This study used a randomized field trial method to test how a partnership between police and schools that targeted truancy impacted offending in a sample of high-risk truanting youth.
Educational attainment is a fundamental cornerstone to success throughout the life-course. As a result, ensuring that young people remain in school and are not truant is critical. Although the importance of truancy as a risk factor for many adverse outcomes, including crime, has been well-documented, much less methodologically rigorous work has been undertaken to evaluate potentially promising prevention and intervention strategies. The current program evaluation found that the truancy intervention in Hawaii reduced offending. The implications of these findings for practice and future research are discussed. (publisher abstract modified)