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Published on: 8/25/2007
Last Visited: 8/25/2007
By Ali Abbas, Nathan Hoffmann, Ronald Howard and Chris Spetzler
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The program is led by Ali Abbas, assistant professor of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), in partnership with the Decision Education Foundation (DEF), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping young people make better decisions about their lives.
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DEF has designed and delivered innovative curricula for at-risk teens as well as programs for academically gifted and mainstream youth (for some recent work on teaching academically gifted teens see Abbas, Reiter, Spetzler and Tani [2004]).
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A long-time volunteer with the Decision Education Foundation and advisory board member, Abbas was instrumental in creating the partnership between the College of Engineering at UIUC, the Champaign County JDC and DEF.
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Abbas, Chris Spetzler and Jessica Fulton (an undergraduate UIUC student at the time, and now a high school math teacher in Chicago) delivered the first workshop.
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In January, Abbas and two other UIUC graduate students, Sarah Miller and Nathan Hoffmann, presented two workshops to the juvenile detention officers.
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Later, the officers told Abbas and Hoffman many stories about the teens and the challenges the residents faced.
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After introductions, Abbas introduced the topic of decisions and asked for examples from the residents.One girl at the JDC, we will call Amanda, raised her hand.
Amanda: "You talk about decisions, but we don't get many decisions here or in our lives."
Abbas: "Did you make a decision to come to class this morning?Could you have said no?"
Amanda: "Yes, I could, but that would have meant bad behavior.I need to get out of here fast, and I need a letter from the staff of the JDC so the judge can release me next week."
Abbas: "So in fact you do have decisions here.
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Abbas: "How will you do that?"
Amanda: "I will never shoplift again and will abandon those friends that encouraged me to do so."
Abbas: "That sounds like another decision to me."
After some discussion the residents began to understand they make decisions every day, and that they bear the consequences of the decisions they make.
Abbas asked for a volunteer.A girl we will call Janice raised her hand."Thank you, Janice," said Abbas.
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Convincing the group of his intentions, Abbas posed an investment opportunity to Janice.
"What is an investment?"she asked.
"An investment is like a stock; its price can go up or down, and you can get more money back or even lose money if you choose to invest," offered another teen resident.
Abbas mentioned the payoff will be 20 tokens if the investment is successful and no tokens if unsuccessful.This captured the attention of all six residents.
"Now that's a big decision!"exclaimed one resident.
"I need another volunteer," Abbas continued.
All six youths eagerly raised their hands.Abbas chose Bill and described the deal to the group: Janice can choose to invest her five tokens.If she does, Abbas will ask Bill a true-false movie trivia question.If Bill answers correctly, Janice will receive 20 tokens.If Bill answers incorrectly, Janice will lose her five tokens.In addition, she will sing, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in front of the group.
"Well, Janice, would you like to invest?"Abbas asked.
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Abbas replied.
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Abbas presented Janice with another alternative.He showed the group a large medallion with two faces the group named as Heads and Tails.
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With her decision made, Abbas asked Janice which investment decision she preferred: Bill or the medallion.On the urging of her peers, she chose the medallion.Just for fun, Abbas tossed the medallion and Janice correctly called heads.
"Oh, no!"exclaimed Daniel.
"Did she make a good decision?"Abbas asked.He took the opportunity to teach another critical concept: we cannot judge the quality of a decision by observing the outcome.
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Abbas described the importance of individual values."What are your values, Daniel?"he asked.
"In life?"
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"Now that we understand what good decisions are, let's talk about STDs," said Abbas.After the expected giggles subsided, he explained that the STD he was talking about stood for "Stop, Think, Decide."
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Abbas: "What if you go along with your uncle?"
"You could be arrested or you could get away with the crime," were the responses.
Abbas: "If you get away, what would you do with the I-beam?"
Daniel: "Sell it, but the buyer would know it is stolen and would give us very little money and might even turn us in."
"Is it worth it then?"Abbas asked.
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Upon their return, Abbas will provide them with the teaching material and know-how to teach decision-making to the residents.At this stage we are training more people at the JDC, building an online Q&A system for the teens and deriving measures of effectiveness for teaching decision skills at the JDC.We hope to see a drop in recidivism and success of the residents in making better decisions as they leave the JDC.As the program develops, we also plan to provide a model that can be incorporated into similar programs to help teens at juvenile detention centers throughout the country.
Ali Abbas is an assistant professor of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.He has practiced and taught decision analysis with business executives, graduate students and high school math teachers.He is also a member of the Decision Analysis Council of the Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS.
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Abbas, A. E, D. Reiter, C. Spetzler, S. Tani, 2004, "Teaching Teens How to Make Good Decisions, OR/MS Today, Vol.31, No. 4, August 2004. Blumstein, A., 2007, "An O.R. Missionary's Visits to the Criminal Justice System," Operations Research, Vol.55, No. 1. Morgan, J., 2007, "O.R. & Criminal Justice: Together Again," OR/MS Today, Vol.34, No. 3, June 2007.
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