Study
Mihalic and colleagues (2011) conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of CASASTART on youths’ crime and delinquency, violence, and drug- and school-related outcomes after completion of the 2-year program.
Seven sites that agreed to random assignment of eligible youths to the CASASTART program or a control group were selected for the study: Trenton, N.J. (six schools); San Antonio, Texas (four schools); McKeesport, Pa. (four schools); Baltimore, Md. (two schools); Bridgeport, Conn. (two schools); Livingston, Ky. (two schools); and Portland, Ore. (one school). Almost all of the schools were new to the CASASTART program. Half of the schools in San Antonio and both of the schools in Bridgeport had previous experience with CASASTART. The San Antonio, McKeesport, Baltimore, and Bridgeport schools began the implementation and referral process in fall 2007, while the Livingston, Portland, and Trenton schools began the implementation and referral process in fall 2008. Eligible youths at each site were ages 11 to 13 and had at least two risk factors in the school domain and at least one risk factor in both the family and personal domains. School risk factors included grade retention, poor academic performance, truancy, suspensions, and disruptive behavior; family risk factors included a history of family violence or drug use; and personal risk factors included involvement in drug use or sales, delinquency, gang membership, and being the victim of abuse or neglect.
The total evaluation sample consisted of 382 youths. These youths were randomly assigned by computer program to receive the CASASTART program (n = 197 youths) or assigned to a control group (n = 185 youths), whose participants could receive services as usual but could not receive all CASASTART services (control group participants did not receive the intensive CASASTART case management service component that was received by the treatment group). Owing to the nationwide economic downturn, the McKeesport and San Antonio sites and one school in Baltimore lost funding, and only 1 year of data was available instead of 2.
Both the CASASTART treatment group and the control group consisted mostly of minority youth. The treatment group was 37.9 percent Black, 34.2 percent Hispanic, 18.4 percent other ethnicities, and 9.5 percent white, and the control group was 42.0 percent Black, 27.6 percent Hispanic, 15.5 percent other ethnicities, and 14.9 percent white. The average age of youth in both the CASASTART treatment group and the control group was 12 years old. Both groups were predominately male (64.2 percent of the treatment group, and 56.3 percent of the control group). Even though both the treatment and control group youths showed no statistically significant differences in measures of risk factors for delinquency (e.g., poor academic performance, suspensions, history of family violence, gang membership), baseline assessments revealed statistically significant differences in measures of delinquent behavior. CASASTART treatment group youths had statistically significantly higher frequency measures for serious delinquency (1.97 for the CASASTART treatment group, compared with 0.89 for the control group), total violence (1.78 for the treatment group, compared with 0.88 for the control group), and drug sales (0.17 for the treatment group, compared with 0.01 for the control group). CASASTART treatment group youths also evidenced higher frequency measures for serious property offenses, other drug use, and sexual activity, compared with control youths. Among the three official school records measures, CASASTART youths had statistically significantly more total days absent than control youths (an average of 12.34 days for the treatment group, compared with 9.56 days for the control group). Baseline differences in problem behaviors were controlled for in the analyses.
Data were collected three times during the evaluation: 1) at pretest after randomization, 2) in the fall of the following school year, and 3) during a posttest survey after the second school year. Delinquency was measured by the Self-Reported Delinquency Scale, adapted from the National Youth Survey and the Denver Youth Survey. Youths were asked how many times in the last year they had engaged in a wide variety of illegal behavior, measured through a number of scales: Total Violence, the summation of serious violence (four items indicating the number of times youths “attacked someone with a weapon or with the idea of seriously hurting or killing them,” were “involved in gang fights,” etc.) and minor violence (four items indicating the number of times youths “snatched someone's purse or wallet or picked someone's pocket,” “hit someone with the idea of hurting them,” “had or tried to have sexual relations with someone against their will,” etc.); Total Property, the summation of serious property (seven items indicating the number of times youths “purposely set fire to a house, building, car, or other property or tried to do so,” “stole or tried to steal money or things worth $50 or more,” etc.) and minor property (five items indicating the number of times youths “avoided paying for things such as movies, bus or subway rides, food, or computer services,” and “stole or tried to steal money or things worth between $5 and $50,” etc.); Drug Sales consisting of two items indicating the number of times youths sold “marijuana or hashish” and “hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine and LSD;” Total Delinquency, which included items from serious and minor violence, serious and minor property, drug sales, and four public disorder items indicating the number of times youths had “been loud, rowdy, or unruly in a public place,” “begged for money or things from strangers,” etc.; Arrests and Tickets assessed by “how many times in the last year were you arrested,” or “given a ticket for a delinquent offense?;” Truancy, the number of times youths skipped 1 day or more of school without an excuse; and Status Offenses, four items indicating the number of times youths ran away from home for overnight or longer, were truant, lied about their age to get into someplace or to buy something, and broke city curfew laws. Additional self-report survey measures included personal characteristics, peer association, and family risk and protective factors, and neighborhood risk and protective factors. Official school records were also collected to assess academic performance, absences, disciplinary incidents, and suspensions.
Two kinds of analysis were used to determine CASASTART’s effectiveness. The first tested mean differences between treatment and control participants; the second estimated treatment effects on outcomes in linear models that controlled for other variables (participation in CASASTART, baseline measure of the outcome variables of interest, age at baseline, and race/ethnicity). Multilevel regression models (hierarchical linear modeling) were used to account for the nested nature of students within sites. At the end of the 2-year program, posttest interviews were completed with 272 of the original 364 eligible students to assess changes in the frequency (the number of times youths engaged in the problem behavior) of the outcomes of interest. Subgroup analysis was conducted by gender.
