Evaluation Paper on Community Benefit Projects

Organization of Interest

NYC Justice Corps is a program that offers the young adults of ages 18-24 years a supportive and transitional environment by focusing on building their skills and supporting their behavioral changes so that they stay out of the justice system. Potential Corp members are the youth living in the target communities and usually have a history of being involved in criminal activities or have been accused in the criminal justice system. The program extends to include cognitive behavioral interventions, work readiness training, and case management. The Corp members design and carry out service projects known as Community Benefit Projects which are meant to help the participants acquire and practice job readiness skills while giving back to their communities. The service projects also help the youth involved in the justice system to adopt into the society by preparing the community members by changing the local perspectives about these young people. The Justice Corp program brings together the young adults to work as teams to build a positive peer network. The teamwork approach is meant to create satisfaction for young adults as they work to give back to their communities.

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This paper will evaluate the Community Benefit Projects which are at the heart of the program. CBPs are designed and carried out by the Corp members to promote the transformation of the members and communities alike. The projects are run by groups of about 20 members where they take up different roles to create and complete their services to the community. The main social issue addressed by the project is poverty by promoting the development of the youth through training and placement in various jobs. While most of the activities under CBP are volunteer services requiring no funds, the Mayor's Office provides the necessary funds when the need arises. The team members whose project requires funding are needed to communicate with Community Advisory Board whose members place the request the funds from the Mayor. Generally, the projects take up to 6 months and have two stages of planning. In the initial stage, the team members undertake community mapping activity which involves observing the local community in order to identify their needs. Target areas for the Corp members during this stage include community centers and parks which might require physical repairs or other social issues that need to be addressed in a community.

The second stage in planning involves making the case by presenting their findings to the Community Advisory Board. The presentation includes the tasks required to complete the project, skills, and resources necessary. Corp members are expected to include a timeline for their project. Every team member is encouraged to play his/her part in presenting their ideas to the Board. As mentioned above, in case the team requires financial resources, the Community Advisory Board will approve and take the case to the Mayor's Office. The role of the board is to review the project and approve or reject. Members of the Board include representatives from the political and business community.

Program Theory Applicable to Community Benefits Projects

Shadd Maruna's theory offers a critical theoretical framework and insight into the value of CBP projects in the community. Specifically, the projects offer chances of "redemption" to the Justice Corp members especially those who have been in the system. According to Maruna (2015), there is a new evidence-based model that can help communities understand prisoner reentry into society. The new model is based on a developing body of research on how ex-convicts cab is able to desist from crime successfully. The framework put forth by Maruna starts with the ancient criminology tradition of labeling theory which was developed by a former inmate Frank Tannenbaum. Frank's theory states that stigma against convicts plays a crucial role in the persistence of criminal behaviors over time (Easton et al. 2018). Most of the young people who are involved in criminal activities usually experiment it as a rite of passage in their local area or to challenge themselves to show how brave they are or how ready and willing they are to take risks. Unfortunately, those who are apprehended, processed, and imprisoned for such activities face a high risk of continuing with their criminal activities even after their jail time is over. Frank maintained that the stigmatization of the justice system is the result why such young people usually find their way back into crime life.

In other words, the justice system triggers various processes that cause young people to revert back into their old ways of life. For instance, various court appearances trigger ritualization, by having the conviction records publicly available credentialism is enabled, the young people are then given names such as offenders and convicts. Finally, there is social segregation. All these processes alter the young person's character in the eyes of the family and community at large. When the young person is released back into the community, he/she internalizes all the negative perceptions the community or family harbor against them and decide that they can never amount to anything in life or overcome the "convict" or "offender" labels. If that is the case, why will they not continue to commit more crimes to prove the society right?

According to Maruna (2015), the stigmatizing interactions of the justice system and the labeling interactions during the reentry is kind of a mirror image that makes it hard for the young people who go through the justice system to desist from crime. Therefore, Maruna proposes that the young people be formally challenged to earn their way back into the community by use of explicit acts targeted at testing their willingness and readiness to change their behavior to show their strengths and their value in the community. Rituals of redemption would recognize such efforts so that the "us" versus "them" mentality held by the society is broken to enable the youths to make meaningful interactions and establish relationships with the community. The NYC Justice Corps helps the young people to make these relationships in the community effectively. The program incorporates various aspects from Maruna's redemption rituals which are meant to reverse the de-individualization process inherent in all aspects of the justice system from arrest through community sanctions incarceration, and parole.

Evidence of Success

Intermediate Outcome

The Community Benefit Project evaluated in this section is the reentry program for the young people who have gone through the Justice System. Corps members who undergo this program have reported on both their own and their friends' pro-social and anti-social activities in the past four months after enrolling with the program. They provide information regarding their work self-efficacy, job-readiness issues, job barriers faced, and community engagement. Job readiness problems faced by these young people mostly include the willingness for them to accept authority and waking up on time to go to work on a daily basis. The program focuses on helping the young people to accept authority by getting rid of their view installed during their time in prison. As seen here, job readiness are the aspects of work life that the young people could change. Conversely, job barriers are issues that are less likely to be under a person's control. For instance, not having a place to live or having a family member to take care of could potential job barriers. Sadly, participation in the NYC Justice Corps does not affect the intermediate outcomes (Bauer et al. 2016).

Education

The NYC Justice Corps usually conducts a follow up with a survey on the members who have successfully undergone the program. The surveys require the respondents to answer several questions regarding their education attainment during the program and their future plans. Additionally, the convener's record all the participants placed into educational programs when they leave the NYC Justice Corps. In 2016, the conveners reported that 38 members were successfully placed into educational programs including 18 in GED, 8 in college, and 11 in vocational training (Astone et al. 2016). Others maintain that the NYC Justice Corps has helped them in attaining their current educational status which is useful for their daily lives expressing their desire to continue with education in the future. The NYC Justice Corps has transformed the lives of many young people who leave the Justice system especially through education and training than any other program. In 2016, the program had 254 participants for the first 6 months out of which 97.2 percent indicated that they plan to enroll for further education in various institutions including college which was the most chosen with 85.1 percent, vocational training with 73.9 percent, and 51.2 percent of the participants expressing their interest in joining GED in future (Sokoloff et al. 2017).

Employment

According to NYC Justice Corps, 77 members representing 22.6 percent were placed into jobs on leaving the program. Twenty-eight of these members (36.4 percent) remained employed for over one month indicating that they met the job retention benchmark. Data were collected from a total of 11 cohorts which had 559 members who authorized the researcher to access their data from the New York State Department of Labor wage files. While the group did not indicate any difference in their employment status in the first quarter after completion of the program, from their third month, most of the members started moving in the right direction as 26.5 percent of the participants were already employed in their third to the fourth month after leaving the program (Sokoloff et al. 2017). The trend only continues past four months as more and more members are employed and retained in their workplaces. The findings of the survey suggest that participating in the NYC Justice Corp increased employment chances of the members with a history in the criminal justice system. The effect of the program starts to demonstrate from the third month after the members leave the program. By the sixth month, a majority of the members are usually employed. This means that the NYC Justice Corps can change the lives of its members as intended by getting them off the streets and connecting them with employment opportunities. Furthermore, the survey revealed that employed Corp members usually earned more than those youths who did not participate in the program that were lucky enough to land jobs as most of them were working on the minimum wage.

Critique of Evidence of Success

The evidence of success presented above is convincing enough to indicate that NYC Justice Corps is able to influence and impact the intended behavior change in its members. The first reason that makes the data presented in the evidence section credible and reliable is that it uses survey conducted by the NYC Justice Corp on its members on successfully finishing the program. Additionally, employment data is presented form the New York State Department of Labor wage files including the name of the participants, their training with the program and their current employment status which includes their wages. Furthermore, the various reports used to evaluate NYC Justice Corps were conducted by independent researchers with the aim of verifying the statements from the program managers. One of such report was commissioned by the New York Economic Opportunity Response. The involvement of independent reports that support the data from the reports by the program itself eliminate any chances of bias in the statistics provided. Therefore, the evidence presented...