Encouraging school re-engagement: exploring the operation of the legal mechanisms of a Third Party Policing school engagement intervention

Abstract

Truancy is a major social issue linked to several risk factors at the individual, family, school and community/economic levels of analysis (Baker, Sigmon & Nugent, 2001). Truancy requires holistic and targeted interventions that recognise its complexity, along with the need for a sustainable program to minimise its long and short-term impacts on young people, their families, police and society in general (Nitschke, Mazerolle & Bennett, 2013).A recent example of such an approach is the Ability School Engagement Program (ASEP): an experimental test of Third Party Policing (TPP), based in Queensland, Australia, where police and school partners collaborate to reduce truancy and associated crime problems (Mazerolle, 2014). The ASEP uses a Family Group Conference (FGC) forum to guide a procedurally justdialogue between police and schools, and parents and truants, to explore the underlying reasons for truancy, convey the effects and legal consequences of truancy, and to build the legitimacy of police and school authorities, with the explicit purpose of increasing the truants’ capacity and willingness to re-engage with school. Research on the ASEP to date reports promising outcomes relating to significantly reduced absenteeism, official offending and self-reported delinquency among the ASEP conference participants (Mazerolle, Antrobus, Bennett & Eggins, 2017; Bennett, Mazerolle, Antrobus, Eggins & Piquero, 2017). These findings support the widely held view that collaborative, person-centred approaches that seek to address underlying contributors of truancy, as opposed to more punitive responses to truancy, are most likely to be effective (Maynard, McCrea, Pigott, & Kelly, 2013). Yet the mechanisms of these collaborative interventions are under-researched. Therefore, the requisite core components of a successful truancy intervention remains unclear.In this dissertation I explore the operation of the legal mechanisms of the ASEP, focusing on the role of the school representatives in the FGCs to communicate parental legal responsibilities to ensure their children attend school. The key mechanism of TPP partnerships like the ASEP is the activation and escalation of latent legal processes. During the FGCs, school representatives communicate to the parents and their children that school attendance is mandatory under the Education Act 2006 (Qld), and explain, in a procedurally fair manner, the staged legal escalation framework that would be utilised in the event of continued truancy, potentially leading to prosecution and fines. The use of procedurally just dialogue and restorative processes within the FGCs is expected to cultivate positive perceptions of the legitimacy of authorities and lead to subsequent compliance with the law (Mazerolle, 2014).I begin my research with a contextual study (Study 1) that explores how Queensland schools, in a region where chronic truancy is particularly prevalent, initiate and escalate truancy legal processes set out in the Education Act. My sample comprises 55 cases of parents who were referred for police prosecution from the beginning of 2010 to 26 June, 2015. Taking a narrative analytic approach, I explore each case from initial school contact to the point of a prosecution recommendation. Study 1 results lead me to conclude that implementation of the school policies and procedures that operationalise the legislation lacks genuine engagement through dialogue. Schools and parents appear disconnected in the processes of problem resolution and schools do not appear to demonstrate to the parents their capacity to keep their children safe at school.Expanding on these insights, in Study 2, I investigate, using narrative analysis, how the ASEP approach seeks to connect school representatives, parents and their truanting children to promote the legitimacy of authorities and the truancy laws. I use 47 ASEP FGCs, to examine communication of the legal consequences in the legitimacy-building process. I find universal school support for the truancy reduction goal of the TPP partnership; all schools emphasised the value of educational attainment. However, I also find variability in the communication of the legal processes, ranging from thorough explanation to reluctance to engage with the topic. My analysis reveals nuanced approaches to building legitimacy, where school representatives described how schools respond to truancy, how schools and families can work together to improve attendance, the impact of truancy on the ability of the school representatives to do their jobs, the rationale behind compulsory education and the impact of truancy on young people specifically. These findings suggest that schools are able to better engage with families than what appears to be the case outside of the ASEP.The evidence I present in this dissertation suggests that for complex social problems like truancy, face-to-face, structured dialogue is an essential mechanism that promotes legitimacy. The ASEP FGCs present opportunities to establish genuine family-school connections, provide the structure to operationalise supports around barriers to school re-engagement, and promote the value of education, addressing truancy in a holistic way. Thus, my findings point to structured dialogue as a safeguard against potentially harmful, backfire effects of school interventions that seek to communicate and activate legal action to address truancy.