Impact Evaluation of Youth Crime Watch Programs in Three Florida School Districts, 1997-2007

The purpose of this study was to assess both the school-level effects and the participant-level effects of Youth Crime Watch (YCW) programs.  Abt Associates conducted a four-year impact evaluation of Youth Crime Watch (YCW) programs in three Florida school districts (Broward, Hillsborough, and Pinellas Counties).  School-based YCW programs implement one or more of a variety of crime prevention activities, including youth patrol, in which YCW participants patrol their school campus and report misconduct and crime. The evaluation collected both School-Level Data (Part 1) and Student-Level Data (Part 2).  The School-Level Data (Part 1) contain 9 years of data on 172 schools in the Broward, Hillsborough, and Pinellas school districts, beginning in the 1997-1998 school year and continuing through the 2005-2006 school year. A total of 103 middle schools and 69 high schools were included, yielding a total of 1,548 observations.  These data provide panel data on reported incidents of crime and violence, major disciplinary actions, and school climate data across schools and over time.  The Student-Level Data (Part 2) were collected between 2004 and 2007 and are comprised of two major components: (1) self-reported youth attitude and school activities survey data that were administered to a sample of students in middle schools in the Broward, Hillsborough, and Pinellas School Districts as part of a participant impact analysis, and (2) self-reported youth attitude and school activities survey data that were administered to a sample of YCW continuing middle school students and YCW high school students in the same three school districts as part of a process analysis.  For Part 2, a total of 3,386 completed surveys were collected by the project staff including 1,319 "new YCW" student surveys, 1,581 "non-YCW" student surveys, and 486 "Pro" or "Process" student surveys.  The 138 variables in the School-Level Data (Part 1) include Youth Crime Watch (YCW) program data, measures of crime and the level of school safety in a school, and other school characteristics. The 99 variables in the Student-Level Data (Part 2) include two groups of questions for assessing participant impact: (1) how the respondents felt about themselves, and (2) whether the respondent would report certain types of problems or crimes that they observed at the school. Part 2 also includes administrative variables and demographic/background information. Other variables in Part 2 pertain to the respondent's involvement in school-based extracurricular activities, involvement in community activities, attitudes toward school, attitudes about home environment, future education plans, attitudes toward the YCW advisor, attitudes about effects of YCW, participation in YCW, reasons for joining YCW, and reasons for remaining in YCW.

Tags: crime, crime-in-schools, crime-prevention, crime-reporting, delinquent-behavior, educational-environment, high-schools, juvenile-crime, juvenile-offenders, middle-schools, program-evaluation, school-violence, secondary-education, violence, youthful-offend
Organization: Department of Justice