Greetings and I hope you had an enjoyable summer. The Western Society of Criminology (WSC) continues to grow and thrive. The Executive Board has been working to expand and garner more participation from the WSC membership. We continue to encourage our members to serve on committees, participate in the Annual Meeting and become candidates for the Board. You will be receiving a ballot of candidates who are running for positions on the WSC Board. It is important that you have a voice in this organization, so please cast your vote!
The Board will meet on October 17, 1998 to continue the planning for the upcoming 1999 Annual Meeting. If you have any questions for the Board, please contact me at 707-778-7270 (voice), 707-778-7145 (fax), or bloom@sonoma.edu (e-mail).
The WSC 26th Annual Meeting, The Challenge of Crime and Justice in the New Millennium, will be held at the Oakland Marriott City Center Hotel, February 25-28, 1999. We invite you to chair a panel or participate on one and encourage your colleagues to do likewise. Please contact Marilyn McShane, Program Chair, Criminal Justice Department, Northern Arizona University, P.O. Box 15005, Flagstaff, AZ 86011; 520-523-6528 (voice); 520-523-8011 (fax); or marilyn.mcshane@nau.edu (e-mail) to submit your ideas for a panel or a paper.
I am pleased to announce that the first volume of our electronic journal, The Western Criminology Review (WCR) was released in June. You can access the website at http://wcr.sonoma.edu. I have been receiving very positive feedback about the journal from colleagues across the country. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat (6/29/98) did a favorable article on the WCR and the editor, Patrick Jackson. Pat was quoted to sat that the "idea is to see what the new technology can do to help us think about the crime problem." The next issue of the WCR will be online at the end of the year.
I want to thank all of you who have been working
on behalf of the WSC this year. Your varied contributions have helped
this organization flourish and I look forward to our continued work
together as we face the challenges of crime and justice in the new
millennium.
Published in Youth
Today, May/June 1997 (p.25)
Blueprints for replicating programs proven to be effective in reducing violent behavior by young people will become available from the University of Colorado's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence in June.
Seven model programs - all documented by independent evaluations - have been selected so far, with three more still pending under a $300,000 a year Carnegie grant.
Descriptions of the seven model programs are
summarized below. Blueprints will be used on request for a modest
fee. To get on the waiting list, contact Center for the Study and
Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado, Campus Box 442,
Boulder, CO 80309-0442. Phone 303-492-8465 or FAX
303-443-3297.
Model Program Descriptions
Prenatal/Early Infancy Project (Nurse Home Visitations)
Developed by David Olds of the University of Colorado School of Medicine's Prevention Research Branch, this program sends nurses in the homes of pregnant women who are predisposed to infant health and developmental problems (i.e., at risk of pre-term delivery and low birth weight children.) The goal of the program is to improve parent and child outcomes. Nurse home visiting has had positive outcomes on obstetrical health, psychosocial functioning, and other health-related behaviors (especially reductions in smoking). Child abuse and neglect was lower and the developmental quotients of children at 12 and 24 months were higher in the treatment group than in the control group for poor, unmarried teens.
Big Brothers/Big Sisters
A program blueprint is being drafted by Dagmar Magill of BB/BSA national office in Philadelphia.
Big Brothers/Big Sisters is the oldest and best known mentoring program in the United States. Local programs are autonomously funded affiliates of the national office and maintain approximately 75,000 active matches between a volunteer adult and a youth. Matches are carefully made using established procedures and criteria. The program serves predominantly 10-to 14-year old disadvantaged youth from single-parent households. A mentor meets with his/her youth partner approximately three times a month for about four hours each visit. Visits encourage the development of a caring relationship between the matched pair. An 18-month study of BB/BS found that the youth in the mentoring program, compared to a control group who were on the waiting list for a match, were less likely to start using drugs and alcohol, less likely to hit someone, had improved school attendance, attitudes and performance, and had improved peer and family relationships.
Quantum Opportunities Program
Benjamin Lattimore of Opportunities Industrialization Centers, Philadelphia, PA was in charge of developing the Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP).
QOP provides education, training, employment, development and service activities, coupled with a sustained relationship with a peer group and a caring adult, over the four years of high school in small groups of disadvantaged teens. The goal: to help high-risk youth from poor families and neighborhoods to graduate from high school and attend college. The program includes (1) 250 hours per year of self-paced and competency-based basic skills, taught outside of regular school hours; 2) 250 hours per year of development opportunities, including cultural enrichment and personal development; and 3) 250 hours per year of service opportunities in their communities to help develop the prerequisite work skills. Financial incentives are offered to increase participation, completion and long-range planning. Results from the pilot test of this program indicate that QOP participants, compared to the control group, were less likely to be arrested during the juvenile years, were more likely to have graduated from high school, to be enrolled in higher education or training, planning to complete four years of college, and less likely to become a teen parent.
Multisystemic Therapy (MST)
Scott Henggler of the University of South Carolina Department of Psychology devised the Multisystemic Therapy approach. It views individuals as being nested within a complex of interconnected systems that encompass individual, family, and extra familial (peer, school, neighborhood) factors. Behavior problems can be maintained by dysfunctional transactions within or between any one or a combination of these systems. MST is typically delivered in home and community settings to increase cooperation, and involves approximately 30 hours of direct contact over 3 months by a master's level counselor. Individualized treatment plans are developed which emphasize the strengths and weaknesses of each therapist and family.
Functional Family Therapy (FFT)
Developed by James Alexander, University of Utah Department of Psychology, the goals of Functional Family Therapy are to assess family behaviors that maintain delinquent behavior, modify dysfunctional family communication, train family members to negotiate effectively, and set clear rules about privileges and responsibilities. Treatment includes approximately 30 hours of FFT coupled with supportive system services such as remedial education, job training and placement and school placement. Services are provided by trained paraprofessionals. In tests of the effectiveness of FFT, recidivism rates have been shown to be favorably effected.
Midwestern Prevention Project
Maryann Pentz, of the University of California at Los Angeles helped develop the Midwestern Prevention Project as a comprehensive population-based drug abuse (cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana) intervention program operating in the Kansas City and Indianapolis metropolitan areas. The goal of the program is to decrease the rates of onset and prevalence of drug use in young adolescents (ages 10-14), and to decrease drug use among parents and other residents of the two communities. The program consists of five interventions strategies designed to combat the community influences on drug use: mass media, school, parent, community organization, and health policy change. The components focus on promoting drug use resistance and counteraction skills by adolescents (direct skills training), prevention practices and support of adolescent prevention practices by parents and other adults (indirect skills training), and dissemination and support of non-drug use social norms and expectations in the community (environmental support). This program has been effective at reducing alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use among young adolescents, with some effects maintained up to three years after deliver of the program.
Life Skills Training
Dr. Gilbert Botvin of the Institute for Prevention
Research, Cornell University Medical School, developed Life Skills
Training as a drug use prevention program (cigarettes, alcohol, and
marijuana). It provides general life skills training in middle school
students. The curriculum includes 15 sessions taught in school by
regular classroom teachers with booster sessions provided in the
eighth grade (10 class sessions) and ninth grade (five class
sessions). The five major components include: 1) knowledge and
information about cigarette smoking, 2) decision-making, 3)
self-directed behavior change aimed at self improvement, 4) coping
with anxiety, and 5) social skills training on communication skills.
Life Skills Training has been effective at reducing alcohol,
cigarette, and marijuana use among youth adolescents. The effects for
tobacco and heavy alcohol use have been sustained through high
school.
A special hello to all the student members of the WSC. I am proud to be serving as the student representative this year under the leadership of Barbara Bloom (a fellow University of California, Riverside graduate). I was asked to write a few words letting students know about some of the benefits that they can take advantage of as members of the WSC. First of all, I want to say to any potential members that the WSC is a 'student-friendly' organization. By participating in the WSC, students have the opportunity to learn valuable skills, such as how to present a paper at a professional conference, and to absorb a great deal of information about criminal justice and criminology in a friendly environment. The WSC offers several advantages to students who want to get involved in a professional organization, but might be intimidated by the enormity of the American Society of Criminology, or simply unable to participate because of the cost of travel to and from conferences.
Not only does the WSC welcome student participation, it also offers the unique opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with a varied group of criminal justice practitioners and scholars. The fact that WSC is a regional organization allows students to meet people who are actively involved with shaping and enacting criminal justice policy throughout the state of California, and throughout the western region of the United States. The WSC is unique in its commitment to providing a forum where the applied and academic worlds inform each other, and because of its size, students can really benefit from this aspect of the WSC. This is not to say that the WSC lacks a national or global perspective: the international scope of the topics dealt with at the most recent conference was impressive. I was fortunate enough to meet a graduate student from Australia who shares some of my interests. We have managed to stay in contact via e-mail and have been sharing our knowledge and ideas about our respective juvenile justice systems. For all these reasons, the WSC is a great place for students to get involved!
Now, I would like to briefly mention some of the financial benefits available to student members that you may not be aware of. Please refer to the WSC web site (http://www.sonoma.edu/cja/wsc) for information on these benefits and much more. The WSC encourages student participation and attendance at its conferences by offering a special day-rate for students, who, for whatever reason (including just not being able to afford a hotel room), can't afford to attend the conference in its entirety. Of course, if you only attend the conference for one day, try to make it the same day as our student reception is scheduled (usually on Friday evening at a nearby restaurant). This is another way that the WSC tries to welcome students, by funding a student reception where we can meet informally and get to know each other. In addition to special conference rates and to our student reception, there is the June Morrison Scholarship Fund, which was set up to help provide travel funds for students wishing to attend the annual meeting. The application for these monies is due in early January (for the upcoming conference on February 25-28,1999 in Oakland) and requires that you be a member of WSC and attend the conference. Last year some of these funds went unused so please take advantage of this opportunity. If you plan on attending, there is also a student paper competition with cash prizes for the winners. The deadline to enter your paper is December 15, 1998. The theme of this year's conference is The Challenges of Crime and Justice in the New Millennium and student contributions are welcome!
Finally, if you find that there are a few
interested graduate or undergraduate students in your department who
would like to get more involved with the WSC, consider the
possibility of starting a student chapter at your school. The WSC
encourages the formation of student chapters by making it fairly easy
and inexpensive to set one up. By organizing a student chapter, you
get all the benefits of membership outlined above, plus there is
always the chance that as a student chapter, you may quality for some
funding from your very own department. Whether or not this
materializes, beginning a student chapter is a way to get more
involved with the WSC and with other students and faculty in your own
department. It is a great way to build professional networks and gain
valuable experience. If anyone has any questions, or would like more
information on anything mentioned above, please feel free to e-mail
me at dplechne@wizard.ucr.edu or call
me at work (909-787-4604). I hope that we have a bonus year for
student participation and that I get a chance to meet at least some
of the WSC student members at the upcoming conference, and at the
student reception (look for it in your program guide) in
February.
Dear WSC Members,
We have received an excellent response to our first issue of the Western Criminology Review. Although some wrote to point out the inevitable problems, which was much appreciated, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Partly as a result, the journal has been indexed in all major electronic forums. At Yahoo, we are the only listed electronic criminology journal. Local papers and Bay Area news services ran a story on the journal; the Scout Report (a federally funded reviewer of quality web sites) immediately listed it; web-savvy readers have complimented the ease of accessing and reading articles; libraries are beginning to incorporate the journal into their catalogues; and all of the major lists of web links around the world have a WCR link. This is encouraging.
The WCR has also been undergoing other changes. Jennifer (Jan) Dunn has agreed to join Barbara Bloom as Associate Editor. Jen (e-mail - jldunn@ucdavis.edu) is a graduate student at UC Davis working in the area of domestic violence. Also, Laurel Holmstrom is now an administrative assistant. Laurel (e-mail - laurel.holmstrom@sonoma.edu) will be helping in various ways, from finding reviewers to the conversion of manuscripts to web documents. Laurel is a graduate student in anthropology and an office coordinator at Sonoma State University. She will work part-time on the journal. The addition of Jen and Laurel will undoubtedly make things run more smoothly and efficiently. The WCR also has a new logo on the home page, which will be included on print advertisement, letterhead, and web-related work. Moreover, there is a new and easy-to-use search engine with boolean capabilities.
While we can take pride in these changes, there is still much work to be done. Perhaps most importantly, we need to encourage WSC members and non-members to submit their written work to the WCR. Often the most important advertisement is a word of encouragement to colleagues, friends, and students. Many scholars are realizing that publication in an electronic medium is the wave of the future, but the core of publication is still the same as print. Like other editors, I am constantly impressed with the hard work our distinguished Editorial Advisory Board and other WCR reviewers put into thinking about and responding to manuscripts submitted to the WCR for publication, as well as the responsiveness of authors to the suggestions of reviewers.
If you would like to help, you can volunteer to review manuscripts or ask your library to include a link to the Western Criminology Review at http://wcr.sonoma.edu in its catalogue of holdings. The ISSN (1096-4886) is permanently registered with the Library of Congress. If there are any questions, feel free to write to the journal at wcr@sonoma.edu.
The Fall 1998 Semi-Annual Meeting of the
Association for Criminal Justice Research (California) is on October
22-23 at the Bahia in San Diego, California. The theme is
Meeting the Challenge of Special
Populations. Contact Lyn Angene, Program
Chair at 619-531-3325 (langenmd@sdmc.co.san-diego.ca.us) or Dale Sechrest at 909-880-5566 (dksechrest@aol.com)