Criminology Research Council grant ; (9/78)
The 'Time Out' program in its present form was initiated in late 1978. It was hoped to establish a program that would be attractive to a group of young people, seen as being 'at risk' by the teachers at the high school they attended. In the short term, the aims were merely to involve these young people in enjoyable activities in an effort to promote the constructive use of leisure time, and to aid the development of initiative, confidence and feelings of self worth. In the longer term it was hoped that this would reduce probability of delinquency in the group.
Participation in Time Out was entirely voluntary and informal, and every effort was made to ensure that it was not seen as a program of treatment, or in any way as being problem oriented.
In the research an attempt was made to evaluate the validity of the selection technique employed by the school by comparing their assessment, and others, against court appearances. From this it has been possible to demonstrate what appears to be a significant link between certain subjective assessments, and the probability of appearing in court. In particular the following criteria appear to be of interest.
- School Assessments, where, of those with a low rating, 54.5 percent had appeared in court, as against 7.7 percent for those with a high rating.
- Family Support and Interaction, where, of those with a low rating 63.6 percent had appeared in court, as against 12.5 percent for those with a high rating.
- Social Skills, where, of those with a low rating 60 percent had appeared in court, as against 20 percent for those with a high rating.
These findings suggest some justification for the continued use of subjective assessments in nominating students for diversion programs.
An attempt was also made to compare the behaviour of the 42 participants with a control group of 35, from the same school, who were also identified as being 'at risk', but for whom the program was not offered. This attempt was not successful as the control group were much less frequently the subject of police action (both prior to, and during, the evaluation period) and there is some evidence to suggest that their school behaviour was not seen as uncooperative and disruptive to the same extent as was the case with the participant group.
The main evaluation therefore comprised a comparison of the unlawful behaviour of the participants during the evaluation period and the preceding 12 months. Even though the first phase of the program started in November 1978, it was considered that the effective and fully operational starting date was February 1979, and the evaluation period was therefore February 1979 to January 1980.
During this period seven of the program participants were the subject of 32 charges, compared with 13 of the participants being charged with 74 offences in the preceding 12 months (February 1978 to January 1979).
If the unlawful behaviour of the participants over the two Christmas holiday periods is compared (December 1978 and January 1979 compared with December 1979 and January 1980) the comparison is even more striking. In the first two month period 34 charges were laid against nine individuals compared with five charges against two individuals in the latter period.
Although there were shortcomings in the experimental design, and the comparison is not claimed to prove conclusively the value of the program, it is certainly to be seen as encouraging. Overall the cautious conclusion reached was that the Time Out Program seemed to produce positive results in the small sample of participants. The program therefore appears worthy of continued experimentation and should be evaluated more rigorously at a later date.