Fast Track Effects on Young Adult Criminal Outcomes

This presentation reports important effects of the Fast Track preventive intervention on adult arrests and self-reported criminal behavior as the sample transitioned into young adulthood. Court records of arrests were a key planned outcome for Fast Track since its inception, and encouraging results were evident on juvenile arrests through high school (CPPRG, 2010). Because of the large disparity in the course and level of crime for males versus females, analyses on adult arrests were conducted separately for the sexes.

High-risk youth had been randomly assigned by sets of schools to a comprehensive preventive intervention or to a control condition. Due to the large proportion of the sample experiencing no arrests/offenses, the intervention effects on the frequency-severity indexes for arrests/offenses are estimated using zero-inflated Poisson models.  This model estimates the probability of two latent groups – those with a zero probability of being arrested and those with a non-zero probability of being arrested.  Data were the annual court recorded adult arrests at ages 20 and 21, and youths’ self-reported offenses at age 21.

Analyses indicate that there are meaningful and significant effects on key indicators of males’ court-recorded arrests and their self-reported criminal offenses. Random assignment to Fast Track reduced males’ likelihood of having court-recorded adult arrests (OR=1.44, p=0.05), and growth analyses indicated that these intervention effects on adult arrests became evident at the 19-21 age period.  The intervention effect on the growth rate of the males’ probability of not being arrested is statistically significant (chi sq=7.81, dof=3, p=0.05).  The intervention males experienced a moderate drop in the annual probability of no arrest at age 20 and larger increase in the probability of no arrest at age 21, relative to the male control sample. Although there were no intervention effects on the frequency-severity of arrests among those males who did have at least one arrest, an intervention effect was apparent for males’ self reports of their frequency of criminal offenses. The latter finding was most apparent for the first of our three annual cohorts. There were no intervention effects for females, although the rates of criminal offenses among females was low during this age period. These findings extend our understanding in central ways of our previous understanding of the effects of Fast Track on juvenile arrests through the high school years, and indicate the potential for prevention of adult arrests among males as they transition into young adulthood and reduction of costly criminal careers.