EVALUATING PHILADELPHIA’S GUN COURT: IMPLICATIONS FOR CRIME REDUCTION AND SPECIALIZED JURISPRUDENCE By MATTHEW ROBIN NOBLES A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2008 1 © 2008 Matthew Robin Nobles 2 To my family, for sacrificing to provide me with opportunities to think, change, and grow. To Tasha, for reminding me always that dreams do come true. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my parents, grandparents, and all of my extended family for believing not so much in the venture, but in the person. I thank Tasha for all of her love and support, and for telling me what I needed to hear. I thank all of my colleagues and contemporaries in graduate school (especially Jeff, Carrie, and Kate) for making my work more enjoyable and rewarding than I could have ever expected. I thank the current and former faculty in Criminology, Law and Society at UF (especially Brian Stults, Karen Parker, Nicky Piquero, and Ron Akers) for nurturing a hometown prospect and for always keeping their office doors open. I am very thankful and greatly indebted to my supervisory committee (Chris Gibson, Lonn Lanza-Kaduce, Alex Piquero, and Richard Schneider) for their time, knowledge, accessibility, and most of all, patience. No graduate student could hope for better guidance, more insight, or a happier ending. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF TABLES...........................................................................................................................7 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................8 ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................11 2 CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY ............................................................................................17 Classical Punishment and the Criminal Justice System .........................................................17 Evolution of Deterrence..........................................................................................................19 Educative Functions of the Courts..........................................................................................22 3 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................................28 What Works and What Doesn’t Work in Gun Interventions..................................................29 Specialized Courts ..................................................................................................................32 Gun Court ...............................................................................................................................38 Providence, RI Gun Court – 1994 ...................................................................................39 Jefferson County (Birmingham), AL Juvenile Gun Court – 1995 ..................................40 Detroit, MI Handgun Intervention Program – 1993........................................................42 Hennepin County (Minneapolis), MN Juvenile Gun Program – 1995............................43 Indianapolis, IN Project LIFE – 1991 .............................................................................44 Seattle, WA Juvenile Firearms Prosecution – 1996 ........................................................45 Brooklyn, NY Gun Court – 2003 ....................................................................................45 Boston, MA Firearm Prosecution Disposition Sessions – 2006......................................46 International Perspectives................................................................................................47 Conclusions .....................................................................................................................49 4 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS.................................................................................................51 Program Objectives ................................................................................................................51 Target Population....................................................................................................................52 Context and Implementation...................................................................................................54 Probation and Gun Court........................................................................................................56 Program Benefits ....................................................................................................................58 Assessing Outcomes ...............................................................................................................61 Impact of Gun Court...............................................................................................................62 5 5 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS..............................................................................................64 Data.........................................................................................................................................64 Plan of Analysis......................................................................................................................65 Methodology...........................................................................................................................67 Results.....................................................................................................................................70 Multivariate Models ........................................................................................................71 Time Series Plots.............................................................................................................73 6 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ....................................................................................77 Discussion...............................................................................................................................77 Implications for Theory and Practice .....................................................................................80 Limitations..............................................................................................................................83 Future Research ......................................................................................................................86 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................88 APPENDIX A DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND PARAMETER ESTIMATES FOR ARIMA REGRESSION MODELS ......................................................................................................91 B FIGURES..............................................................................................................................105 LIST OF REFERENCES.............................................................................................................116 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................122 6 LIST OF TABLES Table page A-1 Descriptive statistics for crime rates in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, 2003-2006. ............91 A-2 Pearson’s correlation matrix for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh crime rates, 2003-2006. ....92 A-3 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (0,0,0) regression on rate of murder with firearm in Philadelphia, 2003-2006...............................................................93 A-4 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (0,0,1) regression on rate of murder with firearm in Pittsburgh, 2003-2006. .................................................................94 A-5 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (1,0,0) regression on rate of robbery with firearm in Philadelphia, 2003-2006..............................................................95 A-6 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (1,0,0) regression on rate of robbery with firearm in Pittsburgh, 2003-2006. ................................................................96 A-7 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (1,3,1) regression on rate of assault with firearm in Philadelphia, 2003-2006. ..............................................................97 A-8 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (1,1,1) regression on rate of assault with firearm in Pittsburgh, 2003-2006...................................................................98 A-9 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (1,0,0) regression on rate of weapons charges in Philadelphia, 2003-2006....................................................................99 A-10 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (2,1,1) regression on rate of weapons charges in Pittsburgh, 2003-2006. ....................................................................100 A-11 Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) (1,3,1) regression on rate of larceny in Philadelphia, 2003-2006. ................................................................................101