Misdirected Norms in Youth Correction

Last registered on December 03, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Misdirected Norms in Youth Correction
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0006652
Initial registration date
November 24, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
December 03, 2024, 1:16 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Singapore
Region
Singapore

Primary Investigator

Name
Huailu Li
Affiliation
Fudan University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Linh Tô
PI Affiliation
Boston University
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PI Name
Kaiwen Leong
PI Affiliation
Griffith University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2020-03-08
End date
2023-06-30
Keywords
Behavior, Crime, Violence, & Conflict
Additional Keywords
Youth, Social Norms, Experiment, Misperceived Norms, Policy-making and Juvenile Justice, Peer Influence
JEL code(s)
D70, D83, K00, Z10
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We explore the underlying preferences and beliefs that contribute to the peer culture of misbehavior within a Youth Reformative Training Center (RTC). First, we assess individual preferences regarding the desirability of such offenses and perceptions of others' attitudes toward these behaviors. Next, we implement a population-level randomized control trial, providing youths with accurate information about actual attitudes toward offenses. Finally, we evaluate the effect of this informational intervention on the incidence of misbehavior within the RTC.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Leong, Kaiwen, Huailu Li and Linh Tô. 2024. "Misdirected Norms in Youth Correction." AEA RCT Registry. December 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.6652-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The participant pool is randomly assigned to one of three groups: T1 (whiteboard announcement), T2 (paper announcement), and C (no treatment). For all three groups, participants are asked about their private preferences and perceptions of social norms regarding behavior in the Reformative Training Centre (RTC).

In group T1, the treatment involves presenting aggregated statistics on a whiteboard, followed by an announcement to all inmates from the same community group in the room. For group T2, the announcement is provided as an attachment to the survey on paper, and participants are informed of its presence while completing that page. The control group, C, does not receive any treatment.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2020-08-09
Intervention End Date
2022-12-18

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Preference and perception updates, institutional (within-prison) offence rate
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Preference Changes: Whether youth offenders update their stated preferences regarding destructive or positive behaviors in the Reformative Training Centre.
Perception Updates: How youth offenders update their perceptions of others' preferences regarding destructive or positive behaviors.
Institutional (Within-Prison) Offense Rate: The incidence of institutional offenses at the individual level.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experiment is conducted on the entire RTC population and repeated over three rounds, with new RTC members participating in each round. Each round consists of two phases:

In the first phase, we administer two sets of surveys. The first survey (the norms survey) collects information on the private preferences of youth offenders regarding desirable behaviors within the RTC, with a specific focus on violent and destructive institutional offenses. Participants are also asked to estimate the percentage of their peers within the same correctional facility who share or differ in these preferences and to indicate their confidence in their estimates. The second survey (the general survey) gathers a comprehensive set of data on participants’ social networks and personal characteristics.

The second phase, conducted one to two weeks later, involves a follow-up survey to assess participants’ updated preferences and perceptions.

The treatment is administered immediately after the completion of the general survey in phase one. It consists of information dissemination, during which we announce the aggregate statistics on youth preferences within the RTC. Randomization is conducted at the community level, ensuring that the same treatment is consistently applied across all communities in subsequent rounds.

Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization is done using random number generator in a computer.
Randomization Unit
Community group
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
25 community groups
Sample size: planned number of observations
600 youth offenders over 3 treatment rounds
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
200 youth offenders in T1, 200 youth offenders in T2, 200 youth offenders in Control.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
The smallest standardized effect size (in terms of standard deviations) that our study is powered to detect is approximately 0.367, given the assumed intra-cluster correlation (ICC) of 0.1 and a power of 80%.
Supporting Documents and Materials

Documents

Document Name
Experiment Design Flow Chart
Document Type
other
Document Description
File
Experiment Design Flow Chart

MD5: 7f073276e2055b1949d416d4d6054bb8

SHA1: 6f1c418c6fae3a77412cdb00c98ad8cd0863bfd2

Uploaded At: December 02, 2024

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Nanyang Technological University
IRB Approval Date
2018-11-14
IRB Approval Number
IRB-2018-10-019-03
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
December 18, 2022, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
June 30, 2023, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Treatment status is assigned based on community groups the youth offender belongs to. There are total of 23 community groups.
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
Total number of youth offender is 327.
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
115 youth offenders in public announcement, 91 youth offenders in private announcement, 121 youth offenders in control.
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials