A major goal of juvenile justice reform is to reduce reoffending and recidivism among juvenile offenders. Advocates of trauma informed practices assert that disproportionately high rates of violence exposure and trauma symptoms exacerbate the delinquent and violent behavior of juvenile offenders, but there is little evidence of the role of trauma in reoffending, particularly for the group of juvenile offenders that are at the highest risk for reoffending: serious offenders. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to conduct secondary data analysis on data from the Pathways to Desistance Study (Mulvey et al., 2004) to enhance understanding of how continuous trauma exposure and related symptoms impact reoffending in serious juvenile offenders. This study utilized secondary data analysis on six annual waves of data from the Pathways to Desistance study (Mulvey et al., 2004), a large multi-site, longitudinal study of adolescents who had committed a serious criminal offense. The study followed juvenile offenders into adulthood. The current study analyzed youth self-report of demographic variables, community violence exposure, trauma-related symptoms, and violent offending, as well as official records of youth offending. Regression analysis, latent transition analysis, and survival analysis were used to examine the research questions and hypotheses. Results showed that the majority of participants experienced continuous violence exposure as witnesses to community violence, with lower rates for victimization. Further, violence exposure and trauma-related symptoms (anxiety and hostility) co-occurred over time. Also, continuous violence exposure during adolescence predicted self-reported violent reoffending in early adulthood, even after controlling for demographic factors. Victimization significantly increased the risk for re-arrest. Further, this risk of re-offending was higher for male offenders than for female offenders. Finally, callous-unemotional traits and hostility mediated the relationship between continuous violence exposure and later violent offending. In this study, data from the Pathways to Desistance study were analyzed using SPSS and Mplus software packages, and the syntax files used to analyze the data have been included. The Pathways to Desistance study datasets are archived at the University of Michigan Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), and the PI obtained the Pathways data from ICPSR.

Research over the past decade has identified a sub-group of traumatized youths who have had extensive exposure to multiple types of victimization, interpersonal violence, and loss. These poly-victims are at risk for involvement in delinquency, and if they become involved in juvenile justice they have more severe emotional, behavioral, interpersonal, and school problems than other justice-involved youth (Ford, Grasso, Hawke, and Chapman, 2013). However, there is no validated tool or procedure to screen for poly-victimization with justice-involved youth. This project therefore was designed to test the feasibility of and validate a poly-victimization screen with youth in juvenile detention facilities. The project's specific aims were as follows: Aim 1: To conduct a quasi-experimental study of the effectiveness of poly-victimization enhanced screening (PVES) in increasing the identification of traumatized juvenile justice-involved youth. Aim 2: To test the effectiveness of PVES in reducing subsequent adverse legal outcomes: (a) number and severity of juvenile offenses, (b) extent of justice involvement. Aim 3: To determine if implementation of the PVE results in consistent (replicable) outcomes across two Juvenile Detention Centers.

The objective of this study was to systematically review and statistically synthesize all available research that, at a minimum, compared participants in a restorative justice program to participants processed in a more traditional way using meta-analytic methods. Ideally, these studies would include research designs with random assignment to condition groups, as this provides the most credible evidence of program effectiveness. The systematic search identified 99 publications, both published and unpublished, reporting on the results of 84 evaluations nested within 60 unique research projects or studies. Results were extracted from these studies, related to delinquency, non-delinquency, and victim outcomes for the youth and victims participating in these programs.

This project consists of secondary analysis material (syntax only, no data). The original study that the material pertains to is an examination of predominantly African American adolescents who live in extreme poverty. The study suggested that exposure to violence is positively related to involvement in the juvenile court system, and partially mediated by psychological factors, particularly hopelessness; thus, practitioners should take care to target more than just traumatic stress as a result of exposure to violence in African American impoverished youth.

This study was a secondary analysis of Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP) 2003 [United States] ICPSR 34304. In recent years, considerable empirical and theoretical attention has been given to the overlap between gang membership and victimization. Gang-involved youth are significantly more likely to experience both violent and nonviolent victimization than are their non-gang peers. Much of what is known about the gang-victimization link, however, comes from studies of youth in the community. In this study, we explore the relationship between gang affiliation and victimization in a nationally representative sample of youth in residential placement.

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 study compared the adult criminal justice and child welfare system outcomes of four pathways through the juvenile justice system - Traditional Probation, Intensive Probation, Specialty Court Docket (Crossroads Program), and commitment to state youth correction services (Department of Youth Services). The study compared the effectiveness of a continuum of services and supervision in improving public safety, including re-arrest and re-incarceration, and in improving outcomes in engagement with child welfare as parents, including child welfare complaints and dispositions. The core research question is: "what is the relative effectiveness of four different juvenile justice interventions on improving public safety and child welfare outcomes?" The study population is all youths (n=2581) who entered the juvenile court from 2004-2008. It then included 7-10 years of follow-up in the adult justice and child welfare systems for all youths. The four interventions are on a continuum of intensity of services and supervision with Traditional Probation having the fewest services followed by Intensive Probation, Crossroads, and Division of Youth Services commitment. The study's deposits include 14 SPSS data files: arrest_final.sav CW_Custody_Adult_final.sav CW_Custody_child_final.sav CW_Intakes_Adult_final.sav CW_Intakes_child_final.sav CW_Placements_adult_final.sav CW_Placements_child_final.sav General_final.sav Jail_final.sav JC_charges_final.sav JC_detention_final.sav JC_disposition_final.sav JC_Gal_final.sav prison_final.sav

Much of the analysis of juvenile justice reform to date has focused on assessing particular programs and their impacts on subgroups of cases at a particular point in time. While this is instructive as to the effects of those initiatives, it is essential to evaluate the impact of policy across multiple levels and with multiple stakeholders in mind. Ohio has implemented a series of initiatives in its juvenile justice system designed to reduce reliance on state custody of youth in favor of local alternatives. In doing so, they have focused on multiple segments of the population of justice involved-youths throughout the state. The main vehicle for these shifts has been the state's Reasoned and Equitable Community and Local Alternatives to the Incarceration of Minors (RECLAIM) legislation and a series of initiatives that have followed from its inception. Other steps were followed and programming modifications were made during the study period as well. This research project focused on these initiatives as a case study of juvenile justice reform initiatives in order to provide insights about the impact of those recent reforms across multiple dimensions that were viewed as relevant to the discussion of juvenile justice reform. The data set analyzed at the individual level included the records of more than 5,000 youths sampled from cases processed from 2008 to 2015. First, presumed reductions in the number of youth committed to state residential correctional facilities in favor of community-based alternatives were analyzed. The relative effectiveness of residential facilities and community-based alternatives in terms of youth recidivism were then assessed with a subsample of 2,855 case records from randomly-selected counties. A third research objective focused on county-level trends and variation. Specifically, the longitudinal trends in key juvenile justice inputs and official juvenile crime rates across Ohio's 88 counties were formally modeled using data from public reports, data collection with counties, and official juvenile arrest data archived by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Elements of the previous analyses (especially comparative recidivism rates) and cost data collected from existing sources and public reports were used in a preliminary fashion to quantify the potential return on investment that accrued from Ohio's investment in these juvenile justice initiatives. This deposit contains two datasets: Individual Level Data and County Level Data. The Individual Level Data contains the following demographic data: age at admission, sex, and race (White, Black, Asian, Native American, and other).

The Safe Start Promising Approaches for Children Exposed to Violence Initiative funded 15 sites to implement and evaluate programs to improve outcomes for children exposed to violence. RAND conducted the national evaluation of these programs, in collaboration with the sites and a national evaluation team, to focus on child-level outcomes. The dataset includes data gathered at the individual family-level at baseline, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-months. All families were engaged in experimental or quasi-experimental studies comparing the Safe Start intervention to enhanced services-as-usual, alternative services, a wait-list control group, or a comparable comparison group of families that did not receive Safe Start services. Data sources for the outcome evaluation were primary caregiver interviews, child interviews (for ages 3 and over), and family/child-level service utilization data provided by the Safe Start program staff.