Search results

This three-year study used quantitative and qualitative data collected between 2003 and 2015 to assess the scale and nature of gang involvement in sex trafficking in San Diego, California. At the time of study, San Diego was ranked as one of the United States' highest areas of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). This mixed-methods study has generated the following datasets:

• Survivor Services Dataset (DS1 and DS2): A composite of intake surveys conducted by the prostitution diversion program Freedom From Exploitation (FFE) (DS1) and eight organizations that provide direct services to sex trafficking victims/survivors (DS2)
• Law Enforcement Reporting Dataset (DS3 and DS4): Booking records provided by the San Diego Sheriff's Department (DS3), and arrest records provided by the Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) (DS4)
• Schools Dataset (DS5): Summaries of focus group interviews of staff employed by San Diego County school districts (due to disclosure concerns, full transcripts were not released)
• Facilitator Interview Dataset (DS6): Summaries of interviews of incarcerated and community members with knowledge of trafficking (due to disclosure concerns, full transcripts were not released)
• Social Media Analytics Dataset (DS7): Search criteria and schema of relevant data fields for social network analysis conducted using Twitter data (due to disclosure concerns and dataset size, the social media data themselves were not released)

Survivor services, law enforcement, schools, and facilitator interview data were all collected and analyzed as part of the main NIJ award. The social media analytics data were collected and analyzed under a subaward by the SecDev Cyber Group.

This dataset is from an evaluation of an intervention program designed to facilitate disengagement from gangs and desistance from crime. Led by the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver (GRID), a multidisciplinary team and street outreach workers carried out the randomized controlled trial between 2019 and 2022. One hundred forty-three people referred to GRID were assigned at random to receive individualized, coordinated case management, developed by the multidisciplinary team and facilitated by street outreach workers. Intake data was gathered for each referred individual by the referring agent (i.e. their probation officer) and sent to the study personnel. A baseline survey was attempted for each individual shortly after referral; a follow-up survey was attempted roughly 10 months after referral. Judicial data for each referred individual was gathered from official sources from the 5 years prior to referral and for an 18-month period after referral.

Guided by a life course perspective, this study used a mixed methodological approach (i.e., quantitative administrative data and qualitative interviews) to identify the differences in events, motivations, and experiences related to gang affiliation and the differences across (a) system-documented, gang-involved individuals, (b) system-documented gang-involved individuals who have gang-involved family members, and (c) other high-risk youth who are suspected of involvement. The overall goal of this research was to identify distinct pathways to gang activity that could inform practitioners and policymakers about useful intervention strategies. The study context was specific to Multnomah County, Oregon.

To achieve this, separate and distinct juvenile and adult systems databases were integrated to create critical linkages between juvenile services data (including risk assessments), adult community corrections data, and federal corrections data (n=2,210 individual records). This allowed for the examination of the trajectory of each individual - regardless of gang system documented gang status - from juvenile services through state adult corrections through federal adult corrections. It also permitted the investigation into the similarities or differences among different system-identified groups (i.e., gang involved, suspected gang involved, or no documentation of gang involvement). Additionally, the inclusion of familial and peer criminal justice records and system gang identification enabled the research team to control for family and peer influences while focusing on how the father's criminality and gang status might be a risk factor for youth criminal legal involvement and escalation into the adult system. Research questions for the quantitative data collection were:

1. What aspects of early criminal offending and other problematic behaviors differ between gang-affiliated youth, gang-affiliated youth with gang-involved parents, and other high-risk youth?
2. Are there significant differences in the likelihood of youth escalation into the adult criminal justice system and the Federal Corrections System between gang-affiliated youth, gang-affiliated youth with gang-involved parents, and other high-risk youth?
3. Are there consistent age-related trends in risk as measured by the Juvenile Crime Prevention (JCP) tool? Do these trends vary by gang-affiliated youth, gang-affiliated youth with gang-involved parents, and other high-risk youth?
4. What is the timing of important life events across the life course of justice-involved youth? Does the timing differ between gang-affiliated youth, gang-affiliated youth with gang-involved parents, and other high-risk youth?
5. Does the close proximity of the timing of these life events increase the likelihood of youth escalation into the adult criminal justice system and the Federal Corrections System? Do these predictions differ between gang-affiliated youth, gang-affiliated youth with gang-involved parents, and other high-risk youth?
6. How do parental offending and incarceration patterns predict their child's likelihood of becoming gang-affiliated and likelihood of escalation into the adult criminal justice system?
7. How do the answers to the above research questions vary by youth race, ethnicity, geography, and offense type?

In addition to quantitative measures of gang pathways, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two groups: gang-affiliated and gang-involved youth supervised in the Department of Community Justice Gang Unit during the study time period (n=32), and corrections staff who had current or previous experience working with gang-affiliated or gang-involved youth (n=12). Original research questions for the qualitative data collection were:

1. What are the critical transition periods for becoming gang-affiliated, and how are they experienced as an emotional event and/or a deliberate decision? How do these differ between individuals who have no criminal justice system involved family members, individuals with criminal justice involved family members, and individuals with gang-affiliated family members?
2. What is the relational and emotional experience of recruiting a familial relation to gang affiliation, and of being recruited by a familial relation to gang affiliation and gang activities?
3. What are the motivations for recruiting a familial relation into gang affiliation, and for allowing oneself to be successfully recruited by a family member?
4. What are the methods employed by gang-affiliated individuals in recruiting their family members?
5. Do the recruiter and recruited have significant or patterned differences in the event and experience of recruitment into gang affiliation and activities?
6. Do the recruiter and recruited have significant or patterned differences in their views and experiences of the criminal justice system?

Qualitative data will be made available in a future update.

The Arizona Working and Living in Prison (AZWLP) project examined the impact of living and working in restrictive status housing, with a particular focus on the impact of restrictive housing on prisoner and staff well-being. The prisoner data represents three waves of data: baseline (within 3 weeks of placement in permanent housing), six months, and twelve months across medium, close, and maximum security custody levels. The critical measure of well-being is the Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90-R). Prisoners were assessed at all three time points to determine whether placement in maximum custody impacted well-being as compared to placements in close or medium custody.

The staff data represents cross-sectional data of staff working in medium, close, and maximum security custody levels and asked staff to report on the emotional and physical impacts of the job, psychosomatic symptoms, organizational commitment, and social support.

This study sought to advance understanding of how school climate is a critical factor in school safety and violence prevention. Middle school and high school students and staff were surveyed over the span of eight years from 2013-2020. Middle school students and staff were surveyed during odd years (4 waves of data collection), and high school students and staff were surveyed the other even years (again four years of data collection). All four years of data per group were combined into a single dataset. A final file was created pooling all eight years of data collection averaging student and staff responses by school.

Both the student and teacher/staff surveys covered two domains: school climate and safety conditions. The school climate domain included perceptions of the school's disciplinary practices, student support efforts, and degree of student engagement in school. The safety conditions domain covered reports of bullying, teasing, sexual harassment, and other forms of peer aggression, including threats of violence, physical assault, dating aggression, and gang activity.

Previous research conducted by the Principal Investigators showed that an authoritative school climate characterized by high structure (strict but fair discipline and high academic expectations) and high support (positive teacher-student relationships) is associated with many positive outcomes. Students who attend schools with an authoritative school climate demonstrated more engagement in school, have higher school attendance and academic achievement, and are more likely to graduate. Students who experience a structured and supportive school climate may be more willing to follow school rules, respond to their teachers, and treat one another in a respectful manner. This study continues that prior work.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigators if further information is needed.

This study is a secondary analysis (syntax only, no data) of Research on Pathways to Desistance [Maricopa County, AZ and Philadelphia County, PA]: Subject Measures, 2000-2010 (ICPSR 29961) and Research on Pathways to Desistance [Maricopa County, AZ and Philadelphia County, PA]: Calendar Data, 2000-2010 [Restricted] (ICPSR 32282).

The purpose of this study was to further existing knowledge of juvenile justice intervention and how juvenile justice intervention is related to positive outcomes during the transition to adulthood. This study examines three main aims using data from the Pathways to Desistance study, which followed a sample of serious adolescent offenders for seven years to examine the desistance process. First, trajectories of secure institutional placement for serious offenders during the study period were identified. Second, trajectories of gainful activities for serious adolescent offenders during the study period were identified. Gainful activities were defined as working or attending school. Third, factors associated with turning points in the gainful activities trajectories were explored. In the course of estimating the gainful activities trajectories, there appeared to be a key moment, around year 3, where multiple trajectories with moderate levels of engagement in gainful activities diverged. Together, these three aims will inform how juvenile justice intervention is related to positive outcomes during the transition to adulthood and identify factors that may be related to positive outcomes and critical turning points in the trajectories of serious adolescent offenders.

Group differences were examined by testing bivariate differences in a broad range of variables: demographic variables (gender, age, and race/ethnicity); study site and year of interview; characteristics of prior service receipt at baseline (location and orientation); school, family and neighborhood characteristics; characteristics of the offense and offense history; individual factors (mental health and substance use symptoms); and risk scores.

The project focused specifically on strategies and approaches explicitly intended to reduce gun-related violence committed by young people between the ages of 10 and 25 who may also be associated with gangs/groups, including interventions that solely or primarily serve youth. The study team did not focus on all strategies designed to reduce youth violence, nor on gang prevention and intervention efforts not expressly intended to reduce gun violence and homicide. Based on this framing, the study team focused on interventions that are immediate responses to an acute problem, rather than those that address risk factors associated with violence broadly. This work drew on three main models of interventions: Spergel Model of Gang Intervention and Suppression ("Spergel")/Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Comprehensive Gang Model (CGM) intervention models, focused deterrence models, and public health models. Both the review of literature and scan of practice include some interventions that do not fit into any of these models.

The review of literature included identification and synthesis of research on the implementation and impact of relevant violence prevention, reduction, and control strategies. The literature review only included interventions that have published research about their efficacy. The scan of practice identified 14 interventions and conducted 13 virtual site visits including interviews and observations. Site selection was based on criteria and with input from a group of subject-matter experts, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and OJJDP. The scan of practice was not a comprehensive scan and did not include a representative sample by type or location of intervention.

The Rochester Intergenerational Study (RIGS), is an extension of the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS). RIGS investigates intergenerational continuity and discontinuity of drug use in a three-generation prospective design. The focal participant is the oldest biological child (G3) of the original participant in the RYDS study. The project contains developmental data collected since 1988 on the G2 parents and G1 grandparents; combining those data with the prospective data collected from 1999 to 2019 allows examination of how the parent's own developmental course influences their transition to adulthood and their behavior as parents which, in turn, can be used to explain the onset and development of the G3 child's drug use.

Variables included pertain to the parent's stressors, drug use and problem behaviors, prosocial bonds, peer networks, gang affiliation, family context, major family events, and parenting behaviors. G3 assessments include their general psychosocial development, with detailed information on the onset and course of their drug use, problem behaviors, school behavior, and prosocial behavior.

This study includes 802 interviews that were conducted in two Texas prisons with inmates who were within a week of release. 532 of these individuals were re-interviewed within roughly one month of their release and 482 were re-interviewed roughly nine months after release. In addition to interviews, Texas Department of Criminal Justice Records were made available to the research team and half of the interviews were conducted with identified gang members. This study assesses whether gang members can be surveyed in prisons with fidelity and reports descriptive statistics on gang and non-gang members. More than forty separate scales were included in the interview.

The study assesses the extent of commonalities between individuals who become involved in violent extremist groups and criminal gangs, and the processes by which individuals engage in each group. Following this comparison, the extent to which the empirical results support the potential for anti-gang programs to bolster the resilience of communities against violent extremism and other forms of crime is assessed.

Quantitative assessment was conducted by comparing individuals included in the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) dataset with a subset of individuals drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) along a number of demographic, social, and socioeconomic characteristics.

Supplementary survey data was also collected from 45 former and current gang members in the United States concurrently with long-form interviews, covering a range of variables including background characteristics, demographic information, and attitudes among the respondents.

The vision of the Community Restorative (CORE) Health Project was to increase awareness and availability of trauma-informed care and indigenous healing practices in the target communities for clients and families being served by the City of Los Angeles Mayor's Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD). Two agencies were contracted to provide either trauma-focused mental health treatment or training on indigenous healing practices to clients, families, and the community. A total of 115 individual or group therapy sessions were provided, 23 community based workshops on trauma-informed care or indigenous healing practices were offered, and 15 professional development events were attended by over 354 GRYD intervention workers or CORE staff.

Background information was collected during the initial stages of the GRYD program, and a youth's eligibility for GRYD services was determined. The Posttraumatic Screening Inventory was used to assess the presence of posttraumatic stress, exposure to a traumatic event, and whether participants should be referred for treatment. Youths were then exposed to the GRYD's Summer Night Lights program, which raised trauma awareness, taught coping strategies, and increased access to services.

Then the National Compadres Network was chosen to administer three training sessions on indigenous healing practices: La Cultura Cura, El Joven Noble, and Circle Keepers. Pre-test surveys collected demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity, and religiosity, as well as their expectations heading into training. Post-test surveys assessed how much information participants received, the usefulness of information, if training rationale made sense, and whether or not participants planned to use what they had learned. After training sessions were completed, researchers conducted 10 follow up interviews with services providers and leadership from CORE.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The purpose of this study was to produce knowledge about how to prevent at-risk youth from joining gangs and reduce delinquency among active gang members. The study evaluated a modification of Functional Family Therapy, a model program from the Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development initiative, to assess its effectiveness for reducing gang membership and delinquency in a gang-involved population.

The collection contains 5 SPSS data files and 4 SPSS syntax files:

• adolpre_archive.sav (129 cases, 190 variables),
• adolpost_archive.sav (119 cases, 301 variables),
• Fidelity.archive.sav (66 cases, 25 variables),
• parentpre_archive.sav (129 cases, 157 variables), and
• parentpost_archive.sav {116 cases, 220 variables).

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

Prior to 1996, surveys pertaining to youth gangs in the United States were conducted infrequently, and methodology and samples had been inconsistent. No single source of data pertaining to the nature, size, and scope of youth gangs existed. From 1996 through 2012, the National Youth Gang Survey (NYGS) collected data annually from a large, representative sample of local law enforcement agencies to track the span and seriousness of gang activity nationwide. The NYGS collected data from a sample of the universe of law enforcement agencies in the United States from which data can be extrapolated to determine the scope of youth gangs nationally.

This collection includes one SPSS data file "1996-2001_cleaned_for_NACJD.sav" with 330 variables and 3,018 cases.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The National Youth Gang Survey (NYGS) 2002-2012 is a continuation of data collected annually from a representative sample of all law enforcement agencies in the United States that began in 1996. In 2002, the NYGS resampled law enforcement agencies based on updated data from the United States Census Bureau and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the NYGS continued to collect law enforcement data through 2012. This longitudinal study allows for examination of the trends in scope and magnitude of youth gangs nationally by measuring the presence, characteristics, and behaviors of local gangs in jurisdictions throughout the United States.

This collection includes 1 SPSS data file with 2,388 cases and 606 variables.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

Respondents were enrolled and baseline interviews conducted from November 2000 to January 2003. Follow-up interviews were then scheduled with the respondents at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, 72 and 84 months past their baseline interview.

The enrolled youth were at least 14 years old and under 18 years old at the time of their committing offense and were found guilty of a serious offense (predominantly felonies, with a few exceptions for some misdemeanor property offenses, sexual assault, or weapons offenses).

Each wave of data collection covered six domains: (1) background characteristics (e.g., demographics, academic achievement, psychiatric diagnoses, offense history, neurological functioning, psychopathy, personality), (2) indicators of individual functioning (e.g., work and school status and performance, substance abuse, mental disorder, antisocial behavior), (3) psychosocial development and attitudes (e.g., impulse control, susceptibility to peer influence, perceptions of opportunity, perceptions of procedural justice, moral disengagement), (4) family context (e.g., household composition, quality of family relationships), (5) personal relationships (e.g., quality of romantic relationships and friendships, peer delinquency, contacts with caring adults), and (6) community context (e.g., neighborhood conditions, personal capital, and community involvement). Information about the measures used to capture this information can be found on the Pathways to Desistance website.

The current Subject Measures study primarily consists of the calculated scores from constructs asked about during the interview, but the individual scale items were withheld at that time. These variables are typically consistent across the waves that the scale was asked about during the course of the entire study. Most of the files contain variables from all 11 waves of data collection. The table in the front of the User Guide will list which waves are present in each data file.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

The Release data portion of the Pathways study contains information from 1,130 interviews ("release interviews") reflecting the youths' perceptions regarding various aspects of the residential experience and institutional environment (e.g., accounts of program operations and services provided, ratings regarding the participant's feelings of his or her safety in the facility). The release interview was conducted within 30 days prior to or after release from a facility and in a separate session apart from the time point interview. This was done to minimize the burden on the research participant and to ensure adequate attention to institutional ratings. The restricted time period within which to conduct the release interview reduced the likelihood that intervening events and experiences would skew the participant's recall of the stay.

Study participants could contribute more than one release interview, depending upon the number of institutional placements he/she had over the seven-year follow-up period. The current release data reflects ratings from 686 unique individuals. It should be recognized that not every institutional stay for every youth produced a release interview. On the basis of the number of reported institutional stays in the sample, it is estimated that a release interview was obtained for approximately 54 percent of the total number of residential stays experienced by study participants. Release interviews were missed if the research interviewer was not aware of the institutional stay (e.g. it occurred between time point interviews) or if the interviewer only became aware of the institutional stay at a point that was too late to schedule a release interview within the required window surrounding the release date.

The 686 individuals reflected in the release data represent 51 percent of the Pathway study participants (n=1,354) and 56 percent of Pathways participants who had a least one institutional stay (n=1,234; 120 Pathways youths had no institutional stays). On average, these 686 youths had 1.6 interviews. The number of interviews per unique person ranges from one to eight.

The current Release Measures study primarily consists of the calculated scores from constructs asked about during the interviews, but the individual scale items were withheld at that time. This study contains those individual items plus the calculated scores.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

These data were collected as part of an effort to gain a more in depth understanding of the processes surrounding disengagement from a youth gang, and come from structured interviews with their parent or guardian. The interview included such topics as parental monitoring practices, attitudes about the youth's peer group, and perceptions about the neighborhood. Study participants lived in seven geographically diverse cities in the United States, making it one of few multi-site studies of gangs or gang members.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

This study looks at interviews conducted with the collateral informants who participated in the study. The collateral informants were nominated by the main study participant and represented individuals who "knew the study participant well". At the interview baseline the collateral informant was usually a biological parent. During the three follow-up interviews the majority of collaterals were a friend. Collateral informants could also be a sibling, significant other, or relative. Collaterals were asked questions in regards to the main study participant's life, allowing for comparison between responses provided by two sources. A baseline interview was conducted with the collateral after the baseline interview took place with the main participant. Additional waves of follow-up with collaterals took place at 12, 24, and 36 months. A collateral report is not present for all of the main study participant interviews across waves (see response rate below).

The current Collateral Measures study primarily consists of the calculated scores from constructs asked about during the interview, but the individual scale items were withheld at that time. These additional datasets contain those individual items plus the calculated scores. These variables are typically consistent across the waves that the scale was asked about during the course of the entire project. Most of the files contain variables from all four waves of data collection. The table in the front of the User Guide will list which waves are present in each data file.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

Using multiple data time points this study investigated the prospective validity of a secondary gang prevention program called Gang Risk of Entry Factors (GREF) assessment. At Time 1 of the study interview cut-points were established for high and low risk on nine risk factors that were included on the assessment. Those who scored high risk on four or more risk factors were determined eligible for secondary prevention. At time 2 each participate was then classified into one of four levels of gang membership. The goal of this was to investigate how successful the GREF was in identifying the youth (in the absence of a program) who become associated with a street gang in the 12 to 18 months of the study time frame .

The California Families Project (CFP) is an ongoing longitudinal study of Mexican origin families in Northern California. This study uses community, school, family, and individual characteristics to examine developmental pathways that increase risk for and resilience to drug use in Mexican-origin youth. This study also examines the impact that economic disadvantage and cultural traditions have in Mexican-origin youth. The CFP includes a community-based sample of 674 families and children of Mexican origin living in Northern California, and includes annual assessments of parents and children. Participants with Mexican surnames were drawn at random from school rosters of students during the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school year. Data collection included multi-method assessments of a broad range of psychological, familial, scholastic, cultural, and neighborhood factors. Initiation of the research at age 10 was designed to assess the focal children before the onset of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug (ATOD) use, thus enabling the evaluation of how hypothesized risk and resilience mechanisms operate to exacerbate early onset during adolescence or help prevent its occurrence. This study includes a diversity of families that represent a wide range of incomes, education, family history, and family structures, including two-parent and single-parent families.

The accompanying data file consists of 674 family cases with each case representing a focal child and at least one parent (Two-parent: n=549, 82 percent; Single-parent: n=125, 18 percent). Of the 3,139 total variables, 839 pertain to the focal child, 1,376 correspond to the mother, and 908 items pertain to the father.

Please note: While the California Families Project is a longitudinal study, only the baseline data are currently available in this data collection.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The goal of the study was to determine what effect, if any, the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program had on students. The G.R.E.A.T., a 13-lesson general prevention program taught by uniformed law enforcement officers to middle school students, had three stated goals: 1) to reduce gang membership, 2) to reduce delinquency, especially violent offending, and 3) to improve students' attitudes toward the police.

To assess program effectiveness, researchers conducted a randomized control trial involving 3,820 students nested in 195 classrooms in 31 schools in 7 cities. A process evaluation consisted of multiple methods to assess program fidelity: 1) observations of G.R.E.A.T. Officer Trainings, 2) surveys and interviews of G.R.E.A.T.-trained officers and supervisors, 3) surveys of school personnel, and 4) "on-site," direct observations of officers delivering the G.R.E.A.T. program in the study sites. Only the data from the student surveys, law enforcement officer surveys, and school personnel surveys are available.

Data file 1 (Student Survey Data) has 3,820 cases and 1,926 variables. Data file 2 (Law Enforcement Survey Data) has 137 cases and 140 variables. Data file 3 (School Personnel Survey Data) has 230 cases and 148 variables.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they there received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except of the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompany readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collections and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The purpose of this evaluation was to determine the effectiveness of the global positioning system (GPS) monitoring of high-risk gang offenders (HRGOs) who are placed on parole. The study focuses on HGROs who were released from prison and placed on parole supervision with GPS monitoring in six California jurisdictions between March 2006 and October 2009. A propensity score procedure was performed using a sample of offenders drawn from the same six communities who were not placed on GPS monitoring. The matching procedure resulted in a final sample of 784 subjects (392 treatment and 392 control). The study used six primary sources to collect data: 1)the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) data management system, 2) official arrest records, 3) parole supervision records, 4) GPS monitoring data, 5) a CDCR parole agent (PA) survey, and 6) CDCR cost information.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

Respondents were enrolled and baseline interviews conducted from November 2000 to January 2003. Follow-up interviews were then scheduled with the respondents at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, 72 and 84 months past their baseline interview.

The enrolled youth were at least 14 years old and under 18 years old at the time of their committing offense and were found guilty of a serious offense (predominantly felonies, with a few exceptions for some misdemeanor property offenses, sexual assault, or weapons offenses).

The baseline interview was conducted within 75 days of the youth's adjudication hearing. For youths in the adult system, the baseline interview was conducted within 90 days of either (a) the decertification hearing in Philadelphia, a hearing at which it is determined if the case will remain in adult court or if it will be sent back to juvenile court; or (b) the adult arraignment hearing in Phoenix, the point in the Arizona adult system at which charges have been formally presented.

The aims of the investigation were to identify initial patterns of how serious adolescent offenders stop antisocial activity, to describe the role of social context and developmental changes in promoting these positive changes, and to compare the effects of sanctions and interventions in promoting these changes. The larger goals of the Pathways to Desistance study were to improve decision-making by court and social service personnel and to clarify policy debates about alternatives for serious adolescent offenders. The study relied primarily on self-report information from study participants.

Each wave of data collection covered six domains: (1) background characteristics (e.g., demographics, academic achievement, psychiatric diagnoses, offense history, neurological functioning, psychopathy, personality), (2) indicators of individual functioning (e.g., work and school status and performance, substance abuse, mental disorder, antisocial behavior), (3) psychosocial development and attitudes (e.g., impulse control, susceptibility to peer influence, perceptions of opportunity, perceptions of procedural justice, moral disengagement), (4) family context (e.g., household composition, quality of family relationships), (5) personal relationships (e.g., quality of romantic relationships and friendships, peer delinquency, contacts with caring adults), and (6) community context (e.g., neighborhood conditions, personal capital, and community involvement). Information about the measures used to capture this information can be found on the Pathways to Desistance website.

The Drug Use Among Young Indians: Epidemiology and Prediction study is an annual surveillance effort assessing the levels and patterns of substance use among American Indian (AI) adolescents attending schools on or near reservations. In addition to annual epidemiology of substance use, data pertaining to the normative environment for adolescent substance use were also obtained. For this data collection data comes from annual in-school surveys completed between the years 1993 to 2006, and 2009 to 2013. Students completed the surveys at school during a specified class period. The dataset contains 534 variables for 26,451 students in grades 7 to 12.

This study evaluated CeaseFire, a program of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention. The evaluation had both outcome and process components.

The outcome evaluation assessed the program's impact on shootings and killings in selected CeaseFire sites. Two types of crime data were compiled by the research team: Time Series Data (Dataset 1) and Shooting Incident Data (Dataset 2). Dataset 1 is comprised of aggregate month/year data on all shooting, gun murder, and persons shot incidents reported to Chicago police for CeaseFire's target beats and matched sets of comparison beats between January 1991 and December 2006, resulting in 1,332 observations. Dataset 2 consists of data on 4,828 shootings that were reported in CeaseFire's targeted police beats and in a matched set of comparison beats for two-year periods before and after the implementation of the program (February 1998 to April 2006).

The process evaluation involved assessing the program's operations and effectiveness. Researchers surveyed three groups of CeaseFire program stakeholders: employees, representatives of collaborating organizations, and clients.

The three sets of employee survey data examine such topics as their level of involvement with clients and CeaseFire activities, their assessments of their clients' problems, and their satisfaction with training and management practices. A total of 154 employees were surveyed: 23 outreach supervisors (Dataset 3), 78 outreach workers (Dataset 4), and 53 violence interrupters (Dataset 5).

The six sets of collaborating organization representatives data examine such topics as their level of familiarity and contact with the CeaseFire program, their opinions of CeaseFire clients, and their assessments of the costs and benefits of being involved with CeaseFire. A total of 230 representatives were surveyed: 20 business representatives (Dataset 6), 45 clergy representatives (Dataset 7), 26 community representatives (Dataset 8), 35 police representatives (Dataset 9), 36 school representatives (Dataset 10), and 68 service organization representatives (Dataset 11).

The Client Survey Data (Dataset 12) examine such topics as clients' involvement in the CeaseFire program, their satisfaction with aspects of life, and their opinions regarding the role of guns in neighborhood life. A total of 297 clients were interviewed.

The Flint Adolescent Study (FAS) interviewed 850 ninth graders in the four public high schools of Flint, MI. The study was conducted in collaboration with the Projects for Urban and Regional Affairs and Flint Community Schools. The goal of the study was to explore the protective factors associated with school dropout and alcohol and substance use. The study followed the youths for four years beginning in the Fall of 1994. The sample reflected the overall student body in the Flint high schools. In order to study those students most at risk for leaving school before graduation, individuals with grade point averages of 3.0 and below were selected.

Interviews were conducted face-to-face with each student at the school or in a community location for students who were out of school. Each interview took about one hour to complete. At the end of the interview students were asked to complete the last section of the questionnaire by themselves which contains questions about their drug use and sexual behavior.

Information obtained from the youths includes: participation in church, school, and community organizations; social support and influence of family and friends; self esteem and psychological well being; delinquent and violent behaviors; alcohol and substance use; sex behavior and child bearing; school attitudes and performance; and family structure and relationships. The Youths were asked to complete a brief questionnaire at the end of the interview about their alcohol and substance use, and sexual behavior. In years 3 and 4 questions also asked about driving behavior, attachment style, stress, mentoring, and racial identity. Data was also collected about parental education and occupation.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

The Release data portion of the Pathways study contains information from 1,130 interviews ("release interviews") reflecting the youths' perceptions regarding various aspects of the residential experience and institutional environment (e.g., accounts of program operations and services provided, ratings regarding the participant's feelings of his or her safety in the facility). The release interview was conducted within 30 days prior to or after release from a facility and in a separate session apart from the time point interview. This was done to minimize the burden on the research participant and to ensure adequate attention to institutional ratings. The restricted time period within which to conduct the release interview reduced the likelihood that intervening events and experiences would skew the participant's recall of the stay.

Study participants could contribute more than one release interview, depending upon the number of institutional placements he/she had over the seven-year follow-up period. The current release data reflects ratings from 686 unique individuals. It should be recognized that not every institutional stay for every youth produced a release interview. On the basis of the number of reported institutional stays in the sample, it is estimated that a release interview was obtained for approximately 54 percent of the total number of residential stays experienced by study participants. Release interviews were missed if the research interviewer was not aware of the institutional stay (e.g. it occurred between time point interviews) or if the interviewer only became aware of the institutional stay at a point that was too late to schedule a release interview within the required window surrounding the release date.

The 686 individuals reflected in the release data represent 51 percent of the Pathway study participants (n=1,354) and 56 percent of Pathways participants who had a least one institutional stay (n=1,234; 120 Pathways youths had no institutional stays). On average, these 686 youths had 1.6 interviews. The number of interviews per unique person ranges from one to eight.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700) from 2000 through 2010.

This study looks at interviews conducted with the collateral informants who participated in the study. The collateral informants were nominated by the main study participant and represented individuals who "knew the study participant well". At the interview baseline the collateral informant was usually a biological parent. During the three follow-up interviews the majority of collaterals were a friend. Collateral informants could also be a sibling, significant other, or relative. Collaterals were asked questions in regards to the main study participant's life, allowing for comparison between responses provided by two sources. A baseline interview was conducted with the collateral after the baseline interview took place with the main participant. Additional waves of follow-up with collaterals took place at 12, 24, and 36 months. A collateral report is not present for all of the main study participant interviews across waves (see response rate below).

This study was designed as an exploratory study to understand fear of gang crime among residents living in an urban area plagued by gangs. During the Summer of 1997, six focus groups were conducted in Santa Ana, California -- two in lower income neighborhoods, two in middle income neighborhoods, and two in upper income neighborhoods. After the focus groups ended, participants were asked to take disposable cameras with them and take pictures of examples of neighborhood factors that prompted them to fear gangs and then mail them back to me in a postage-paid envelope.

The research questions guiding this study were: How do the fear-of-crime perspectives apply to fear of gang crime specifically? When worrying about gang crime, do different people focus primarily on different problems (e.g., some diversity or some disorder), or do the same people think about all of these factors? Findings first showed that all four theoretical perspectives on fear of crime applied to the same people at once, rather than to different people (e.g., some being worried about racial and ethnic differences but others about disorder). Second, findings illustrated specifically how these residents connected the factors into one thought process leading to fear of gangs. Residents in these groups clearly believed that ethnic and cultural diversity, or in this case, recent "illegal" Latino immigrants, brought disorder, which in turn caused community decline and brought gangs. This thought process led to personal fear of gang-related victimization. Their beliefs about these causal connections were primarily influenced by their knowledge and observations that gangs in the area were Latino; by direct observation of area diversity disorder, and decline; and by experience living in their changing neighborhoods over time. In addition, beliefs were fueled by indirect victimization, or knowledge gained primarily through acquaintances such as neighbors and community policing officers.

The objective of the Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey (SNCS) was to test multilevel theories of neighborhood social organization and criminal violence. It was funded by the National Science Foundation (SES-0004324), and the National Consortium on Violence Research (SBR-9513040). Using the concept of differential neighborhood organization, the investigators posited that neighborhood crime is a function of informal social control against crime and informal organization in favor of crime. Informal neighborhood control against crime consists of neighborhood attachment, social capital, and collective efficacy. The study tested the hypothesis that individual social ties are explained by a rational choice model, which in turn produces neighborhood social capital that can be used to achieve collective goals. It also tested the hypothesis that neighborhoods rich in social capital had greater collective efficacy, which in turn, helped produce safe neighborhoods. Organization in favor of crime consists of violent codes of the street. The study tested the hypothesis that residents from disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to distrust police and other agents of conventional institutions, and consequently are more likely to participate in street culture, in which violence is a way of obtaining street credibility and status, as well as resolving disputes. The project has also examined dimensions of neighboring, and the causes and consequences of fear of crime.

The study used a telephone survey of households within all 123 census tracts in the city of Seattle, WA, conducted in 2002-2003. The sampling frame was designed by investigators at the University of Washington, with three objectives in mind: (a) to gain a random sample of households within each of 123 census tracts; (b) to obtain a disproportionate number of racial and ethnic minorities using an ethnic oversample; and (c) to obtain a replication sample of Terrance Miethe's 1990 victimization survey in 100 Seattle neighborhoods [Testing Theories of Criminality and Victimization in Seattle, 1960-1990]. Specific samples were drawn by Genesys, a sampling firm in Philadelphia, PA, using a constantly-updated compilation of white pages. Telephone interviews were conducted by the Social and Behavioral Research Institute at California State University, San Marcos, using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) technology.

Respondents were asked about household demographics, such as race, gender, residential mobility, age distribution of the household, and income, their perceptions and assessments of their neighborhoods (including safety, disorder, and crime), neighbors, and relations with police. A variety of questions about neighboring were asked, including social capital (intergenerational closure, reciprocated exchange, and participation in neighborhood associations), attachment to their neighborhood, and collective efficacy (child-centered social control). Respondents were asked about routine activities including taking steps to protect their homes, spending time in bars and nightclubs, and leaving their home unattended. Questions about fear of crime included personal fear as well as altruistic fear for other members of the household, and questions about racial attitudes included residential preferences by race composition of the neighborhood. A victimization inventory modeled after the National Crime Victimization Survey was used for burglary, vandalism, stolen property, violence, and robbery. Demographic information includes age, race, sex, education, martial status, household income, whether respondent was a student, employment status, religious affiliation, approximate value of home, monthly rent including utilities, residence history in the last five years, whether respondent was born in the Unites States, and number of people currently living in the respondent's household.