eBusiness Center to Help Fight Crime | November 2005

Before you get upset at that cell phone ringing in the movie theater, you may want to consider what a group of sociology professors are investigating: cell phones may hold the potential to change a person’s life, or at least the life of someone who has found trouble with the law.

Working closely with a former parole officer who casually concluded that doing nothing to help parolees reform seemed more effective than traditional reform methods, the professors facilitated the development of a new approach among some of Utah’s probationers and parolees. The program, called “Real Victory,” seeks to reduce the percent who return to criminal behavior, which social scientists refer to as the recidivism rate.

“[Traditionally,] the recidivism rate of people on parole and probation is just outrageously high,” said one of the team members, Bert Burraston, an assistant professor with the Department of Sociology. “It’s very expensive to a lot of people. If we can get them to simply change their behaviors and stop, we can save society a lot of money, but we can hopefully save their families a lot of grief also.”

So far, about a 150 parolees and probationers in Utah County have participated in the program and the team is busy testing the effectiveness of the new model. Preliminary results suggest the program is making a difference.

To change behavior, the program has two main parts. First, each participant attends a class once a week for six weeks where instructors ask them to examine their beliefs and principles. The students learn how beliefs drive behavior and that their behavior should create consequences that meet their life needs. The model emphasis four life needs the participants should consider: the need to survive, the need to love and be loved, the need to feel important and the need to find variety.

Second, once the participants have strong life goals in place and a better understanding how to attain them, they are held accountable for their progress through cell phone technology. As funding permits, about half those enrolled in the class receive a free cell phone they are to carry with them at all times. A computer will then call the phone up to four phone times a day to check on the status of the participant’s goals. Throughout the day, the computer also may call with messages of encouragement from loved ones of the participant.

The professors have not yet specifically examined the effectiveness of following up with cell phone calls but preliminary results examining the effectiveness of the class portion of the program show their new approach may be more effective than traditional reform methods when it comes to maintaining employment. According to the results, those who attended the six classes were more likely to find a job, more likely to do well on the job and more likely to become self-sufficient.

“We are very excited about our preliminary findings,” Burraston said. “Steadyemployment is one of the key factors in preventing recidivism.”

Next, the team will further scrutinize the initial findings by lengthening the time of study and by following a larger pool of participants.

The team is composed of Burraston and Stephen Bahr of the Sociology Department, David Cherrington and Stephen Liddle from the business school, and Bruce Bennett who helps administer the cell phone technology. Each of them is also joined by a team of students who assist with the research.