Abstract
This meta-analysis examines the official recidivism effects of two types of community sanctions in youth justice, namely community service and behavioural intervention programmes. Two analyses were conducted: a comparison between the effects of community sanctions and custodial sanctions, versus a comparison between the effects of community sanctions and dismissals. Following a systematic literature search, data extraction and analysis, mean effect sizes were calculated utilizing (log) odds ratio as the main effect measure. To explore heterogeneity, a meta-regression was conducted with four moderator variables: methodological rigour, referral stage, main focus of sanction and sample risk level. The hypotheses were that recidivism would be significantly lower for delinquent youth subject to community sanctions compared with those subject to custodial sanctions, but that differences in recidivism between delinquent youth subject to community sanctions versus dismissals would be insignificant. In total, 23 studies were deemed eligible for inclusion ( Ncust = 7, Ndism = 16). Final results were in favour of the hypotheses, namely, significantly lower recidivism rates for community sanctions compared with custodial sanctions, and no significant differences for community sanctions compared with dismissals. For both comparisons, the 95% confidence interval indicated the effects varied from just below zero to substantially in favour of community sanctions. Finally, moderator analysis revealed that studies of lower methodological quality and mixed referral stages were more likely to report larger effect sizes.
Highlights
In various (Western) criminal justice systems, responses to youth crime are differentiated from criminal justice system responses to adult crime (Dünkel et al, 2010; Leenknecht et al, 2020; Winterdyk, 2002)
We developed a strict set of inclusion criteria: (1) the primary target in each study must be a youth in the sense that they had to be tried under youth justice provisions (9-23), (2) the study must report on at least one type of delinquent behaviour, (3) the study must have aexperimental design with a minimum of two comparison groups, (4) one comparison group must be composed of youth who received either a custodial sanction or dismissal, (5) the delivery of the community sanction must be outside an institutional setting, (6) the study must report recidivism rates for both groups, and (7) the study must report enough information to be able to compute an effect size
The pooled effect estimate of the comparison between community sanctions and custodial sanctions was negative (LOR = −0.24), and translates into an odds ratio (OR) < 1 (OR = 0.78), which indicates a negative association. This suggests that the odds of recidivism are smaller amongst youth who received a community sanction compared with youth who received a custodial sanction
Summary
In various (Western) criminal justice systems, responses to youth crime are differentiated from criminal justice system responses to adult crime (Dünkel et al, 2010; Leenknecht et al, 2020; Winterdyk, 2002). Youth justice proceedings have different punishment aims and sentencing goals than adult justice proceedings. This applies to punishment involving custody (such as prison sentences and other incarceration measures), because a significant body of research suggests custodial sanctions can be more harmful than beneficial, especially amongst youth (Fagan and Kupchik, 2011; Harrison et al, 2020; Sampson and Laub, 1993). Researchers, lawyers and practitioners believe that youth crime responses delivered in non-custodial settings can eliminate the harmful effects of custodial sanctions, yet allow for rehabilitation, address the root causes of criminal behaviour, and perform better at preventing future delinquency (Cullen and Gendreau, 2001). During the 1970s and 1980s, this notion led to the development of custodial punishment alternatives (Carter and Klein, 1976; Junger-Tas, 1994; Mulligan, 2009; Newton, 1981; Pratt, 1986; Walgrave, 1998)
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