Version Date: Oct 11, 2023 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Terence P. Thornberry, State University of New York. University at Albany;
Margaret Farnworth, State University of New York. University at Albany;
Marvin D. Krohn, State University of New York. University at Albany;
Alan J. Lizotte, State University of New York. University at Albany
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35167.v2
Version V2 (see more versions)
The Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) is part of the larger "Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency" initiated by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in 1986. The RYDS examines causes and consequences of delinquency and drug use in an urban sample of adolescents. A sample of 1,000 seventh and eighth grade students was selected from Rochester, New York, public schools during the 1987-1988 academic year. These students were selected to over-represent youth at high risk for serious delinquency and drug use. In Phase 1 each student was interviewed nine times at six-month intervals from the Spring of 1988 until the Spring of 1992. In addition, interviews with one primary caretaker of each student were conducted eight times at six-month intervals from the Spring of 1988 until the Fall of 1991. The interviews lasted about an hour and cover a wide range of topics including social class position, family structure and processes, educational success, peer relationships, neighborhood characteristics, psychological functioning, social networks, and social support systems, and involvement in prosocial and antisocial behaviors. When appropriate, the research team collected similar information from both the students and parents to provide multiple perspectives on these developmental issues. The research team also collected extensive information about problem behaviors including self-reported delinquency and drug use, gang membership, gun ownership, problem drug use, teenage parenthood, school dropout, and other problem behaviors.
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Due to the sensitive nature of the data and to protect respondent confidentiality, the data are restricted from general dissemination. They may only be accessed at the ICPSR Data Enclave in Ann Arbor, MI. Users wishing to view these data must complete an Application for Use of the ICPSR Data Enclave (available for download as part of the documentation for this study), and receive permission to analyze the files before traveling to Ann Arbor. More general information about the Enclave may be found at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/content/ICPSR/access/restricted/enclave.html.
Data for this study were collected in three phases. Phase 1 data (1988-1992; Waves 1-9), were collected at 6-month intervals for both parents and students. However, parent data were not collected during Wave 9 (spring 1992). Phase 2 data were collected at annual interviews (1995-1997; Waves 10-12) and phase 3 data were collected biannually (2003,2005; Waves 13, 14). Phase 2 and phase 3 data are not available from NACJD at this time.
Some participants were not included in the study until Wave 2 (n=41) and therefore are not included in the data for Wave 1. These participants had their initial interviews during Wave 2 due to the inability to conduct an interview with them before the Wave 1 data collection time window closed.
"G1" (generation one) refers to the parents/caretakers included in the study.
"G2" (generation two) refers to the students included in the study.
Although data were also collected from the records of courts, police, social services, and schools, the datasets received by ICPSR do not contain variables relating to this information as it has not been cleared for release to the public. Rather, all datasets contain the interview responses gained from parent and student participants at each wave. Census tract variables were also excluded from the data provided to ICPSR.
Each dataset contains some variables that were blocked by the RYDS research team due to confidentiality concerns, so not all variables described are available for data analysis.
There are no weights provided with this study. A set of weights were originally constructed based on the initial sampling frame but those weights were never adjusted to reflect the actual response rates experienced during the data collection.
The Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) examines the causes, correlates, and consequences of delinquency, drug use, and other problem behaviors. The primary focus of the investigators was to use the data collected to develop a comprehensive, reciprocal causal model of factors that are related to these behaviors. The study was conducted to be used as a resource for designing and implementing behavioral interventions aimed at reducing delinquency, drug use, and other problem behaviors.
The Rochester Youth Development Study was conducted using a longitudinal panel design and is guided by two theoretical models - interactional theory and social network theory. Initial participants were selected from a pool of seventh and eighth grade students. Data were then collected as follows:
Letters were sent to each student's home that described the study and contained consent forms for parents to sign if they were willing to participate and allow their child to participate.
Interviewers then visited the homes, answered any questions about the study, obtained consent from parents willing to participate, and conducted interviews with each parent participant. After agreeing to participate and providing assent, students were then interviewed in a private setting at their school.
Phase 1 of RYDS was conducted from the Spring of 1988 to the Spring of 1992. During this time, interviews were conducted with 1,000 students and parents, most typically the mother, at six - month intervals (waves). See the "Sampling" section for more detail on how these families were selected. Parent interviews were conducted at home, while student interviews were conducted in a private space at the student's school. Each interview covered a wide range of topics relating to youth behaviors in addition to environmental, social, and psychological forces that contribute to these behaviors (such as school, home, and peer environment). At each wave, students were asked if they committed each of 36 delinquent acts and, if so, how often they had done so. All responses were then screened to make sure they were categorized appropriately and grouped into meaningful indices (such as violent offending and general offending). To allow for replication, many of the measures from the interview are drawn from a set of common measures developed at the beginning of the study in concert with the Denver Youth Survey and the Pittsburgh Youth Study. Measures cover a wide range of variables that can be categorized into seven domains: parent-child relations, school factors, peer relationships, family sociodemographic, characteristics, parental stressors, area characteristics, and individual characteristics.
At Wave 1, parents were paid 10 dollars and students were given gifts (worth about 10 dollars) for the successful completion of each interview. The payments increased over the course of the study. In addition to data collected from interviews, data were also collected from schools, courts, police, and social services in the Rochester, New York, area, as well as from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services and the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. Each participant's address was categorized by census tract so that it could be matched with United States Census Bureau data from 1980. In total, nine waves of student data eight waves of parent data were collected during Phase 1 of RYDS (Student Datasets 1-9; Parent Datasets 10-17). After the completion of data collection, investigators focused on a wide range of analytic themes, including: family and delinquency; maltreatment and delinquency; school and delinquency; peers, beliefs, and delinquent; social networks and delinquency behavior; the impact of structural position; long-term developmental effects; youth and guns; and gang-related delinquency.
Participants from the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) were selected from the population of seventh and eighth grade students attending schools in the Rochester City School District in the Spring of 1988. As delinquency is more highly centralized in urban areas, students were eligible only if they were attending a public school within the city limits of Rochester, New York. Students attending suburban and private schools in the Rochester area were not included, and neither were students with severe mental or physical disabilities. This limited the original pool to 4,013 students. To narrow further, students were excluded if they met any of the following criteria:
The student lived outside of, or moved out of, Monroe County, New York, before Wave 1 interviews began
The student was part of a family where the language spoken at home was neither English nor Spanish
The student already had a sibling in the original sample pool
The student's age was outside of the age range defined for the cohort (any student who was 15 or older as of December 31, 1986, met this criteria)
After excluding those students who met any of the criteria listed above, an eligible pool of 3,385 students remained. The main objective of the sampling design was to include as many students likely to become involved in frequent and serious delinquency during the study as possible. Therefore, students from high crime areas were oversampled because they were considered at greater risk of offending. In addition, males were oversampled compared to females because the rate of serious, chronic offending among females is typically low.
To determine which students lived in high crime areas and therefore were at greatest risk, arrest rates for the census tract each student lived in were calculated. Arrest rates were obtained using police data from 1986, and census tracts were defined using information from the 1980 census. Three tracts were excluded because they were tracts that lacked police arrest data or age-appropriate residents. Tracts were then ranked according to the arrest rate, and arrest rate proportions (the resident arrest rate for each census tract divided by the resident arrest rate for all tracts) were calculated to determine how many students to select from each tract.
Students from tracts with arrest rates higher than three arrests per one-hundred residents were selected with certainty. Students from tracts with arrest rates below three arrests per one-hundred residents were selected based on the calculated sampling fraction described above. Fifty percent of students were selected from seventh grade and fifty percent were selected from eighth grade. In addition, seventy-five percent of those selected from each census tract were males and twenty-five percent were female.
Based on the selection criteria above, an initial sample of 1,000 students was drawn. Parents (95% mothers) were contacted to request participation in the study for themselves and for the student. If a selected family refused to participate or could not be located, a replacement student was substituted who matched the same selection criteria as the initially selected student as closely as possible. RYDS contacted or attempted to contact a total of 1,347 families to obtain a final sample of 1,000 students.
The population of 7th and 8th-grade students attending public schools in Rochester, New York, during the spring of 1988 and their parents.
In-person structured interviews of student participants and one parental figure for each student
There are 17 datasets for Phase 1 of the Rochester Youth Development Study and each of the Student and Parent Datasets include an extensive number of variables that span multiple topics (described below).
Each dataset contains data collected from either a parent or a student participant. There are a number of demographic variables for each parent and student including gender, race, and age. Additionally, demographics (age, sex, and race) are present for up to three of the student's friends and for other adults living in the home. Both the parent and student datasets contain information about agencies and/or professionals from whom the student and/or their family has received help, such as religious leaders, school social workers, crisis centers, and drug treatment programs.
Student Datasets
The RYDS student data contain an extensive number of variables describing student attitudes and details about delinquent acts they have committed. Also included are self-reported measures such as student attitudes towards school/education (does the student like school, do they try hard, do they think homework is a waste of time, do they think skipping school is wrong, is college important, etc.), drugs and alcohol (does the student think it is wrong to use pot, drink alcohol, use hard drugs), and delinquent acts(does the student think it is wrong to steal, destroy property, break the law, do they respect police, etc.). Student admissions of participation in delinquent acts (such as assault, arson, theft, forgery, prostitution) and substance abuse (both selling and using different types of drugs and alcohol) are also incorporated. Moreover, the datasets contain information about the student's participation in gangs (involvement in gang fights and weapons use, if the student belongs to a gang, etc.). Variables are also present regarding the student's participation in extracurricular activities (sports, clubs, religious activities), and if the student has been suspended or expelled.
The student datasets include variables about their attitude towards their parent (are you proud of your parent, do you want to be like them, do you feel angry or violent towards them often, etc.), and the student's view of parental discipline and supervision (how often does your parent know where you are, how often do you know how to get away with things, how often do you feel punishment is fair, etc.).
Additionally, variables are present regarding the student's friends in the student datasets. These include information about the friends' attitudes toward the delinquent acts (encouraging doing again, said ok to do, said stupid to do, etc.), peer pressure (drop out because friends dropped out, drug use because of friends use drug, etc.), and friends' involvement in delinquency and substance use (how often do the student and a friend get together without supervision or around alcohol, how many friends have stolen something or hit someone, etc.).
The student datasets are comprised of the following:
Dataset 1: Wave 1 Student Data (Spring 1988); Number of Variables=1,001
Dataset 2: Wave 2 Student Data (Fall 1988); Number of Variables=1,027
Dataset 3: Wave 3 Student Data (Spring 1989); Number of Variables=882
Dataset 4: Wave 4 Student Data (Fall 1989); Number of Variables=1,280
Dataset 5: Wave 5 Student Data (Spring 1990); Number of Variables=1,284
Dataset 6: Wave 6 Student Data (Fall 1990); Number of Variables=1,462
Dataset 7: Wave 7 Student Data (Spring 1991); Number of Variables=1,494
Dataset 8: Wave 8 Student Data (Fall 1991); Number of Variables=1,557
Dataset 9: Wave 9 Student Data (Spring 1992); Number of Variables=2,020
Parent Datasets
The RYDS parent data contain variables concerning parental attitudes and information about the student's friends are present in the parent datasets as well. These include information about each friend's personal characteristics (are they good students, do they stay out too late, do they use drugs, do they break the law, etc.). Parental attitude variables are also present in the parent datasets, and cover topics such as parental attitudes about the student's education (is college important, are good grades important, etc.), the parent's own emotional stability (do they feel their life is under control, can they cope with stress, are they upset often, etc.), attitudes towards delinquent acts (are they OK with the student drinking alcohol, using drugs, skipping school, stealing, getting in fights, etc.), and the parent's attitudes towards the student (are they proud of the student, do they feel violent/angry towards them, can they trust them, etc.).
The parent datasets contain neighborhood variables that include information about the existence of neighborhood problems (unemployment, racial tension, vandalism, low respect for authority, drug issues, muggings, run down yards, prostitution, organized crime, homelessness, sexual assault, burglary, and gambling). Parent datasets also include family socio-economic variables such as caretaker's education level, employment status, job title, household income, child support and government assistance benefits (Medicare, social security, unemployment, AFDC, food stamps, public assistance, and rent subsidies), and the market value of and number of rooms in each family's home.
Furthermore, variables are present in the parent datasets that relate to parenting techniques, such as types of punishment used (do they take things away, hit the student, or discuss problems with the student, etc.), rules they enforce on the student (do they have a curfew, does the parent know where the student is, do they check if the student finishes their chores or homework), and positive parenting actions (how often they hug the student, praise the student, give them special privileges, etc. when they have done something good).
The parent datasets are comprised of the following:
Dataset 10: Wave 1 Parent Data (Spring 1988); Number of Variables=547
Dataset 11: Wave 2 Parent Data (Fall 1988); Number of Variables=587
Dataset 12: Wave 3 Parent Data (Spring 1989); Number of Variables=658
Dataset 13: Wave 4 Parent Data (Fall 1989); Number of Variables=861
Dataset 14: Wave 5 Parent Data (Spring 1990); Number of Variables=987
Dataset 15: Wave 6 Parent Data (Fall 1990); Number of Variables=950
Dataset 16: Wave 7 Parent Data (Spring 1991); Number of Variables=1018
Dataset 17: Wave 8 Parent Data (Fall 1991); Number of Variables=454
The refusal rate for participation in the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) was twenty percent, and about one percent of focal subjects were lost per year. The following are completion rates for each wave of the study. The total number of participants included in the sample at the start of Wave 1 (1988) was 1,000.
Students:
Wave 1: 956 Completed Interviews (96 percent)
Wave 2: 947 Completed Interviews (95 percent)
Wave 3: 931 Completed Interviews (93 percent)
Wave 4: 928 Completed Interviews (93 percent)
Wave 5: 920 Completed Interviews (92 percent)
Wave 6: 907 Completed Interviews (91 percent)
Wave 7: 898 Completed Interviews (90 percent)
Wave 8: 877 Completed Interviews (88 percent)
Wave 9: 881 Completed Interviews (88 percent)
Parents:
Wave 1: 974 Completed Interviews (97 percent)
Wave 2: 908 Completed Interviews (91 percent)
Wave 3: 899 Completed Interviews (90 percent)
Wave 4: 865 Completed Interviews (87 percent)
Wave 5: 855 Completed Interviews (86 percent)
Wave 6: 810 Completed Interviews (81 percent)
Wave 7: 787 Completed Interviews (79 percent)
Wave 8: 793 Completed Interviews (79 percent)
The Rochester Youth Developmental Study (RYDS) contains a number of Likert-type scales throughout the data. In addition, the investigators created the interviews to include measures that can be classified across a range of core domains. The core domains addressed in the RYDS data are:
Delinquency and Drug Use
Area Characteristics
Family Socio-demographic Characteristics
Parent-Child Relations
School Factors
Peer Relationships
Individual Characteristics
Life-Course Transitions
Measures addressing each core domain are contained in the data documentation and the raw answers to questions are contained in each dataset. However, the data does not include already scored variables for any specific measures or scales.
Hide2016-06-24
2023-10-11 The remaining waves of parent data for phase 1, Parent Waves 4-8, are being added to the collection.
2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:2016-06-30 Updated the documentation.
2016-06-24 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.
This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
