Center for Social Concerns

Ganey Collaborative Community-Based Research Mini-Grant Recipients 2008

“From Punishment to Prevention and Restoration: Redirecting Resources toward a Comprehensive Community Response to Crime and Violence”

Michael Jenuwine
Professor, Law and Psychology
Maria Kaczmarek
Dismas House of Michiana
Rob Sambosky
Companions on the Journey
Martha Calcutt & Andrea Laidmen

Class of  2007

South Bend has a per capita rate of violent crime almost double that of other Midwestern, middle-sized cities and a murder rate more than double the national average. Some evidence suggests that factors such as poverty, lack of education and job training, mental illness, drug use, and abusive home situations play significant roles in violent crime. Evidence is even clearer that the government agencies designed to address such problems are not successful in this state. Directors and staff of local agencies such as Dismas House of Michiana and Companions on the Journey, two prisoner re-entry and rehabilitation programs in South Bend that aid prisoners in becoming productive members of the South Bend community experience a resource drain as they attempt to fulfill the duties of the state agencies that are failing.

This study will identify the underlying factors causing crime in South Bend and Indiana, and evaluate with partners in the community what is needed to prevent violence and provide rehabilitation. This will be done in three phases. In phase one, the cases of a sample of death row inmates in Indiana will be studied, leading to a statistical overview of the presence of factors such as child abuse and drug use. These cases will be compared to other inmates who were eligible for the death sentence but didn’t receive it, to identify how the underlying factors differed from those found among individuals on death row. In the second phase, in-depth interviews will be completed with inmates whose lives demonstrate that helpful intervention related to underlying factors did not occur. An attempt will be made to identify where state mechanisms failed at prevention. Finally, local programs will be surveyed to gather ideas about what is most needed to curb violence. This report will make the case for increased funding for prevention and rehabilitation programs, based on a correlation between treatable symptoms of anti-social behavior of offenders and the incidence of violence. It will be distributed and presented to at least twenty organizations in the community that could implement the findings into their programs. The report will explain recurring issues that create the conditions for violent crime in South Bend and recommend needed interventions at the city and state level to better aid organizations that are focused on crime prevention and community restoration.

“Improving the Home Environment: Giving Children a Head Start”

John Borkowski
Professor, Psychology
Jody Nicholson
Graduate Student, Psychology
Kathleen Kraner
Memorial Hospital, Master Home Environmentalist Program
Sue Taylor
Memorial Hospital, Master Home Environmentalist Program
Chris Steeple
St. Joseph Head Start Consortium

Forty years of research has revealed the importance of the home environment on child development. Specifically, indoor pollution and childhood lead poisoning have been found to create risk for children’s health. Children in poverty, particularly in those in minority households, are of special concern when investigating the influence of the home environment. They are more likely to live in substandard housing, which has been linked with increased lead exposure and greater difficulties for children suffering from asthma, both of which have been linked with poorer developmental outcomes. Lead exposure and asthma are of particular concern to this community. In Indiana, 10.4% of all children have asthma and St. Joseph County ranks third in the number of reported lead poisoning cases, according to the Indiana State Department of Health (2008). For this study, children will be recruited from the St. Joe County Head Start Consortium. Clients of the Head Start Program will participate either in a lead exposure intervention or a program to reduce other pollutants in the home environment. The effectiveness of both programs will be assessed by examining the outcomes directly and the processes by which they are achieved. Demographic information will be collected to assist in determining why interventions might be more effective for some than for others.

“Reducing School Switching to Increase Student Achievement”

Jennifer Warlick
Professor, Economics
Britt Magneson
South Bend Community School Corporation
Nicholas Krafft
Class of 2009, Economics Major

A preliminary study suggests that, on average, one of every five elementary school students enrolled in a South Bend Community School Corporation primary center at the beginning of a new academic year will not be a member of the student body of that school during the following year. The situation is worse in Title I primary centers that serve large populations of children from socio-economically disadvantaged homes.

Scholarly literature investigating student mobility suggests these rates are typical of urban school systems serving children largely from low-income and working class families. The effects of frequent school switching are well documented and include lower academic achievement and increases in behavioral problems. Students who do not move and form the stable core of the student body are also negatively affected by the disruption. The literature also identifies multiple causes of mobility and actions that can be taken by parents, teachers, schools, school corporations, and communities to reduce and/or counter the effects of school switching and thereby increasing the level of student achievement. Unlike so many of the factors contributing to the low achievement of children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families, school switching appears to be a factor that can be mitigated by school policies and thus deserves investigation.

This study will investigate the extent to which school switching lowers the ISTEP pass rates of third graders, and of the degree by which mobility must be decreased for South Bend Community School Corporation’s Title I schools to meet Adequate Yearly Progress under the No Child Left Behind Act. This study will also increase understanding of the reasons for frequent moves and why school switching reduces student achievement, and identify policies that might reduce student mobility. Determining if collaboration and cooperation among community agencies can reduce school switching, particularly for students from socio-economically disadvantaged homes, and identify agencies that should be involved. This study will also aid in the design and implementation of an education program through Title 1 primary centers that informs parent’s of the possible negative consequences of frequent school switching.