The Impact of Juvenile Correctional Confinement on the Transition to Adulthood and Desistance from Crime, 1994-2008 [United States] (ICPSR 36401)

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Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

The study investigated how confinement delays the development of psychosocial maturity and in turn, how this impacts the transition to adulthood.

Study Design View help for Study Design

THE NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH (ADD HEALTH)

Add Health afforded the advantage of a large, nationally representative sample collected over the critical period during adolescence and young adulthood. Add Health was a national longitudinal study of adolescents in grades 7-12 during the 1994-1995 school year. Data were collected from a total of 90,118 students surveyed in middle, junior, and high schools. From these rosters, 20,745 students completed in-home interviews. These Wave 1 interviews were in-person, conducted in respondents' homes, and augmented with audio computer assisted self-interviews. Follow up interviews were conducted in 1996 (Wave 2, N=14,738) and 2001-2002 (N=15,197). The most recent wave of data collection, Wave 4, includes 15,701 respondents at ages 25-32.

SURVEY OF YOUTH IN RESIDENTIAL PLACEMENT

In addition to using Add Health data, researchers included findings from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP) to contextualize findings with respect to the conditions of confinement. Researchers purposely chose SYRP data because data were collected from youth in custody rather than data obtained solely from questionnaires from administrators. The SYRP data included responses from a representative sample of all youths residing in a facility surveyed for the Children in Custody and the Juvenile Residential Facility Census. The survey, administered by an Audio Computer-Assisted Self Administered Interview, captured the responses from 7,073 youth in 2003.

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The study only contains syntax files. The following information relates to the studies from which this study is drawn.

NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH (ADD HEALTH) DATA

Wave I: The Stage 1 in-school sample was a stratified, random sample of all high schools in the United States. A school was eligible for the sample if it included an 11th grade and had a minimum enrollment of 30 students. A feeder school -- a school that sent graduates to the high school and that included a 7th grade -- was also recruited from the community. The in-school questionnaire was administered to more than 90,000 students in grades 7 through 12. The Stage 2 in-home sample of 27,000 adolescents consisted of a core sample from each community, plus selected special over samples. Eligibility for over samples was determined by an adolescent's responses on the in-school questionnaire. Adolescents could qualify for more than one sample.

Wave II: The Wave II in-home interview surveyed almost 15,000 of the same students one year after Wave I.

Wave III: The in-home Wave III sample consists of over 15,000 Wave I respondents who could be located and re-interviewed six years later.

Wave IV: All original Wave I in-home respondents were eligible for in-home interviews at Wave IV. At Wave IV, the Add Health sample was dispersed across the nation with respondents living in all 50 states. Administrators were able to locate 92.5 percent of the Wave IV sample and interviewed 80.3 percent of eligible sample members.

For additional information on sampling, including detailed information on special oversamples, please see the Add Health Study Design page.

SURVEY OF YOUTH IN RESIDENTIAL PLACEMENT (SYRP) 2003 DATA

SYRP used a stratified, two-stage, probability-proportional-to-size (PPS) sample design. Facilities were sampled at the first stage using a function of the facility offender count as the size measure. Clusters of youth were sampled from each selected facility at the second stage. Both pre- and post-adjudication youth and facilities are part of SYRP. The sample included 290 facilities selected from a total of 3,893 facilities on the census listings in August 2001 and/or September 2002.

Time Method View help for Time Method

Universe View help for Universe

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) Data: Adolescents in grades 7 through 12 during the 1994-1995 school year. Respondents were geographically located in the United States.

Survey of Youth in Residential Facilities (SYRP) Data: Offender youth between the ages of 10 and 20 in all facilities surveyed for the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP) and the Juvenile Residential Facility Census (JRFC) excluding only extremely small facilities (those with fewer than three offender youth in residence).

Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation

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Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables

THE NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH (ADD HEALTH)

Psychosocial Maturity

To assess the development of psychosocial maturity prior to confinement and post-confinement, researchers used Add Health questions from Wave I (pre-confinement) and Wave III (post-confinement) to develop measures of psychosocial maturity.

Responsibility

Researchers created global responsibility constructs at each wave. The scales focused on questions that asked respondents to rank their agreement with statements about their personal qualities, general self-esteem, and connectedness to others. In Wave 1, researchers used six questions asking if adolescents agreed or disagreed that they have a lot of good qualities, have a lot to be proud of, like themselves just the way they are, feel they are doing everything just about right, feel socially accepted, and feel loved and wanted.

Researchers identified similar items in the Wave 3 survey to construct the Wave 3 measure of responsibility. Researchers used five questions that asked if they have many good qualities, have a lot to be proud of, like themselves just the way they are, feel they are doing things just about right, and are satisfied with life as a whole.

Temperance

Researchers operationalized temperance in Wave 1 using two scales. The first assessed the impulsivity-control dimension of temperance, asking respondents how much they agreed or disagreed (on a scale of 1 to 5) with several items asking about their problem-solving behaviors and work ethic (e.g. thinking of as many different ways to approach the problem as possible, getting what you want because you worked hard for it). The second measure of temperance at Wave 1 assessed self-control. Researchers used a five item scale measure asking respondents about troubles getting along with others, paying attention and getting work done. At Wave 3, researchers included a single six-item scale asking respondents about things such as following their instincts, getting so excited they lose control, and going out of their way to avoid problems.

Perspective

At Wave 1, researchers used two subscales to measure perspective. The first, capturing the social-temporal dimension, asked respondents how true each of the following has been for them in the past week: enjoyed life, felt just as good as other people, and felt hopefully about the future. Second, researchers captured future orientation through three questions asking respondents how likely they thought three events were: living to age 35, being killed by age 21, and getting HIV/AIDS.

At Wave 3, researchers replicated these Wave 1 scales to the extent possible, using an average of two items (enjoying life and feeling just as good as other people) to capture the social-temporal dimension of perspective. Researchers used three single items to capture future orientation: living to age 35, having a middle class income by age 30, and whether or not respondents live their lives without consideration for the future.

Outcome measures

Researchers captured outcome measures at the fourth wave of Add Health. Researchers measure the transition to adulthood along three dimensions: education, employment, and relationship formation. Researchers used two measures of educational attainment (or lack thereof) via highest degree attainment. Researchers used dichotomous measures to assess lack of high school completion and attainment of a four-year college degree. For work status, researchers measured whether or not respondents worked full-time based on the combination of all jobs. Of those who were employed, researchers used a follow-up measure of self-reports of respondents' job being part of their long-term career goals. Finally, researchers used two measures of relationship formation - whether or not respondents have ever married or cohabited.

Control measures

Researchers included several demographic controls in all models, as measured at the Wave 1 survey. Researchers controlled for age, race/ethnicity, family structure, highest educational attainment by either parent, gender, and residential location in adolescence. Researchers controlled for general delinquency in Wave 1 using a summative measure of eleven adolescent behaviors (graffiti and property damage, theft, and fighting). Researchers included this final measure to account for any remaining differences in delinquency not captured by our key measure of confinement in adolescence.

SURVEY OF YOUTH IN RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES (SYRP) 2003 MEASURES

To assess conditions of confinement for youth residing in residential placements researchers created a demographic sample of youth in more restrictive environments and examined their responses to questions related to victimizations, family contact, and educational access. In addition, researchers used SYRP data to better understand the types of structural representation of restrictiveness.

Demographic Sample

Data from SYRP was drawn from a representative sample of all youth in residential placement in 2002 and utilized the Juvenile Residential Facility Census (JRFC) to classify facilities into nine types.

To understand how the restrictiveness of each facility differed, researchers analyzed facility type by security features. Using this information, researchers distinguished youth surveyed in a detention center and training school to help contextualize their findings.

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales

none

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

2016-09-27

Version History View help for Version History