Heads Up New Orleans: Juvenile Delinquency Preventions Programs that are Effective

These are taken from Crime Solutions.gov which is the research evaluation based branch of the Office of Justice Programs. These are brief summaries of the programs that are effective (thus the V+) and can be implemented in New Orleans to help reduce youth violence.  Crime Solutions also has data on corrections and reentry, courts, drug and substance abuse, law enforcement, victims and victimization, and other areas.  I encourage you to check it out.

Evidence Rating	Summary
Aggression Replacement Training® (ART®)		A multidimensional psychoeducational intervention designed to promote prosocial behavior in chronically aggressive and violent adolescents using techniques to develop social skills, emotional control, and moral reasoning.
Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) Community-Based Mentoring (CBM) Program		A one-to-one mentoring program that takes place in a community setting.
Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS)		A preventive intervention for college students designed to help students make better decisions about using alcohol.
Career Academy		Schools, within schools, that link students with peers, teachers, and community partners in a disciplined environment, fostering academic success, mental and emotional health, and labor market success.
Families And Schools Together (FAST)		A multifamily group intervention program designed to build protective factors for children, to empower parents to be the primary prevention agents for their own children, and to build supportive parent-to-parent groups.
Family Matters		A family-directed program to reduce tobacco and alcohol use among 12- to 14-year-olds.
Functional Family Therapy (FFT)		A family-based prevention and intervention program for at-risk youths ages 11 to 18.
Good Behavior Game		A classroom management strategy for children ages 6 to 10 designed to improve aggressive/disruptive classroom behavior and prevent later criminality.
Guiding Good Choices		A multimedia family competency training program that promotes healthy, protective parent–child interactions and addresses children’s risk for early substance use.
Harlem (N.Y.) Children’s Zone – Promise Academy Charter Middle School		A charter middle school that seeks to give students in grades 6–8 a well-rounded, high-quality education. The Promise Academy is part of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a 97-block area in Harlem, N.Y., that combines “no excuses” charter schools with communitywide initiatives to address some of the problems faced by underprivileged children.
Kirkholt (England) Burglary Prevention Project		A burglary reduction program that involved working with burglary victims, their neighbors, and potential offenders to remove opportunities and motivations to commit burglary.
LifeSkills® Training		A classroom-based tobacco-, alcohol-, and drug abuse–prevention program for upper elementary and junior high school students.
Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers (LIFT)		A program designed to prevent the development of aggressive and antisocial behaviors in children within an elementary school setting.
Midwestern Prevention Project (MPP)		A school-based comprehensive program intended to promote an antidrug message throughout communities and prevent substance use (alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana) among middle school students.
Multidimensional Family Therapy		A manualized family-based treatment and substance abuse prevention program developed for adolescents with drug and behavior problems. The program is typically delivered in an outpatient setting, but it can also be used in inpatient settings.
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care–Adolescents		A behavioral treatment alternative to residential placement for adolescents who have problems with chronic antisocial behavior, emotional disturbance, and delinquency.
Multisystemic Therapy (MST)		A family and community-based treatment program for adolescent offenders who have exhibited serious antisocial, problem, and delinquent behaviors.
Multisystemic Therapy–Substance Abuse		A version of Multisystemic Therapy (MST) targeted to adolescents with substance abuse and dependency issues.
Nurse–Family Partnership		A home visitation program for low-income, first-time mothers to improve family functioning.
Operation Ceasefire (Boston, Mass.)		A problem-solving police strategy that seeks to reduce gang violence, illegal gun possession, and gun violence in communities in Boston, Mass.
Operation Peacekeeper		A community and problem-oriented policing program based in Stockton, Calif., that aims to reduce gang involvement and violence among urban youth aged 10 to 18.
Perry Preschool Project		Provides high-quality education for disadvantaged children ages 3 to 4 to improve their capacity for future success in school and in life.
Positive Action		A program that is designed to improve youth academics, behavior, and character and that can be used by schools, families, or communities.
Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies (PATHS®)		A prevention program that promotes emotional and social competencies and reduces aggression and behavior problems in elementary school–aged children.
Safe Dates		A school-based prevention program for middle and high school students designed to stop or prevent the initiation of dating violence victimization and perpetration.
Second Step®: A Violence Prevention Curriculum		A universal prevention program designed to reduce impulsive and aggressive behavior in children and adolescents by increasing their social competency skills.
SNAP® Under 12 Outreach Project		A specialized, family-focused intervention for boys under 12 who display aggressive and antisocial behavior problems.
Street Lighting in Dudley (England)		A program to reduce the prevalence and incidence of crime by improving street lighting in residential areas.
Street Lighting in Stoke-on-Trent (England)		A program that upgrades street lighting on residential roads and footpaths to decrease crime and fear of crime.
Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10–14		An adaptation of the Strengthening Families Program that aims to reduce substance use and behavior problems during adolescence through improved skills in nurturing and child management by parents and improved interpersonal and personal competencies among youths.
Strong African American Families (SAAF)		A 7-week alcohol-, drug use-, and early sexual activity–reduction program concentrating on rural African American youths (ages 10–14) that improves parenting practices and family communication and teaches the youths resistance skills.
The Incredible Years		A parent training, teacher training, and child social skills training approach to reducing challenging behaviors in children and increasing their social and self-control skills.
Triple P – Positive Parenting Program		A multilevel system designed to enhance parental competence and prevent or alter dysfunctional parenting practices. By enhancing parenting practices, the program aims to reduce family risk factors for child maltreatment and children’s behavioral and emotional problems.

National Debt and Deficits

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: National Debt and Deficits.

Public Debt:

National Deficits

Killing Big Bird will Not Effect the Nation's Bird Population: Mitt Romney and Public Broadcasting

So, there's been some rumblings regarding Mitt Romney's claim that he would cut federal funding to public broadcasting in an effort to reduce government spending and the federal deficit.  One question the moderator, Jim Lehrer (a well-known PBS figure) could have asked is if Romney had any idea how much federal funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which is the entity that receives federal funds and distributes them in the form of grants for PBS and NPR programming) actually receives from the federal government.  My guess is that he does not.  According to CPB's latest financial figures, they received $444.1. million dollars for fiscal year 2012, and have been allocated $445 for fiscal years 2013 and 2014.  Cutting this entirely would seem to have very little effect on the total government budget and virtually no effect on the national debt.  Not to mention, both PBS and NPR get a significant amount of their money from states, foundations, corporate sponsors, and donors (i.e., "people like you"). This money pays for different things.  For example, money from donors often goes to pay for daily operations and expenses (paychecks, electricity, maintenance, janitorial services, etc.), not programming.  I copied and pasted the history of funding page from the CPB's website below.

VERA Institute for Justice: Forging New Collaborations: A Guide for Rape Crisis, Domestic Violence, and Disability Organizations

I was on the VERA website today and came across this project that I thought might be useful to policy-makers and concerned citizens/families.

From the website:
Between 2006 and 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women funded the development of collaborations between victim services and disability organizations in more than 40 communities to ensure people with disabilities who have experienced domestic or sexual violence have the community-based supports and criminal justice responses they need to heal. This report, based upon Vera's work with these burgeoning collaborations, recommends steps for building effective collaboration and practical strategies for overcoming common obstacles.

Melissa Harris-Perry: On Race and Welfare

Tulane University's own Melissa Harris-Perry on her September 1st program where they discuss the image of welfare users and its relationship to welfare support.  She really tears it up.  I'd like to see more people like her contributing to the public sphere.

 

For research on how conservatives (and yes, it was conservatives who did-and continue to do-this, at least at first) worked to create the mental linkages between welfare and people of color see Katherine Beckett's "Making Crime Pay" and Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki's "The Black Image in the White Mind."  Beckett discusses how conservatives worked to link non-whites with crime and welfare abuse in an effort to recruit southern democrats, working class whites across the country, and Catholic European immigrants in the Northeast.  It worked, though it might be breaking up some today.  Part of this was their "Southern Strategy."  Entman and Rojecki talk about the way mass media and representations of blacks in sitcoms, news, and other programs helps encourage mental associations that link them with negative norms and values, and therefore, as undeserving.  Both scholars offer abundant data that was systematically collected to support their argument.  They provide data not only of media content (for Beckett it's media content and political initiatives), but also public opinions (Entman and Rojecki offer a nuanced scale of racial attitudes).  They're both top notch scholarship and support exactly what Harris-Perry is saying.