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Does Mentoring Work with High-Risk Adult Probationers?: The Implementation and Outcomes of an Adult Mentoring Court

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Abstract

While some programs for justice system-involved adults have included mentoring as one of many different program components, a problem-solving court known as the MENTOR (Mentors Empowering Now to Overcome Recidivism) program was recently the first known program to center mentoring as the primary program component. Evaluation results suggested that program participants experienced a high quantity and quality of mentoring and case management. Using a quasi-experimental research design with a matched comparison group, outcome evaluation results revealed that the program was associated with a significant reduction in probation revocations, a marginally significant reduction in new arrests, and no significant effects on employment outcomes in the 12-month study period.

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Notes

  1. The risk classification is completed by the probation department using an algorithm to predict risk for reoffending. While the court system does not disclose the exact variables in the most recent iteration of the algorithm which has been in use since 2016, a technical report from Barnes & Hyatt (2012) did disclose the variables used in the original iterations of the algorithm. These variables included age, gender, and a variety of criminal history variables.

  2. Program staff consulted the best practices literature for selecting mentors and matching mentors to mentees. Staff sought several characteristics in mentors, including residence in similar neighborhoods to mentees, 3 + years older than mentees, awareness of social injustices and systems of oppression, an interest in providing support instead of telling mentee what to do, and prior mentoring experience. The protocol for matching mentors and mentees included items such as any stated preferences of mentors/mentees; geographic proximity; common interests; complimentary personalities; and similar gender identity, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and religion.

  3. While this study only includes program dosage as measures of key program components, the full MENTOR evaluation also includes the perceptions of mentors, mentees, and program stakeholders as implementation measures. Interested readers are directed here: https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=soc_crj_faculty:

  4. This research project was approved by La Salle University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB # 16-10-055-AV).

  5. Some of the findings on the quality of mentoring relationships can also be found in Taylor, 2020.

  6. This conceptualization of quality of contact is consistent with the two main interpersonal level mentoring quality constructs identified by the National Mentoring Resource Center (2022), which is supported by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. These two constructs are:

    “Activities: What do mentors and mentees do and talk about together? What types of influential support do mentors provide?

    Relationships: How and under what conditions do the interactions between mentors and mentees evolve into significant personal connections that are sustained over time? What are the most salient and important features of these ties?”.

  7. Different response categories were used for mentors and mentees with the intention of balancing reporting accuracy with as much specificity as possible. Mentors completed reports every month; program staff communicated to mentors that they should be kee** track of the number of hours spent with mentees each month and the approximate number of contacts. However, mentees were surveyed about their “usual” experiences with mentors over the course of several months. It would have been unreasonable to expect mentees to remember the exact number of hours they had contact with their mentors each month; they were thus asked to give more general ranges for contacts.

  8. While the differences in number of prior arrests is a limitation in the matching, the differences in supervision conditions is a less concerning limitation because the MENTOR participants were subject to a number of program requirements / conditions that the comparison group did not have.

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Acknowledgements

The researcher completed this study as an independent, external evaluation of the MENTOR program, with federal funding from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program, The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs' Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Funding

This study was funded by the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program, The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs' Bureau of Justice Assistance.

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  1. Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice, La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Caitlin J. Taylor

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Correspondence to Caitlin J. Taylor.

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Taylor, C.J. Does Mentoring Work with High-Risk Adult Probationers?: The Implementation and Outcomes of an Adult Mentoring Court. Am J Crim Just 48, 635–655 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-022-09670-z

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