Showing 1 – 2 of 2 results.
Curated
New York City Court Employment Project Evaluation Study, 1976-1979 (ICPSR 7832)
Released/updated on: 1992-02-16
Geographic coverage: New York City, United States, New York (state)
Time period: 1976-01-01--1979-01-01
This study served as a controlled research evaluation of the New York City Court Employment Project (CEP) as it stood in 1976-1979. At the time of the study, CEP was an independent corporation under contract to New York City's Human Resources Administration. The ultimate aim of CEP was to change the income-generating behavior of its participants to reduce their subsequent criminal activity. CEP did this by diverting accused offenders from routine court procedures (criminal prosecution, sentencing, and possible incarceration) and instead placing them into jobs, training, or vocationally-oriented counseling services. Eligible defendants agreed to attend mandatory counseling sessions, to devise and execute individual plans for securing training and employment, and to avoid arrest and conviction during their participation. Charges were dismissed by the court if, at the end of six months, CEP counselors determined that the defendant had participated successfully. Research goals for this study were to accumulate data in order to: (1) assess the impact of diversion on recidivism and personal stability, (2) ascertain the outcome of court cases without diversion, and (3) assess the relationship of these outcomes to the social services aspect of diversion programs. The study compared a control group of non-CEP offenders with an experimental group of CEP participants to assess the program's effectiveness in helping offenders find and maintain employment or training and avoid criminal activity. Data were collected on 666 subjects, 410 in the experimental group and 256 in the control group. Three interviews were conducted at six-month intervals with each subject, initially to record self-reports about education, training, employment history, reliance on public assistance, criminal history, illegal activities, lifestyle, and utilization of social services, and then to maintain current information about their school, employment, income, and court processing status. In addition to the three personal interviews, official records data were obtained from a variety of agencies to gather information including criminal history, disposition of the case on which the defendant entered the research, information related to subsequent arrests, and (for members of the experimental group) information about participation in CEP. Other variables include attendance at counseling sessions, type of employment found, job attendance, self-evaluation of important life events and life satisfaction, social services programs utilized, and drug and alcohol use, as well as defendant's and defendant's parents' age, sex, and race.
Curated
Transitional Aid Research Project (TARP), 1976-1977 (ICPSR 7874)
Released/updated on: 1992-02-16
Geographic coverage: United States, Texas, Georgia
Time period: 1976-01-01--1977-01-01
The Transitional Aid Research Project (TARP) was a randomized field experiment conducted in Texas and Georgia in 1976-1977 that was designed to reduce recidivism among ex-prisoners by lowering incentives for re-engaging in property crime through provision of minimal levels of income support and extension of some unemployment insurance coverage to released prisoners. This study evolved out of an earlier LIFE (Living Insurance for Ex-Prisoners) study conducted in Baltimore, Maryland in the early 1970s. In the LIFE study, 500 prisoners with a high probability of re-arrest were randomly assigned at release from prison to experimental and control groups which varied by the amount of money received (contingent upon employment or unemployment and job placement services provided). The results showed that ex-prisoners receiving payments were less likely to be re-arrested for property theft-related crimes than those who received only job placement or no services or payments of any kind. The United States Department of Labor commissioned the TARP experiment, designed to replicate the LIFE experiment while providing a larger and more representative sample of prisoners, greater variation in treatment conditions, and administration of payments and job placement services through existing agencies rather than by a special purpose project staff. Texas and Georgia were the states chosen for the experiment, and stratified random samples of inmates were assigned, at the time of release from prison, to experimental and control groups. The groups varied in the amount of money and job placement services they received upon their release. Originally, the data were recorded in nine files for each state corresponding to each of the nine different sources of information for each TARP case. The ICPSR data collection combines these into one file for each state: Part 1 for Texas, and Part 2 for Georgia. Each file contains over 1,500 variables, clustered in nine topic areas for each inmate: (1) prison history (e.g., background information, psychological and aptitude test data, and prior criminal and present incarceration activity), (2-5) data from four personal interviews (conducted at the prerelease, three-month, six-month, and 12-month stages and that include living arrangements, employment history, and financial status), (6) state arrest data, (7) records of TARP payments received, (8) social security wages, and (9) parole records.