Recidivism in a Sample of Serious Adolescent Offenders.

Objectives: A broad research literature in criminology documents key aspects of how criminal offending develops and changes over the life span. We contribute to this literature by showcasing methods that are useful for studying medium-term patterns of subsequent criminal justice system involvement among a sample of serious adolescent offenders making the transition to early adulthood.

Methods: Our approach relies on 7 years of post-enrollment follow-up from the Pathways to Desistance Study.

Demographic Patterns of Cumulative Arrest Prevalence By Ages 18 and 23.

In this study, we examine race, sex, and self-reported arrest histories (excluding arrests for minor traffic violations) from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY; N = 7,335) for the period 1997 through 2008 covering cumulative arrest histories through ages 18 and 23. The analysis produces three key findings: (1) males have higher cumulative prevalence of arrest than females; and (2) there are important race differences in the probability of arrest for males but not for females. Assuming the missing cases are missing at random, about 30% of black males have experienced at least one arrest by age 18 (vs.

Assessing the nature and mix of offences among serious adolescent offenders.

Background: Much of the research on specialisation in offending tends to show that offending careers are marked by more versatile than specific criminal activity. One key limitation of this research has been that very few studies have used both official records and self-reports to study the longitudinal mix of offences.

Aims: This study uses longitudinal data to examine the mixture of offences during mid-adolescence and into early adulthood, a key transitionary period of the life course, using both self-reports and official records.

Cumulative prevalence of arrest from ages 8 to 23 in a national sample.

Objective: To estimate the cumulative proportion of youth who self-report having been arrested or taken into custody for illegal or delinquent offenses (excluding arrests for minor traffic violations) from ages 8 to 23 years.

Methods: Self-reported arrest history data (excluding arrests for minor traffic violations) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (N = 7335) were examined from 1997 to 2008.

Results: By age 18, the in-sample cumulative arrest prevalence rate lies between 15.

Understanding the relationship between onset age and subsequent offending during adolescence.

This article examines the well-documented relationship between early initiation or onset of criminal behavior and a heightened risk of involvement in offending. Previous research examining this question conducted by Nagin and Farrington (Criminology 30:235-260, 1992a; Criminology 30:501-523, 1992b) used data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development and found that: (1) onset age was correlated with offending involvement; and (2) the correlation could be explained by stable individual differences in the propensity to offend rather than a causal effect of early onset age. In this study, similar analytic methods are applied to data from the Second Philadelphia Birth Cohort.

Using State Child Labor Laws to Identify the Causal Effect of Youth Employment on Deviant Behavior and Academic Achievement.

On the basis of prior research findings that employed youth, and especially intensively employed youth, have higher rates of delinquent behavior and lower academic achievement, scholars have called for limits on the maximum number of hours per week that teenagers are allowed to work. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to assess the claim that employment and work hours are causally related to adolescent problem behavior. We utilize a change model with age-graded child labor laws governing the number of hours per week allowed during the school year as instrumental variables.

Assessing the Race-Crime and Ethnicity-Crime Relationship in a Sample of Serious Adolescent Delinquents.

Official record studies consistently show that Blacks exhibit higher levels of involvement in criminal offending than Whites do. Although self-report studies suggest somewhat lower levels of Black overrepresentation in criminal offending activity (especially with less serious forms of crime), there appears to be considerable evidence that Blacks are disproportionately involved in serious crime. Yet most of this evidence is based on data from broad cross-sections of the general population.

Assessing the offending activity of criminal domestic violence suspects: offense specialization, escalation, and de-escalation evidence from the Spouse Assault Replication Program.

Objective: Over the past quarter century, intimate partner violence research has occupied an increasingly important position in the research agenda of criminology, public policy, and public health. Yet, a number of questions about the criminal careers of domestic violence offenders remain unresolved. This study attempts to determine (1) the extent to which criminal domestic violence offenders specialize in violence, and (2) whether the severity of an offender's attacks against the same victim increase, decrease, or stay about the same over time.

THEORY AND RESEARCH ON DESISTANCE FROM ANTISOCIAL ACTIVITY AMONG SERIOUS ADOLESCENT OFFENDERS.

Improving juvenile court decision making requires information about how serious adolescent offenders desist from antisocial activity. A systematic research agenda on this topic requires consideration of several processes, including normative development in late adolescence, what constitutes desistance, and the factors likely to promote the end of involvement in antisocial behavior and successful adjustment in early adulthood. This article presents an overview of the major points to consider in pursuing this research agenda.

CRIMINAL CAREERS OF SERIOUS DELINQUENTS IN TWO CITIES.

Because different methods for studying criminal behavior all suffer from important limitations, it is useful to apply different methodologies to the same population whenever possible. In this analysis, we examine the relationships between self-report and official record-based measures of offending activity using populations of adolescent serious offenders in Phoenix, Arizona, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.