Primary and secondary socialization (family and school) intervention

[mariopaolucci]

(text from UCSC, Niccolò)

This policy scenario refers to a number of prevention policies addressing school-age agents in the model to keep them from criminal activities and organized crime recruitment. In particular, the central policy is the suspension of parental authority for the fathers of children born in organized crime (OC) families.

Other measures are intended as additionally or complementary to this policy, offering at-risk children support through a mix of possible interventions, including but not limited to psychological and social service support to them and their families, measures increasing job opportunities for the children's families, increased incentives to create non-criminal social ties etc. This scenario will put to the test and compare the effectiveness of parental authority suspension and other support policies toward reducing crime rates and OC recruitment, both as separate and combined treatments.

Targets:

The scenario will target the following agents:

1. Children aged 12-18 living in OC families (OC families would be those where at least one parent is an OC member). It will be possible to select the share of the target children based on a risk score reflecting how embedded in OC the children and the family are (OC embeddedness, R score in the simulation).

Related Policies:

• Parental/family attachment
  • decrease or suspension of the parental rights of the father (decreased relations with the father when he is an OC member or when he is convicted/in prison)
  • court orders limiting contacts with family members involved in OC (decreased relations with family members who are OC members)

2. Children aged 6-18 who are in school It will possible to select the more crime-prone children, i.e. those with higher c (criminal propensity) scores.

Related Policies:

• Increased social support :

  • better educational support (in the ABM, the agent will complete high school and/or achieve a higher level of education);
  • support of psychologists and social workers (promotion of prosocial relations and inhibition of anti-social relations, randomly creating friendship ties with non-deviant peers and adults);
  • increased social activities between children (children will randomly create new friendship ties)
  • move child to new class (if school classes are present in the ABM, this should generate additional friendship ties)

• Increased welfare support :

  • provide a job to the child's mother (resulting in diversification of mother's networks)
  • provide the child with a job when they turn 16 (resulting in diversification of the child's social networks and lower risk of crime commission)

[mariopaolucci]

What we have and what we have not with regard to this scenario:

(text from UCSC, Niccolò)

This policy scenario refers to a number of prevention policies addressing school-age agents in the model to keep them from criminal activities and organized crime recruitment. In particular, the central policy is the suspension of parental authority for the fathers of children born in organized crime (OC) families.

Other measures are intended as additionally or complementary to this policy, offering at-risk children support through a mix of possible interventions, including but not limited to psychological and social service support to them and their families, measures increasing job opportunities for the children's families, increased incentives to create non-criminal social ties etc. This scenario will put to the test and compare the effectiveness of parental authority suspension and other support policies toward reducing crime rates and OC recruitment, both as separate and combined treatments.

Targets:

The scenario will target the following agents:

1. Children aged 12-18 living in OC families (OC families would be those where at least one parent is an OC member). It will be possible to select the share of the target children based on a risk score reflecting how embedded in OC the children and the family are (OC embeddedness, R score in the simulation).

These we have - although the issue of family representation is still uncertain. This should constitute the main control for the scenarion (a kind of intensity). I do not want too many of these otherwise the scenario might become confused; we have fixed many of the free parameters thanks to calibration against statistical data, but it is harder to do the same for the what-if scenarios.

Related Policies:

* **Parental/family attachment**
  
  * decrease or suspension of the parental rights of the father (decreased relations with the father when he is an OC member or when he is convicted/in prison)
  * court orders limiting contacts with family members involved in OC (decreased relations with family members who are OC members)

This can be done but what would happen is just that the minor would make a family of his or her own - in fact he could carry along some of the relatives (the mother for example). This would allow us to keep working with the simplified network we have now, where each family is an island.

2. Children aged 6-18 who are in school It will possible to select the more crime-prone children, i.e. those with higher c (criminal propensity) scores.

Related Policies:

* **Increased social support** :
  
  * better educational support (in the ABM, the agent will complete high school and/or achieve a higher level of education);

feasible

  * support of psychologists and social workers (promotion of prosocial relations and inhibition of anti-social relations, randomly creating friendship ties with non-deviant peers and adults);

only creating friendship makes sense in the simulation

  * increased social activities between children (children will randomly create new friendship ties)

feasible

  * move child to new class (if school classes are present in the ABM, this should generate additional friendship ties)

feasible

* **Increased welfare support** :
  
  * provide a job to the child's mother (resulting in diversification of mother's networks)

this looks complicated but is feasible if really necessary.

  * provide the child with a job when they turn 16 (resulting in diversification of the child's social networks and lower risk of crime commission)

[mariopaolucci]

Rimuovere il ragazzino e non quello che viene preso

[mariopaolucci]

Tommaso ha fatto delle ricerche: per quanto riguarda la durata della decadenza/sospensione della responsabilità genitoriale, l'allontanamento dei minori potrebbe perdurare fino al conseguimento della maggiore età (cioè 6 anni, dai 12 ai 18). L'applicazione di questo strumento di intervention potrebbe essere pensata come weighted probability della distribuzione dello score OC embeddedness (R)