An evaluation of an arts program for incarcerated juvenile offenders

Journal of Correctional Education, Sep 2003 by Ezell, Mark, Levy, Michelle

For youth who are incarcerated, the arts hold additional promise. The highly structured environment of juvenile correctional facilities places heavy restrictions on freedom and choice. Arts programs offer opportunities to exercise decision-making and take ownership and responsibility for something. Creative art provides incarcerated youth with a socially acceptable outlet for releasing tension (Szekely, 1982; Gussak, 1997). Youth receive positive attention and recognition from the artists. As community-based professionals, the artists provide a connection to the real world. Arts programs that include exhibitions provide incarcerated youth with a voice in the community while the community is given an opportunity to better understand the youths' situation.

Very little is known about the impact of arts programs with incarcerated youth both in the short- and long-run (Jones, 1986). Only one study was found to focus on the impact of an art program in a juvenile institution. An improvisational theater program working within a California Youth Authority institution demonstrated a 60 to 70%Ie decrease in violence for program participants (Cleveland, 1992). Arts programs for "at-risk youth" have been found to be capable of producing measurable change in problem and delinquent behavior. Clawson and Coolbaugh (2001) conducted a study in three cities using pre-test, post-test, and follow-up data. Even though the samples of at-risk youth were small and somewhat different from site to site (e.g., truants, youth on probation, youth referred by schools) and efforts to use comparison groups met with varied success, several important findings emerged. The research found that youth who participated in the arts programs demonstrated increased interpersonal skills, decreased delinquent behavior, improve academic performance and higher rates of graduation.

Another study conducted by the Rand Corporation (Stone, Bikson, Moini & McArthur, 1998) examined a large number of arts programs for at-risk youth in the Los Angeles area. Based on the judgments of an expert panel, programs that had a strong impact on youths' prosocial development were compared to programs that had a weak impact in order to identify key program features the contribute to positive outcomes. They found that "serious artistic instruction is a necessary program feature for fine arts interventions to promote prosocial development in youth" (p. ii) and that other key program features (e.g., emphasis on performance and presentation) also have to be in place for the artistic instruction to have a positive impact. This research, while very helpful to those who are designing and operating arts programs, is hard to compare to other studies due to the fact that there was no definition of "at-risk youth."

Despite these benefits, art programs are not routinely incorporated in the programming offered to institutionalized juvenile offenders. Since September 1999, the NEA and OJJDP have supported three pilot sites and three existing programs through their "Arts Programs for Juvenile Offenders in Detention and Corrections" initiative. Beyond these sites, the total number of arts programs for incarcerated youth is unknown, though there were 60 applications for funding through the NEA/ OJJDP initiative (Hillman, n.d.).