Chicago Public Schools "Connect and Redirect to Respect" (CRR) Program, Illinois, 2015-2018 (ICPSR 37180)

Version Date: Jan 13, 2022

Cite this study |

Principal Investigator(s):
Max Kapustin, University of Chicago

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37180.v1

Version V1

Slide tabs to view more

Summary

In 2014, Chicago Public Schools, looking to reduce the possibility of gun violence among school-aged youth, applied for a grant through the National Institute of Justice. CPS was awarded the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative grant and use said grant to establish the "Connect and Redirect to Respect" program. This program used student social media data to identify and intervene with students thought to be at higher risk for committing violence. At-risk behaviors included brandishing a weapon, instigating conflict online, signaling gang involvement, and threats towards others. Identified at-risk students would be contacted by a member of the CPS Network Safety Team or the Chicago Police Department's Gang School Safety Team, depending on the risk level of the behavior. To evaluate the efficacy of CRR, the University of Chicago Crime Lab compared outcomes for students enrolled in schools that received the program to outcomes for students enrolled in comparison schools, which did not receive the program. 32 schools were selected for the study, with a total of 44,503 students. Demographic variables included age, race, sex, and ethnicity. Misconduct and academic variables included arrest history, in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions, GPA, and attendance days.

Citation

Kapustin, Max. Chicago Public Schools “Connect and Redirect to Respect” (CRR) Program, Illinois, 2015-2018. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-01-13. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37180.v1

Export Citation:

  • RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
  • EndNote

Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (2014-CK-BX-0002)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

City

Restrictions

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
Hide

Time Period(s)

2015 -- 2018

Date of Collection

2015 -- 2018

Data Collection Notes

  1. For additional information on the Chicago Public Schools "Connect and Redirect to Respect" (CRR) Program, please visit the Chicago Public Schools "Connect and Redirect to Respect" (CRR) Program website.
Hide

Study Purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of non-punitive pre-incident interventions for Chicago Public Schools students identified to be at-risk for violent behavior in and out of school.

Study Design

31 schools were split between the treatment group (receiving "Connect and Redirect to Respect" (CRR) interventions) and control group (receiving no CRR interventions). The control group could still implement their own traditional referral mechanisms. The two groups were similar in age, number of suspensions, involvement with the justice system, and academic performance. Analysis and comparison was done between all students of each group. This was to eliminate the need for a control group that had attended a CRR-participating school but had not themselves received an intervention.

Sample

To evaluate the CRR program, the investigators relied on a partially randomized matched school comparison research design. During Year 1 of the program, 16 schools belonged to the treatment group and 16 schools belonged to the comparison group. Among the 16 schools in the treatment group, nine were identified by the Office of Safety and Security (OSS) as being high-need (and thus asked to participate in "Connect and Redirect to Respect" (CRR)), while the remaining seven were randomly chosen from a group of 23 high-need schools identified by the University of Chicago Crime Lab. By including the nine OSS-identified treatment group schools in the analysis, we depart from a pure randomized controlled trial research design. However, in the judgment of the research team, because excluding these schools would substantially reduce the size of the analytic sample, and because the characteristics of students in the comparison group schools are very similar, these nine schools remain part of the study.

Time Method

Longitudinal: Cohort / Event-based

Unit(s) of Observation

Individual

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

Demographic variables included race, age, sex, ethnicity, and presence of disability. Study-specific variables included arrest history, suspension history, misconduct history, GPA, and attendance days.

Hide

Original Release Date

2022-01-13

Hide

Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.