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8. Re-Offenses Among Young People Who Participated in ConferencingCharts 5.a., 5.b., and 5.c. display, respectively, the number of days between incident and referral, referral and Conference, and incident and Conference. Also included with each chart are the average number of intervening days in each category for school and court Conferences. One of CCC's long term goals is that young people who participated in Conferencing have lower re-offense rates than young people, convicted of similar offenses, who did not participate in Conferencing. Measuring achievement toward this goal will require significant attention to the problems associated with operationalizing re-offending as well as a research design allowing long term comparisons between Conferenced and non-Conferenced youth on the re-offense and a variety of control variables. The purpose of this section of the report is not to address the question of the impact of Conferencing on re-offending, but rather simply to present information on known re-offenses among young people who have participated in Conferencing. For the purposes of this report, re-offending is defined, among court referred young people, as conviction on a subsequent offense, not including administrative offences (e.g., breach of probation). Among school referred young people, re-offending is defined as having received a subsequent serious school imposed sanction (i.e., expulsion or greater than 3 day suspension). Defining re-offending in terms of subsequent court convictions or school sanctions has serious limitations. Primary among these is the possibility that a young person may have been responsible for additional incidents not registered in official court or school records.
8.1. Re-Offenses Among School Referred Youth All but one of the Conferences with the 53 school referred young people have occurred since November, 1999. Since a relatively short amount of time has passed since Conference participation for many of these youth, a re-offending check is feasible at only a six month post Conference interval. At least six months has passed since Conference completion for 34 of the 53 school referred young people. Among these 34 young people, none has been given a school sanction that would indicate involvement in subsequent serious misbehaviour. It is worth noting that, regardless of the time passed since Conference participation, none of the involved young people has received a school sanction that would indicate subsequent serious misbehaviour.
8.2. Re-Offenses Among Court Referred Youth Since Conferencing with court referred young people has been occurring since January 1998, it is possible to check re-offending six months and one year after Conference participation. At least six months has passed since Conference completion for 34 of the 51 court referred young people. Among these 34 young people, four (11.8%) have been convicted of one or more subsequent offenses. Details regarding each of these youth's Conferenced incident(s), subsequent incident(s), and time between Conference and subsequent incident(s) are presented in Chart 8.a.
Among the youth under consideration (i.e., those for whom at least six months has passed since completion of a Conference), the young people who have been convicted of a subsequent offense were originally Conferenced regarding predominantly property offenses. Subsequent offenses for these youths were all also property offenses. The time between Conference completion and first subsequent offense was less than one week for one youth, approximately three months for one young person, five months for the second and 19 months for the third. At least one year has passed since Conference completion for 24 of the 51 court referred young people. Among these 24 young people, three (12.5%) have been convicted of one or more subsequent offenses. At least one year has passed since Conference completion for all of the youth described in Chart 8.a. except YP 1.
All Community Conferences entail intensive pre-Conference preparation, with multiple phone and personal contacts with the involved young people, victims, and supporters. Charts 9.a. and 9.b. indicate the direct services Community Conferencing staff give to the individuals involved in Conferences.
In total, Community Conferencing staff made 1,142 phone calls and 477 visits to individuals directly involved in Conferences over the reporting period. On average, more contact (phone calls and meetings) was made with young persons and their supporters than with victims and their supporters. A very rough approximation of total preparatory direct service hours for Conferences can be calculated by estimating each phone call at 15 minutes and each meeting at 90 minutes. This results in estimates 285.5 direct service hours in telephone calls and 715.5 direct service hours in meetings. Using these totals, an estimate of preparatory direct service hours per Conference can be calculated: Conferences averaged approximately 4.4 hours in phone calls and 11 hours in meetings. In total, preparatory work is estimated at 15.5 hours per Conference. Chart 9.b. presents information regarding the duration of Conferences. Conferences lasted a minimum of two hours and a maximum of four hours. On average, Conferences were three and one-half hours long. In total, Community Conferencing staff spent 226.8 hours in Conferences for all the Conferences held between January 1998 and July 31, 2000.
For comparative purposes, court Conferences lasted, on average, 3.6 hours, somewhat longer than school Conferences, which averaged 3.2 hours. The shortest school Conferences was two hours while the shortest court Conference was two and one-half hours. The longest school Conference was four hours, while the longest court Conference was six and one-half hours. The court Conference that was six and one-half hours involved one young person with nine break and enter charges who was Conferenced with three victims. Adding average Conference length to the estimated hours of preparatory work per Conference results in an estimate of 19 direct service hours from receipt of referral until completion of Conference. Calgary Community Conferencing received 37 referrals that did not proceed to Conference. These included four school and 33 court referrals. All of the non-Conferenced school referrals were from junior high schools. The four incident types referred but not Conferenced included verbal fighting, property damage, theft, and inappropriate sexual behaviour. These referrals involved six young people, including three males and three females. Three referrals were regarding a single young person and one involved three young people. Two of the referrals did not proceed because CCC staff believed the situation inappropriate for Conferencing; the other two did not proceed as a result of victim choice. The 33 court referrals that did not proceed to Conference involved 37 young people. Thirty-two of the referrals were with respect to one young person, while one referral involved three young people. The referrals involved a total of 55 incidents, 60.0% (33) of which were property related. Among the property related incidents, robberies were the most frequently referred but not Conferenced offenses (12 or 21.8%). Nineteen assault related incidents were referred but not Conferenced, accounting for just over one-third of the total (19 or 34.5%). The three non-assault and non-property incidents accounted for the balance of the non-Conferenced referrals (5.5%) and included one each of the following charges: obstructing a police officer, mischief, and unlawful consumption in a public place. Among the 37 court referred, non-Conferenced young people, 28 (75.7%) were male and nine (24.3%) were female. The source of one referral was unknown. Judges referred 10 (28.6%) of the non-Conferenced cases, Defense lawyers referred 19 (54.3%), probation officers referred four (11.4%), and a young person's parent referred one (2.9%). Victim choice was the reason court referrals did not proceed to Conference in two-thirds of the cases (22 or 66.7%). The young person decided against proceeding in seven of the 33 non-Conferenced court referrals (21.2%). Conferencing facilitators decided the case was not appropriate for Conferencing in four (12.1%) of the non-Conferenced cases. It should be noted that although 37 referrals to Community Conferencing from the schools and court did not proceed to Conferences, there was considerable work completed with the involved young people, victims, and supporters. Across these 37 referrals, a total of 232 telephone calls and 72 meetings were made to young people and/or their supporters. One hundred and thirty-one telephone calls and 24 meetings were held with victims and/or their supporters regarding these referrals. Using the same method as was used to estimate the time spent in preparatory work for referrals that did proceed to Conference (Section 7), Conferencing staff spent 90.75 hours on telephone calls and 144.0 hours on meetings with these non-Conferenced referrals. On average, staff spent 7.3 hours of direct service work on each of the 32 referrals that was not Conferenced
The young people who participated in Community Conferences between January 1998 and July 2000 are described below in terms of gender, age, heritage, and home city quadrant.
11.1. Gender of Young People Involved in Conferencing Chart 11.a. presents a breakdown of the gender of the young people involved in Conferencing.
As indicated in Chart 11.a., slightly over three-quarters (82 or 78.8 %) of young people involved in Conferences were male. Female young people comprised substantially more school (30.2%) than court (11.8%) Conference participants.
11.2. Age of Young People Involved in Conferencing Chart 11.b. provides information regarding young people's age at the time of the incident for which they participated in Conferencing.
As indicated in Chart 11.b., the youngest young person involved in a Community Conference between January 1998 and July 2000 was 11 years old while the oldest was 18. The average age of the 104 young people was just over 15 years. On average, young people participating in school Conferences (14.3) tended to be somewhat younger than young people participating in court Conferences (15.8). Within school Conferences, the modal age was 15 (28.3% of school Conferenced young people). In contrast, the modal age among court Conferences young people was 17 (26.9% of court Conferenced young people).
11.3. Heritage of Young People Involved in Conferencing Chart 11.c. presents information regarding heritage of the young people involved in Conferencing. The majority of all young people (74 or 71.2%) were of Western European heritage, with those of Middle Eastern heritage comprising the next largest group (13 or 12.5%).
11.4. Home City Quadrant of Young People Involved in Conferencing Chart 11.d. portrays the home city quadrants of the young people involved in Conferences between January 1998 and July 2000. As is apparent, Southeast Calgary was the home city quadrant for the largest group of young people (39 or 37.5%). The city's northeast was the home city quadrant for just over one-quarter of the young people (28 or 26.9%). The western quadrants of the city were home to about one-third (35 or 33.6%) of the young people, with the Northwest home to about twice the number of young people than the Southwest (23 or 22.1% versus 12 or 11.5%)
Young people who participated in court Conferences tended to be more dispersed in terms of their home city quadrant than young people who participated in school Conferences. Approximately 15% of young people in court Conferences came from each of the southern quadrants. A third were from the Northwest and just over one-quarter were from the Northeast. The two young people from outside Calgary's city limits who participated in Conferences were referred from the court. In contrast with court referred young people, the home city quadrant of school referred young people tended to be more concentrated in the eastern part of Calgary. The southeast and northeast was home to 84.8% (45) of the school referred young people, with the majority of those (31) coming from the southeast. The western half of Calgary was home to only 15% (8) of school referred young people, with equal numbers of young people from each quadrant. In the two and a half years between January 1998 and July 2000, CCC facilitated 65 Conferences involving 601 direct participants and another 150 observers. Conferences were held regarding 30 different kinds of predominantly property and interpersonal conflict incidents. Over the reporting period, 104 young people who harmed met with 143 individuals harmed and, assisted by 286 supporters, negotiated 397 items to redress the harm. Among the 68 court and school referred young people for whom at least six months has passed since Conferencing, four (5.9%) have been reported as having been involved in subsequent serious misbehavior. The purpose of this report was to provide details regarding the program activities and outputs of CCC in order to address questions regarding individuals served by the program, the services provided, and some of the outputs associated with these services. Questions regarding participants' experiences of and opinions regarding Conferencing are being addressed through a process evaluation that draws on interviews of young people who harmed, individuals who experienced harm, and supporters of each. This formative evaluation will also include representatives from CCC stakeholder groups including, for example, judges and school administrators. Finally, questions regarding the degree to which the program is achieving its intended immediate and long term goals will be addressed via a summative evaluation based on the quantitative operationalization and measurement of the specified outcomes.
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