with varying degrees of complexity and need for cooperation.
For young people who struggle with social relationships, adventure
therapies create a safe group environment for explorations of pro-social
behavior. They increase self-esteem because of the positive feedback
received by mastering program challenges. Participants are also helped
by working over a period of time with the same group – providing time
to learn new interaction skills within an environment of increasing trust
and intimacy. Adventure therapies have been empirically validated with
a number of treatment populations, including court-referred youth.37
 Community Infuences
It must be acknowledged that all of the aforementioned family and
individual dysfunction is taking place within a larger community context
that is profoundly shaping the situation. Community intervention is a
necessity too.
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The vast majority of violent youth come from urban environments
characterized by extreme poverty, lack of job opportunities, lack of
health care, and high crime rates. These neighborhoods are often cut
off both physically and psychologically from surrounding areas.
Alienation from/strained relations with law enforcement is a common
problem. Neighborhood residents do not experience as sense of
cohesion – community identity is diffused, which does not promote
community organizing.38
The importance of community and neighborhood development
organizations and associations cannot be understated. Because these
neighborhoods have been so ghettoized, programs delivered by
neighborhood residents (paraprofessionals) – familiar with the people
and the problems, have the best chance at success.39
Programming that
provides opportunities for neighborhood residents to get together for
both formal and informal socializing is highly desirable, as it builds
community identity and cohesion. The emphasis is often placed on
formal occasions – like town hall-style meetings, but informal social
events are just as important as tools in community repair and
empowerment. For a community to effectively lobby local government
for assistance with their needs, community organizing is a must. And for
the residents of these urban neighborhoods to work together to
effectively fght youth violence, then they must know and trust one
another.
What About Prevention?
There are a multitude of opportunities to prevent youth violence. Communities
around the country – including Rochester – have initiated empirically based
visiting nurse programs during the frst two years of life. These programs bring
a professional into at-risk homes to help parents and other caregivers
understand the importance of positive interactions with their infants for proper
social and emotional development. They teach how to establish secure
attachments between infants and their caregivers.
Five decades of Head Start and other preschool programs have also proven
that enhancing school readiness results in long-range positive outcomes – like
higher graduation rates and better socialized kids – so these programs are
benefcial both academically and socially.40
We also know from extensive
research, that antisocial problems can be identifed reliably as early as
preschool – and should be. Preschool children who display highly
15

oppositional and defant behavior are the most likely to develop into hostile
and aggressive youth. If preschools have access to psychologists and other
interventionists, then perhaps these children could receive the attention their
early-onset problems demand.
Schools also need support. As stated earlier, many of these youth come up
through schools that are inadequate in multiple ways. These schools are often
resource-poor, and yet are exactly the schools that need additional resources.
Academically, they are often the schools that grade-advance students who are
inadequately prepared to advance – resulting in widespread academic
underachievement. Schools often need more academic support, in the form of
teacher’s aides and tutoring programs that can be fexibly individualized to suit
student needs, as well as other types of support, like facility repair and even
funds to purchase adequate numbers of quality instructional materials.
Many of these schools lack good after-school programming, and research has
demonstrated many positive effects of participation in academically-enriched
after-school programs.41
Most obviously, students involved in after-school
programs are not on the street during these hours. They are also receiving a
bolstering of their academic skills -- and in the best programs, are having
enrichment experiences that can include music training, athletics, and arts and
culture. After-school programs seem like an obvious good choice for
community investment, but in Rochester, for example, less than 15% of district
students participate in an after-school enrichment program. It is also important
to note that “enrichment” programs focus on more than just academics. Not all
after-school programs would qualify as “enrichment” programs, and it is
enrichment programs that are shown to have the best outcomes across multiple
domains, not just academics.
An excellent place to intervene early is around issues of school attendance,
out-of-school suspensions, and truancy. Patterns of school absenteeism emerge
and consolidate early – with research demonstrating predictable patterns by
the 6th
grade.42
Violent youth often have histories full of suspensions and
truancy issues.43
This only serves to compound their existing academic
diffculties, and makes it less likely that they will graduate. A high drop-out
rate in a school district indicates that too many children and youth are being
lost along the way, with too little done to both prevent excessive absenteeism,
or to address it when it’s present. Parents have an important role to play here
as well, and there are also likely roles for community agencies, police, and the
juvenile justice system. Truancy will be the focus of a special section later in
this report (see Appendix A).
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Concluding Remarks
In research conducted in Rochester that examined violent youth offenders, their
victims, and peers from their neighborhoods, it was found that all three groups
– not just the violent youth -- had records of school failure. Although one might
have thought that the violent youth would have signifcantly worse academic
records, this data proves that the community and school district as a whole are
vital places for prevention and intervention programs – not just for violent
youth, but for all of Rochester’s youth. After all, it must be remembered that
although only a small percentage of youth are violent, many youth are
exposed to violence – at home, in school, and on the street -- as observers and
as victims. When these youth lose out on the benefts of school, they lose too
much.44
Appendix A in this report explores 8 successful truancy programs
which, based on the data above, Rochester should consider.
Despite the fact that the violent youth in the Rochester study were not
differentiated from their peers on academic failure rates, these youth have
been shown to be more likely to have a history of violence, to have diffculties
coping constructively with confict in social interaction, and to come from highly
dysfunctional families. The warning signs of future youth violence seem clear.
Children can be identifed as early as age 4 who are more likely to engage in
violence later in life. Attendance patterns in school, identifable as early as 6th
grade, can predict which students are more likely to drop out of school and
engage in violent behavior. Too many families are living in poverty in
Rochester, and too many of these communities seem broken and low on hope.
We cannot say that we did not see the signs.
For any community to hope to cope with the tragedy of youth violence, a
comprehensive vision must obtain. Youth violence is not going to be curbed by
one-time-only, high-profle municipal interventions, or solely by changes in
school programs, or by more police involvement – or by any single factor
operating alone. Community decision makers must be both preventative and
interventionist in their strategies, which they must deploy at individual, family,
community, and cultural levels. Then a community’s approach to youth
violence can be called comprehensive.
This comprehensive approach calls for a high level of coordination and
cooperation between many parties, including government, social and human
services, police, schools, the court system, the communities affected, and the
families in those communities. Youth violence is everyone’s problem and
everyone has a role to play in creating a real and enduring solution.
17

APPENXDIX A
Truancy: Eight Models that Work
18

Truancy is defned as a documented pattern of unexcused absences from
school.45
Truant students miss out on academic training and fall behind in their
studies, and also give up all the rich social interactions provided in the school
environment. And longitudinal data on truant students shows that they are at
higher risk for early pregnancy, dropping out, criminal behavior, and
increased depression and suicidal thoughts.46
Schools suffer from truancy as
well, as their share of federal and state aid is partially determined by how
many students are in school.47
Communities and neighborhoods suffer because
truant youth are more likely to engage in deviant and criminal behavior when
not in school.48
Studies have estimated that 75-85% of all serious juveniles
have a chronic history of school absenteeism.49
There are state and local laws that provide a judicial means to deal with
truancy. The judicial system has the power of enforcement or consequences in
the event that one violates a demand of the court to attend school.
Consequences can include foster care and institutionalized care. Most states
also have laws that allow for the prosecution of the parents of truants as well.
Removing a truant student from home and school – often the result of PINS
petitions in New York State, seems an ironic solution to the problem and an
ineffective one as well. The Vera Institute of Justice documented serious
declines in school attendance when young people were placed in foster care in
a 2001 study.50
Even though the law provides a method for dealing with truants, states are
motivated to foster the development of truancy prevention and intervention
programs that attempt to intervene prior to the need for court involvement.
These approaches lower the number of truancy cases resulting in court petitions
and save money for the community. They also focus on community-based
resources that can provide concrete assistance to youth and families.
School drop out of truant youth generally results in lower socio-economic
status, signifcant increases in involvement with the courts, higher numbers of
unplanned pregnancies, signifcantly higher divorce rates, and increased risk
for substance abuse.51
Where drop-out rates have risen – looking at
preventing and intervening with truancy is a logical place for action – truant
youth are much less likely to graduate, unsurprisingly. Failure to graduate
from high school severely curtails future opportunities.
The center of any good truancy intervention is the school and the mission is to
get the student back to school regularly and their family ready to make sure
they attend. New York needs new solutions to truancy, as the State does not
19

require the school to take any actions on truancy prior to the fling of a PINS
petition. And even when a petition is fled and a judge orders a student to
attend school, there is no way to enforce this order, except through out-of-
home placements in either detention or foster care.
Here are 8 programs that have demonstrated success in diverting truants away
from the courts, while unmasking the underlying, likely familial, reasons for
truant behavior, and addressing them. They are a blend of prevention and
intervention-type programs.52, 53
Ohio: Truancy Prevention Through Mediation Program
Ohio’s program is preventative, in that it focuses predominately on elementary
school students, as well as middle school students. There are core program
components that all municipalities must implement, but the exact details of the
program are determined locally. All programs utilize mediation in attempting
to address truancy, rather than fnding fault, either with the child or the
parents.
On the frst day of classes, letters are sent home to explain how seriously the
school district takes absenteeism and what is done when there is a problem.
This sets a tone of high expectations and enlists parental support in achieving
them. After 3 unexcused absences, another letter is sent to parents outlining
the problem and informing them that the situation is being monitored closely.
Once a critical number of absences are recorded (and that number is
determined locally), parents are sent a letter on court stationary, signed by the
school, inviting them to attend a mediation session at the school. Parents,
school representatives, and sometimes a truancy offcer and a representative
from social services attend the mediation. Children in elementary school do
not attend these sessions. The session focuses on understanding the underlying
causes of the student’s absenteeism. Once causes are identifed, a plan is
created and formalized in an agreement that all parties endorse.
If the agreement is violated, schools have the option of setting up a second
mediation session or sending the case to the courts. The courts can impose
fnes on the parents and jail time. Some counties have implemented “fast-
track” systems, in which violation of the agreement results in a court date within
one month, so the process does not lose momentum.
Evaluation of this program has shown it to be highly successful in reducing
school absenteeism – signifcant reductions in absences and tardies were found
in each county implementing the program. The program is administered by the
20

Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Confict Management with
assistance from the Ohio Supreme Court’s Offce of Dispute Resolution.
Operating costs are minimal and consist mostly of payments to professional
mediators (although some volunteer their time), plus some funds for substitute
teachers when regular classroom teachers are called into mediation sessions.
One paid program coordinator manages the logistics of the program, including
scheduling mediations, hiring and training mediators, and facilitating
communication between the schools and the court system.
Broward County, Fl: Broward Truancy Intervention Program (BTIP)
BTIP was established in 1997 as a partnership between the Broward County
School Board and the state attorney general’s offce with funding from the
Florida Department of Education’s Safe and Drug Free Schools. Its focus is at
the elementary level – making it a prevention program.
After 3 unexcused absences, a district computer system generates a letter to
parents alerting them to the absences. If fve absences are reached, another
letter is sent to parents – this time, by certifed mail. At the same time, lists of
students with more than fve absences are sent to the state attorney general’s
offce, which in turn, issues a subpoena to the school requesting more
information on each individual referral.
Once there have been 10 unexcused absences, the school’s student services
coordinator arranges for a meeting between parents, the school social worker,
a school representative, a representative from the local police department, and
the assistant state attorney general assigned to the truancy unit. Again, the
child does not attend the meeting. Parents are told what the potential
consequences of continued absences could be for them. The reasons for the
absenteeism are explored, and parents are referred to community-based
services that can assist them in addressing issues contributing to the truant
behavior. If the attendance problem continues after this point, misdemeanor
charges may be fled against the parents – and Broward County reports very
few such charges fled.
In addition to the assistant attorney general who is assigned to the truancy unit,
BTIP employs 6 retired police offcers to lead the investigations that provide
information to the assistant attorney general, and one full time administrative
assistant. BTIP has also been evaluated and found to be very successful at
ameliorating truancy.
21

Ramsey County, MN: Truancy Intervention Program (TIP)
The Truancy Intervention Program was initiated by the Ramsey County Attorney
in St. Paul to focus on school absenteeism in children between the ages of 12
and 16. Because of the program’s initial success, it was expanded to address
truancy in children ages 6 to 18. At the program’s core are 3 increasing levels
of intrusive intervention.
After 3 unexcused absences, parents are encouraged to attend a group
meeting at school where compulsory attendance laws are explained to them,
along with the consequences of violating those laws. They are given a
description of TIP as well.
If the absenteeism continues, the case is referred to the School Attendance
Review Team (SART), which holds a hearing attended by school
representatives, the parents and child if old enough, and an assistant county
attorney. Together, they discuss the particulars of the situation, and referrals to
social services are also made; parents are expected to follow through on these
referrals. All of this material is put into a written attendance contract. Parents
agree to execute the contract. If the contract fails to ameliorate the truancy
problem, then a Truancy Petition is fled in juvenile court.
Evaluation of TIP has demonstrated drastic reduction in the number of Truancy
Petitions. In the 2000-2001 school year, out of the 2,192 students referred to
the program, there were only 668 SART meetings and only 309 referrals to
juvenile court.
In 1999 the program was expanded for elementary school students as the
Family Truancy Intervention Program; (FTIP). FTIP and TIP are essentially the
same program, with the exception -- that a SART referral in FTIP also results in
a report of maltreatment to the Ramsey County Community Human Services
Department, where the case is assigned to a social worker who participates in
the SART meeting, assesses the family, and along with the school, continues to
monitor the situation.
Fremont, CA: Truancy Intervention Program (TIP)
This program is a creative collaboration between the schools, the police, and
the department of human services. The central component of the program is a
truancy center. Although such centers can be found all over the U.S.,
Fremont’s is different in that the center has a built-in counseling program. This
program is staffed and managed by the Youth and Family Services offce of the
county’s department of human services.
22

Truant youth are picked up by police and are taken to the center where an
arrest report is completed. While the youth are waiting for their parents to
arrive, marriage and family therapists talk with the student to attempt to
determine the causes of the truant behavior. When parents arrive, an
assessment is completed and a parental intervention is conducted, where
parents are made aware of the potential consequences of continued truancy.
Half of the families are referred for more counseling (usually 5 sessions), while
some families are asked to return to the center for more intensive assessment
and planning. A verbal agreement is made concerning next steps and a
contract period for these next steps is established. Counselors follow-up during
the contract period, as do school personnel. If no progress is made, the center
refers the case back to the originating school, which can then refer the case to
the district attorney.
TIP receives grant funding (aimed at status offenders), money from the city
budget, and YFS funds to pay for the work of the counselors. The counselors
supplied to the center by YFS do not work exclusively on TIP.
Phoenix, AZ: Court Unifed Truancy Suppression Program (CUTS)
CUTS is a diversion program that works with juvenile youth and community
programs in order to avoid court involvement as status offenders. Schools are
referred to the program based on attendance statistics. One a school has
been referred, a probation offcer is assigned to that school and a letter is sent
out to parents describing the new program.
Once a student has amassed 3 unexcused absences, a letter of warning is sent
to parents and a meeting is convened at the school with the CUTS probation
offcer and school representatives. The group works to identify those problems
contributing to the school absenteeism.
If the pattern of absenteeism continues, the school issues a truancy citation. A
hearing is convened at the school. The goal of the hearing is to link families to
services that will help them solve the problems underlying the truancy,
including counseling and substance abuse treatment. The child is assigned a
number of “consequences” which must be completed within 60 days of the
hearing. These are meant to keep the child and parent accountable – as
parents are expected to monitor their children’s progress on their
consequences. Consequences can include things like essay assignments,
additional tutoring, and attending seminars and classes. If parents fail to
follow-though on the community service recommendations, and/or the student
23

fails to complete the consequences assigned at the hearing, the case can be
referred to court.
CUTS has been evaluated and found to be extremely successful. For example,
of students who went through the program --- a full 97% reestablished regular
attendance and the district’s graduation rate increased by almost 15% in four
years, while less than 5% of CUTS cases ended up requiring a court referral.
This program is administered by the division of community services working
under the direction of the Maricopa County Juvenile Probation Department.
There are currently 9 probation offcers that work exclusively on CUTS.
Atlanta, GA: Fulton County Truancy Intervention Project (TIP)
This program operates after a PINS petition is fled, but creates alternatives to
out-of-home placement. It was started by the Atlanta Bar Foundation in 1991.
Money for the initiative was originally provided by a major law frm which
established a 501(c)3 organization to coordinate services on the project.
Initially, when students demonstrate an absenteeism problem, the program
assigns a mentor (these are generally attorneys donating their time) to the
student. The mentor works with the school and the youth to attempt to address
the issues surrounding the truancy. If this initial intervention is unsuccessful, the
school social worker fles a truancy petition, and a volunteer attorney
represents the child in this petition and ensuing hearing.
The flling of the truancy petition results in the referral of a TIP probation
offcer, who makes an initial contact with the family. At the truancy hearing,
the judge has options other than out-of-home placement. He or she frst places
the child under the supervision of the court, and then refers the family and child
to a complement of community social services. The TIP probation offcer, with
the help of the attorney-mentor, monitor the family’s progress in complying with
the court-ordered services.
TIP has been evaluated and has a 70% success rate in turning truants into high
school graduates. Seventy-fve percent of students who go through the TIP
process have no subsequent contact with the courts. There are currently 6
probation offcers that are assigned solely to TIP and other education-related
issues. Attorneys that volunteer as mentors receive CLE credits for their
participation.
24

Adams County, CO: Seventeenth Judicial District Truancy Reduction Project
The goal of this program is to reduce the number of truancy petitions fled by
addressing the underlying causes of student absenteeism. Schools must initiate
the process – meaning that each school in the district must have their own
program for truancy and must implement their program prior to seeking project
resources.
Once a school has exhausted all the measures at its disposal, then a truancy
petition is fled. The court refers the case to a Truancy Case Manager (TCM)
who makes an initial contact with the parents, explaining that they can
participate in the Truancy Reduction Project or move directly to a court
hearing.
If the family chooses to participate in the project, they receive an assessment
that leads to the design of a specifc treatment plan. The assessment takes
place at the school and is led by the TCM, with input from school
representatives and human services. The treatment plan usually contains
conditions for both the student and parents. To ensure compliance, the TCM
then monitors the case for 12 weeks.
If the process works, a memorandum of accomplishment is fled with the school
district and students and family attend a graduation ceremony to celebrate
their accomplishments. The ceremony takes place at the county courthouse. If
the process fails to produce the required changes, then at least one attempt is
made to modify the treatment plan to better suit the family’s capabilities and
issues. If after this modifcation, the absenteeism continues, then the case is
referred to court. This often results in out-of-home placement for the child and
jail time for the parents.
Evaluation data indicate that approximately 85% of families successfully
complete the program. The Truancy Case Manager is an employee of the
court paid through grants. The TCM deals solely with truancy cases and works
with an average of 85 families each year. The program has received a
Judicial Conference Award for its success.
Kansas: Truancy Diversion Program
The establishment of this program was driven by community concern for the
number of students dropping out of school. Community review of research led
to a focus on truancy, as research indicated that most drop outs had a history
of school absenteeism beginning in the elementary and middle school grades.
Emphasis was placed on better community-level coordination between the
25

schools, the courts, and the social services available – thus, in the planning
stages, each system’s specifc responsibilities in the new program were
carefully laid out. When program design was completed, the community
engaged in a comprehensive public relations campaign on the importance of
school attendance and family monitoring and involvement.
After 5 unexcused absences, the school makes contact with the parents to
encourage them to make sure their child attends. This contact is sometimes by
phone, or by in-person meetings at the school or family’s home. If the situation
does not change, and the child accrues 10 absences, the student is reported as
truant to the county attorney, who notifes parents of the impended legal
action. The case moves to a hearing within two weeks. If the student is found
to be truant, the judge gives the parents two alternatives – either they can
choose to participate in the diversion program and potentially have the matter
expunged, or their child may be placed outside of the home.
Families choosing to participate are assigned to a court services offcer, who
organizes a meeting attended by the family, school representatives, a county
attorney, the director of a local family counseling training program, and
participating therapists (graduate students in training). This group collectively
creates an agreement regarding how the family is going to address underlying
issues impacting the truancy. Multiple services are available – including family
therapy, social skills training, after-school programs, and tutoring. The group
decides on the blend of services to be applied, and then a contract is signed by
all parties. All families receive referrals to family counseling and their
attendance at these sessions, along with the target child’s school attendance
and grades, are reported back to the court. Families successfully completing
the program attend a graduation ceremony
This program was studied empirically by researchers from the University of
Pittsburgh. According to their data, absenteeism decreased by 90% in families
participating in the program. Data also showed that the earlier a child is
referred to the program, the better the outcome. The program was initially
supported by grants from the Kansas Offce of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention.
26

Summary
Truancy is indeed an excellent place to intervene in the lives of children and
youth that are not proceeding positively. There are a multitude of approaches
– some that are more preventative, others that are clearly interventions, with
each type reporting admirable rates of success. Across all the programs
discussed here, certain general principles can be discerned:
 The problems that result in truant behavior are family-based and
oftentimes, complex. All of these programs made strong efforts to enlist
parents in workable solutions, and the majority of programs either have family
therapy as a component or make referrals for family therapy.
 Schools must take the lead and act as the center. Since school
attendance is the problem, schools must be equipped with ways to approach
truancy. When these methods fail, schools must have the support of other
players, including the courts and social services.
 Collaboration among the various players promotes success. In each of
these programs, collaborative arrangements between systems were established
so that these interventions could proceed smoothly and no system “dropped
the ball,” anywhere along the way.
 Addressing the underlying causes of truancy is critical. Each of these
programs focused on problems in families and ways to address them. Truancy
is not an individual issue – it is a family and community issue.
Reducing truancy can have multiple, long-term positive benefts for youth,
families, schools, and communities. But doing so requires a multi-systemic
approach that acknowledges the complexities involved in reducing school
absenteeism.
27

Notes
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