This study contains data from the Northwestern Juvenile Project (NJP) series, a prospective longitudinal study of the mental health needs and outcomes of youth in detention. This study examined the following goals: (1) firearm involvement (access, ownership, and use) during adolescence and young adulthood; (2) perpetration of firearm violence over time; and (3) patterns of firearm victimization (injury and mortality) over time. This study addressed the association between early involvement with firearms and firearm-firearm perpetration and victimization in adulthood. The original sample included 1,829 randomly selected youth, 1,172 males and 657 females, then 10 to 18 years old, enrolled in the study as they entered the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center from 1995 to 1998. Among the sample were 1,005 African Americans, 524 Hispanics, and 296 non-Hispanic white respondents. Participants were tracked from the time they left detention. Re-interviews were conducted regardless of where respondents were living when their follow-up interview was due: in the community, correctional settings, or by telephone if they lived farther than two hours from Chicago.

Characteristics of juvenile offenders.

There is much variability in the adult outcomes of youth who have been involved in the Juvenile Justice System (JJS). It is increasingly recognized that disparate outcomes may reflect the extent to which JJS involvement intersects with developmental patterns of delinquency and is attuned to normative adolescent development, such as maturing self-regulation. However, little is known about the ways in which JJS services influence maturing self-regulation, and how change in these processes will impact delinquency trajectories extending through early adulthood. Even less is known about the impact of JJS on developmental trajectories of delinquency and self-regulation in adolescent girls, despite the rapid increase of girls' involvement in the JJS in recent years. The goal of the current study was to advance knowledge to support effective JJS programs and policies by examining the interface between adolescent self-regulation development, delinquency, and JJS involvement. This project built on the Pittsburgh Girls Study (PGS): a large, longitudinal, racially diverse, urban community sample of females that had been followed annually for 13 years since childhood. New data were collected with support from grant 2013-JF-FX-0058 from a subset of PGS participants at ages 19 and 20 years to capture patterns of delinquency persistence and desistance and to assess outcomes in young adulthood. At the end of the funding period, 88% of the original sample of participants had been interviewed through age 20. In addition, official juvenile justice criminal records were gathered for all 2,450 PGS participants. Analyses were conducted to examine: 1) the impact of JJS involvement on developmental trajectories of delinquency and young adult adjustment; 2) the impact of JJS involvement on self-regulation maturation; 3) the relationship between self-regulation development and change in delinquency and young adult adjustment; and 4) mechanisms during adolescence that explain the link between JJS involvement and delinquency. Results showed JJS involvement predicted concurrent and subsequent changes in self-control during adolescence as well as increased risk for subsequent delinquent behavior, poor educational attainment, employment status, and less satisfaction with life in young adulthood. Moreover, self-control in adolescence partially mediated several of the observed prospective associations between JJS involvement and young adult outcomes. These findings add to a research base that can help policymakers better understand how JJS interventions impact normative developmental processes in ways that influence the course of delinquency. Such information is a critical step in improving outcomes of adolescent girls involved in the JJS through the improvement of interventions promoting self-regulation maturation, accountability, resilience and desistance.

This study involved a survey of juvenile court judges, chief probation officers, prosecutors, and public defenders to measure their impressions of recent policy changes and the critical needs facing today's juvenile justice system. In addition the study garnered recommendations for improving the administration and effectiveness of this system. The study's primary objective was to provide policymakers, administrators, and practitioners with actionable information about how to improve the operations and effectiveness of the juvenile justice system, and to examine the role practitioners could play in constructing sound juvenile justice policy. A total of 534 juvenile court judges, chief probation officers, court administrators, prosecutors, and defense attorneys in 44 states and the District of Columbia participated in the Assessing the Policy Options (APO) national practitioner survey. The survey consisted of four major sections: demographics, critical needs, policies and practices, and practitioner recommendations. Critical needs facing the juvenile justice system were measured by asking respondents about the policy priority of 13 issues in their respective jurisdictions; topics ranged from staff training and development to effective juvenile defense counsel to information technology. Respondents were also asked to assess the effectiveness of 17 different policies and practices -- ranging from parental accountability laws to transfer and treatment -- in achieving 6 vital juvenile justice outcomes.

This research project was designed as a replication and extension of earlier research on how childhood victimization relates to delinquency, adult criminality, and violent criminal behavior (CHILD ABUSE, NEGLECT, AND VIOLENT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR IN A MIDWEST METROPOLITAN AREA OF THE UNITED STATES, 1967-1988 (ICPSR 9480)). The study consisted of a sample of abused and neglected children who were made dependents of the Superior Court of a large urban county in the Northwest between 1980 and 1984, and a matched control group of children. Dependency records were obtained from the county court house. Control match criteria were collected from Department of Health birth records data. Type of abuse/neglect precipitating the dependency petition was collected and coded using a modified version of the Maltreatment Classification Coding Scheme (MCS). Data on juvenile arrests from juvenile court records, including both number and types, were collected for each abused and/or neglected youth and each matched control subject. Adult criminal arrests, excluding routine traffic offenses, for all abused and neglected subjects and matched controls were collected from local, county, state, and federal law enforcement sources. A subset of arrests consisting of violent crimes was developed as a key outcome of interest. Major types of variables included in this study are demographics, criminal records, dependency records (only for those subjects abused/neglected as children), including type and severity of child abuse/neglect, and census socioeconomic variables. Several derived variables were also included.

The Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency was initiated by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in 1986 in an effort to learn more about the root causes of juvenile delinquency and other problem behaviors. The program comprises three coordinated longitudinal studies: Denver Youth Survey, Pittsburgh Youth Study and Rochester Youth Development Study. The three Causes and Correlates projects used a similar research design. All of the projects were longitudinal investigations involving repeated contacts with youth during a substantial portion of their developmental years. Researchers conducted regular face-to-face interviews with inner-city youth considered at high-risk for involvement in delinquency and drug abuse. Multiple perspectives on each child's development and behavior were obtained through interviews with the child's primary caretaker and, in two sites, school teachers. Administrative data from official agencies, including police, schools and social services was also collected. The three research teams worked together to ensure that certain core measures were identical across the sites, including self-reported delinquency and drug use; community and neighborhood characteristics; youth, family and peer variables; and arrest and judicial processing histories. NACJD is developing a resource guide on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency Data. It will be available soon.

This study was conducted between April 15, 2000 and November 15, 2002 to evaluate the effects of the Juvenile Break the Cycle program (JBTC) in Lane County, Oregon on the interim and longer-term outcomes for juvenile offenders who were deemed high risk and had a history of alcohol and/or other drug use. The study was conducted using three waves of interviews as well as administrative data. The baseline interview was given to and administrative data were collected on 306 juveniles. The 6-month follow-up interview was completed by 208 juveniles and the 12-month follow-up interview was completed by 183 juveniles. Variables included in the study are history of alcohol and/or other drug use, diagnosis of mental health problems, history of previous contact with the juvenile justice system, substance abuse risk score, total risk score, and history of substance abuse treatment or mental health counseling. Variables related to JBTC include program assignment, the number of drug test administered between interviews, and the number of positive drug tests.

In nearly every state and in the vast majority of juvenile justice agencies, risk assessments are incorporated into diversion, case management, supervision, and placement practices. Despite two decades of use within the juvenile justice system, little research regarding the methods of risk assessment development is discussed or translated to the field and practitioners. Many of the contemporary tools used today are implemented off-the-shelf, meaning that tools were developed with a specific set of methods, selecting and weighting items used in the prediction of a specified sample of youth. What is not known is how the various designs, methods, and circumstances of tool development impact the predictive performance when adopted by a jurisdiction. This study seeks to provide input into this dilemma. Demographic information in this study includes age, race, and sex.

The goal of this study was to test specific hypotheses illustrating the relationships among serious victimization experiences, the mental health effects of victimization, substance abuse/use, and delinquent behavior in adolescents. The study assessed familial and nonfamilial types of violence. It was designed as a telephone survey of American youth aged 12-17 living in United States households and residing with a parent or guardian. One parent or guardian in each household was interviewed briefly to establish rapport, secure permission to interview the targeted adolescent, and to ensure the collection of comparative data to examine potential nonresponse bias from households without adolescent participation. All interviews with both parents and adolescents were conducted using Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) technology. From the surveys of parents and adolescents, the principal investigators created one data file by attaching the data from the parents to the records of their respective adolescents. Adolescents were asked whether violence and drug abuse were problems in their schools and communities and what types of violence they had personally witnessed. They were also asked about other stressful events in their lives, such as the loss of a family member, divorce, unemployment, moving to a new home or school, serious illness or injury, and natural disaster. Questions regarding history of sexual assault, physical assault, and harsh physical discipline elicited a description of the event and perpetrator, extent of injuries, age at abuse, whether alcohol or drugs were involved, and who was informed of the incident. Information was also gathered on the delinquent behavior of respondents and their friends, including destruction of property, assault, theft, sexual assault, and gang activity. Other questions covered history of personal and family substance use and mental health indicators, such as major depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, weight changes, sleeping disorders, and problems concentrating. Demographic information was gathered from the adolescents on age, race, gender, number of people living in household, and grade in school. Parents were asked whether they were concerned about violent crime, affordable child care, drug abuse, educational quality, gangs, and the safety of their children at school. In addition, they were questioned about their own victimization experiences and whether they discussed personal safety issues with their children. Parents also supplied demographic information on gender, marital status, number of children, employment status, education, race, and income.

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. This project utilized data originally collected for the project Breaking Schools' Rules (Fabelo et al., 2011), a joint project of the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A and M University and the Council of State Governments Justice Center on which the Principal Investigator, Miner Marchbanks was a lead data analyst and co-author. Research was conducted at the Education Research Centers of the University of Texas, Austin, and Texas A and M University utilizing individual-level data from the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS), a data system of the Texas Education Agency (TEA), and CASEWORKER, a data management system of the Texas Probation Commission (now the Texas Juvenile Justice Department). The link between these records was conducted by TEA and is described in greater detail in Fabelo et al. Through secondary analyses of these data, researchers attempted to measure the institutional and individual mechanisms that disproportionately pull and push students of color into the "school-to-prison pipeline." The project explores the predictors of school discipline contact and the resulting consequences of encountering this discipline. The project then moves to an examination of the determinants of progressing through the various decision points in a juvenile justice case. Additionally, the project explores the relationship between school strictness and various educational and juvenile justice outcomes. The "school-to-prison pipeline" (Wald and Losen, 2003) describes an "increasingly punitive and isolating" path through the education system for African American and other at-risk students. The study collection includes 1 Stata (.do) syntax file (master_final.do) that was used by the researcher(s) in secondary analyses.