View Research by Author - Megan Denver

Publications

One of the policy changes introduced by the Omnibus Public Safety and Justice Amendment Act of 2009 made it easier to detain pretrial defendants charged with certain offenses in the District of Columbia, mostly dangerous or violent crimes. This report examines whether detention of these defendants increased following passage of the Act. Trends in the pretrial detention of violent and dangerous defendants indicate that detention was on the rise before the Act and continued to rise after its passage. Results suggest that pretrial detention for dangerous and violent defendants without weapons charges rose after passage of the Act, but those with associated weapons charges show no change.

As part of the Social Networks, Delinquency, and Gang Membership project, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, social network data were collected from youth in a small, at-risk neighborhood. The data were analyzed using social network methods. Results indicated that individuals with multiple, separate groups of friends have greater constraints on their behavior and are less likely to be delinquent. Results also suggested that networks with very low densities (fewer connections) are more successful contexts for intervention. These findings are relevant to developing appropriate delinquency programs and shed light on the efficacy of neighborhood-based interventions.

When the Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized in 2005, it mandated that states receiving STOP funding provide free sexual assault forensic exams (SAFEs) to sexual assault victims and allow victims to receive exams without having to report the assault to law enforcement. States were given until January 5, 2009, to fully comply with the mandate. This presentation includes background information on the reauthorization and the study design, along with preliminary findings from a review of statutory and administrative codes on SAFE payment practices and from national surveys administered to state STOP administrators, compensation administrators, and state coalitions.

In April 2009 the Urban Institute (Washington, D.C), in partnership with Harder+Company (Los Angeles, CA), was contracted by the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles to conduct a multi-year evaluation of the Mayor's Gang Reduction and Youth Development Program (GRYD). This is the second report of the evaluation. It builds upon the process and preliminary outcome findings reported in 2010, and extends them through April, 2011.

This interim report details the first two years of the Urban Institute's evaluation of the family-inclusive case management component of the Safer Return Demonstration—a reentry program based in Chicago's Garfield Park neighborhood. The report presents the logic of the case management model and summarizes family members and formerly incarcerated persons experiences and perceptions, based on interviews and focus groups. In general, family members were highly supportive of returning prisoners and, despite a typically disadvantaged socioeconomic status, provided substantial material support to their returning family members, particularly housing. The implications of these findings for the Demonstration and reentry planning are discussed.

This report describes the Community Supervision Mapping System (CSMS), an online tool that enables users to map the formerly incarcerated and others on probation, along with related data such as service provider locations and police districts. CSMS was developed by The Providence Plan and piloted in Rhode Island in 2008. It was designed to be a user-friendly, low-cost software package that could be easily replicated in other jurisdictions. This report documents the mapping system’s development and its implementation by probation officers and law enforcement, and includes a process and initial outcome evaluation. In addition, lessons learned are synthesized to offer guidance to jurisdictions seeking to adopt a geographically-informed approach to prisoner reentry.

This document presents the results of a literature review on approaches to reducing crime and improving neighborhoods that were intended to produce community-level impacts, involved multiple approaches, and were carried out by cross-agency partnerships. The review included efforts focused solely on reducing or preventing crime as well as efforts with broader goals concerning improving neighborhood or resident well-being. The first section covers programmatic elements of initiatives: the strategies, interventions, and activities that successful efforts have employed. The second section covers process and structural elements, with subsections devoted to interagency collaboration, community engagement, and sustainability.

This report documents the first 15-month period of the Los Angeles Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) program evaluation. GRYD is a gang prevention and intervention program that was implemented in 2008-2009 in 16 Los Angeles neighborhoods. This document reviews the GRYD program's origins, initial implementation, and the evolving development of GRYD practices and procedures in 12 of the neighborhoods. The report presents the original program evaluation design and methodology, evaluation challenges and delays, evaluation activities, and proposed next steps. Initial findings include encouraging results from a pilot retest of youth who received GRYD services.

Much of today’s literature on youth programs emphasizes the importance of evidencebased approaches. The Urban Institute’s evaluation found Reclaiming Futures to be a promising strategy, however, many of the features that may be responsible for the positive system changes seen in the Reclaiming Futures initiative were inspired by practices not yet tested thoroughly by evaluators. This report examines two such components of the Reclaiming Futures initiative: positive youth development and cultural competence.

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