Pathways to Desistance
The Pathways to Desistance study is a multi-site, longitudinal study that followed 1,354 male and female serious juvenile offenders from adolescence (ages 14-18) to young adulthood in two locales: Philadelphia and Phoenix. Repeated assessments were made of the adolescents’ psychological development, behavior, social relationships, mental health, and experiences in the juvenile or criminal justice system. Interviews with adolescents as well as their family members and friends took place over a seven year period after their involvement in court for a felony level offense. The aims of the investigation were to:
- identify initial patterns of how serious adolescent offenders stop antisocial activity;
- describe the role of social context and developmental changes in promoting these positive changes; and
- compare the effects of sanctions and interventions in promoting these changes, to improve decision-making by court and social service personnel and to clarify policy debates about alternatives for serious adolescent offenders.
Improving Services for Mentally Ill Juvenile Offenders
This study interviewed 467 male and female juvenile offenders (ages 14-17) within 48 hours of their arrival at a secure juvenile detention facility in southern California. Repeated assessments over the first three weeks and the following two months of incarceration assessed adolescents’ mental health, behavior, social relationships, and experiences while incarcerated. The aims of the investigation were to:
- identify the effects of incarceration on juvenile offenders
- assess the mental health of incarcerated youth offenders
The NICHD Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development
The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) is a comprehensive longitudinal study initiated by the NICHD to answer questions about the relationships between child care experiences, child care characteristics, and children’s developmental outcomes through age 18. A research team from universities across the United States have worked since 1991 to enroll a v diverse sample of children and their families at 10 locations across the U.S. Over 1,000 families are enrolled, and have been followed from birth to age 18.
The major goal of the NICHD Study is to examine how differences in early childhood experiences (particularly childcare) relate to children’s later social, emotional, intellectual, and language development, and to their physical growth and health. Additional goals include:
- Researching the relationship of contextual influences in relation to qualities of parents, the home environment, and school as well as social structure and demography. The outcomes of interest include: achievement of intellectual and cognitive skills, social and emotional processes, and physical health development.
- Investigating how early functioning and experiences in concert with contextual and maturational factors in adolescence, influence social relationships, health, adjustment, and intellectual and academic development during adolescence.
The ABC Study
The ABC Study interviewed 261 male and female middle school students in southern California. The study assessed students’ degree of school bonding (or feelings of connectedness to school) and students’ willingness to engage in a range of antisocial behaviors (cheating on a test, skipping school, shoplifting, beating someone up, drinking alcohol, and using marijuana). The study’s primary goal was to test Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory of delinquency, which proposes that delinquency occurs when individuals lack a feeling of connection with mainstream social institutions– for adolescents, school serves as the primary social institution. Additional goals were to investigate how school bonding may both discourage delinquency (in and out of the classroom) and encourage academic aspirations, particularly among at-risk youth.