Project Methodology Plan

Selected Project Option

The proposed project, which is founded on the social learning theory, seeks to reduce recidivism rates among juveniles released from juvenile detention centers. To realize this goal, the study i) determines the factors influencing the risk of recidivism among juvenile offenders and based on these factors, ii) develops an intervention that could effectively minimize criminal elements and hence, the risk of recidivism. In this regard, the proposed study will adopt the intervention project option.

Rationale for the Selected Project Option

Several reasons inform the decision to use the intervention project option. First, intervention research assesses the impact of a certain intervention on an outcome variable (Salkind, 2010). Multiple studies have been conducted to analyze the factors influencing juvenile recidivism based on the assumptions of the social learning theory. The proposed study, however, goes beyond just identifying these factors, and focuses more on how the precepts of the theory could be used to develop interventions that minimize the effect of these factors and hence, the risk of recidivism. Other project options offer avenues for understanding why phenomena are the way they are, such as why recidivism occurs, but cannot be effectively used to assess the effectiveness of interventions for addressing the same.

Further, according to Salkind (2010), intervention research is used when the aim of the study is not to prevent a negative outcome from occurring, but to engender a specific desirable outcome for individuals in need, such as to reduce anxiety symptoms in patients with substance use disorders. The target population for the proposed study is juvenile offenders who have been rearrested within three years of release from a juvenile detention center. These are individuals who are already victims of recidivism as they have already been rearrested. The aim of the study, therefore, is not to prevent recidivism, but to minimize the inclination to recidivate...…learning theory in minimizing the risk of recidivism. Based on the developed intervention, the study will incorporate annual state reports to identify the extent to which their offender programs employ the strategies included in the intervention. States that employ less than 30 percent of the strategies in the developed intervention will be categorized in one class, and those that employ more than 50 percent of the strategies will be classified in a different class. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) will then be used to compare juvenile recidivism rates between the two classes of states to determine whether there are significant differences (Gifford, 2016). The insights obtained will be used to answer the second research question, which seeks to identify interventions that are most effective in reducing recidivism among juvenile offenders. The study hypothesizes that states that employ more of the strategies in the developed intervention will have lower rates of juvenile recidivism and that the differences…