Policing partnerships to address youth antisocial behavior: How parental risk‐taking shapes child outcomes

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12510
• Date: 01 August 2020
• Author: Alex R. Piquero,Lorraine Mazerolle,Stephanie M. Cardwell,Emma Antrobus
• Published date: 01 August 2020

DOI: ./- .

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH IN POLICE POLICY AND PRACTICE

Policing partnerships to address youth

antisocial behavior: How parental risk-taking

shapes child outcomes

Lorraine Mazerolle1Stephanie M. Cardwell1,2

Emma Antrobus1Alex R. Piquero3,4

The University of Queensland, School of

Social Science, The University of

Queensland

The University of Texas at San Antonio,

San Antonio, TX

University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL

Monash University, Melbourne,

Australia

Correspondence

LorraineMazerolle, Michie Building (#),

TheUniversity of Queensland, St. Lucia,

QLD.

Email:l.mazerolle@uq.edu.au

Theauthors gratefully acknowledge the

AustralianResearch Council Laureate

Fellowship(–; grant number

FL),which funded the exper-

imentalevaluation of the Ability School

EngagementProgram. This research was

supportedby the Australian Research

CouncilCentre of Excellence for Children

andFamilies over the Life Course (project

numberCE). The Centre is

administeredby the Institute for Social

ScienceResearch at The University of

Queensland,with nodes at The University

ofWestern Australia, The University of

Melbourne,and The University of Sydney.

Theviews expressed herein are those of the

authorsand are not necessarily those of the

AustralianResearch Council. As with any

large-scale trial, the workthat is presented

Research Summary: Partnerships are an integral part

of the working life of police, yet not a lot is known about

how such partnerships work to deter and control crime

problems. This article explores the impact of a Third

Party Policing Partnership involving police and schools

coming together to engage with parents to address their

child’s truancy and antisocial behavior. We report on

results from an embedded behavioral economics exper-

iment within the Ability School Engagement Program

(ASEP) Trial. ASEP involved  young people who

were chronically truant from school and randomly allo-

cated to the experimental partnership program (ASEP)

or the business-as-usual condition. We find that riskier

choices made by parents increase the incidence of child

self-reported antisocial behavior (SRASB). Our results

show parents in the ASEP condition had greater gains

in knowledge of the education laws relative to control.

There was a backfire effect for parents in the control

group: Their gains in knowledge of the laws led their

children to have higher levels of SRASB.

Policy Implications: Policing partnerships are an

important part of the future of policing. Police partner-

ships with schools are a promising approach for engag-

ing parents and young people in a manner that clearly

Criminology & Public Policy. ;:–. ©  American Society of Criminology 883wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp

884 MAZEROLLE  .

inthis paper is made possible by the ded-

ication,passion, and professionalism of a

largenumber of people. We are, therefore,

indebtedto the project team at the Univer-

sityof Queensland and our Ph.D. students,

aswell as the dedicated operational team

fromthe Queensland Police Service, the

Departmentof Education and Training,

thestaff, students and families from the

schools participating in the trial, and

thefacilitating team seconded from the

Departmentof Justice and Attorney Gen-

eral.The views expressed in this paper are

thoseof the authors. Responsibility for any

errorsof omission or commission remains

withthe authors.

Fundinginformation

AustralianResearch Council Laure-

ateFellowship, Grant/Award Num-

ber:FL; Australian Research

CouncilCentreofExcellenceforChil-

drenand Families over the Life Course,

Grant/AwardNumber: CE

and fairly explains to parents their legal obligations for

their child’s school attendance. While we do not find

that ASEP modified parental risk-taking behavior, we

do find that the ASEP intervention created an insulat-

ing effect from the negative outcomes of the business-

as-usual condition, in which school principals delivered

ad hoc bad news to parents about their child’s antisocial

behavior in a way that was not procedurally just. Polic-

ing partnerships are likely to deter antisocial behavior

when police work with third party partners who have

some type of legislative responsibility. This legislative

medium creates opportunities for the police and third

parties to better engage and communicate legal respon-

sibilities and the consequences of noncompliance.

KEYWORDS

deterrence, police partnerships, procedural justice, risky choices,

teachers

Policing partnerships are an integral part of how police work to prevent and control crime prob-

lems. A wide variety of private and public organizations agencies work closely with police, offer-

ing wider opportunities and capacities for police. These external organizations and agencies are

defined in the policing literature as crime control “nodes,” and police frequently partner with

these “nodes” to control and prevent crime (Mazerolle, Eggins, & Higginson, , p. ; see also

Crawford, , ; Crawford,Lister, Blackburn, & Burnett, ; Ericson, ; Jones & New-

burn, ; Loader, ; Shearing, ). Yet, not much is known about the range of different

types of partnerships and how these partnerships work to deter and control crime problems.

One particular type of partnership is called Third Party Policing (TPP) (see Buerger & Maze-

rolle, ; Mazerolle & Ransley, ). In TPP, the partners (known as the third party) use their

knowledge of legal statutes and regulations to create opportunities for police to target crime prob-

lem places, people, or situations in collaborative ways, with a focus on on gaining willing compli-

ance with the law and deterring people frombreaking the law (Braithwaite, , ; Cheh, ;

Mazerolle & Ransley,; Mazerolle et al., ). TPP is identified by Weisburd and Braga as one

of eight key policing innovations of the st century (Weisburd & Braga, ). “TPP expands the

capacity of police to target crime and disorder clusters in two distinct ways: () by creating a part-

nership between police and non-police third parties that () harnesses the third party’s resources

and legal powers to control or prevent a crime or disorder problem” (Mazerolle et al., ,p.;

see also Buerger & Mazerolle, ; Green-Mazerolle & Roehl, ; Mazerolle & Ransley, ).

Through communicating the laws and working with third party partners to alter an individual’s

awareness of the certainty of punishment, police use these partnerships to help deter antisocial

behavior by reorienting an individual’s risk taking.