VIOLENCE PREVENTION THROUGH LEGAL SOCIALIZATION

This study will use a quasi-experimental repeated measures design to evaluate the effectiveness of the Red Hook Youth Court (RHYC) on preventing violence and injury. RHYC will use a peer court model to strengthen legal socialization of adolescents in high-risk neighborhoods. RHYC will engage youths in peer-based legal processes designed to build trust and attachment to the law, establish accountability to peers and community, and to instill social normals that reject violence. Its primary goal is to prevent the escalation of fighting and minor violence into serious injury violence by teaching legal and social norms for behavior. A sample of 400 African American and Latino youth, ages 14-16, will be drawn from the Red Hook neighborhood. Youths who have received "YD" cards from the New York Police Department for fighting and minor violence will be recruited. RHYC staff will recruit test subjects from youths issued "YD" cards in the 76th police precinct. The research team will recruit a match3ed control group from the 70th precinct via letters to parents requesting participation in the study. Peer court staff will be recruited from local high school and youth-serving organizations in the study neighborhood. Peer court staff will be representative of their peers; both "excellent" youth and others with behavioral difficulties will be recruited as court officers. They will participate in a 10-week training curriculum. Youth assessments will be conducted at three intervals: shortly after RHYC recruitment; at one month after the hearing and at six months. Parents of RHYC will be interviewed at baseline and at six months. A 50% sample of youths and parents will be assessed at 12 months. Assessments to be conducted with youth from both the test and control groups will take place in a quiet and secure location where privacy can be assured (such as churches, libraries, after school program sites, or other public facilities). Measures will include legal socialization, personality, and development context. Hazard models will provide additional tests of RHYC effects on delaying injury. SEM analyses will further specific moderating and indirect effects.