Analysis of Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument (YASI)

Students: Nadia Morrow

Mentor: Dr. Darren Wheelock

Project Background

In Milwaukee and other places around the country, electronic monitoring is used as an alternative to sending juveniles to detention centers. The belief is that electronic monitoring along with effective use of the YASI assessment tool will allow for suitable intervention to prevent juveniles from reentering in the system.

Project Description

Risk assessments are used heavily in the juvenile system to determine what actions will be taken towards the juvenile. They are used by scoring the juveniles risk of re-offending and based on the risk level, judgement, intervention and detention. However, there has been no research for Milwaukee County's use of the scores and if using YASI accurately allows for correct intervention of the juvenile. We seek to investigate the predictive validity of the YASI for Milwaukee County juveniles and look at any potential racial discrepancies in the prediction of re-offending.

Tentative Milestones

Week	Description
Week 1	Attend orientation and get acquainted with research Familiarizing with what has been done on the project Discuss project with Dr. Darren Wheelock
Week 2	Train about proper methods to conduct research Draft research question focus and discuss with mentor Familiarize with approaches to similar projects
Week 3	Training about using LaTex Begin annotated bibliography Refine research questions Familiarize with approaches to similar projects
Week 4	Continue developing annotated bibliography Begin cleaning the data Begin learning some R
Week 5	Cleaning data Continue annotated bibliography Meet with research team
Week 6	Continue cleaning data and integrating it Continue annotated bibliography Begin writing paper
Week 7	Finish preparing data Begin preliminary analysis Begin creating visuals Continue writing paper
Week 8	Begin predictive validity and bias test Finish preliminary analysis Continue writing paper Begin developing final poster and presentation
Week 9	Finish poster and presentation Continue writing paper
Week 10	Practice presentation Finish paper Present poster and presentation