Alex O. Widdowson

Predicting Recidivism Among Released Juvenile Offenders in Florida: An Evaluation of the Residential Positive Achievement Change Tool

Each year in the United States, as many as 100,000 juvenile offenders are released after completing a residential placement. A significant task for researchers is to identify the factors that explain variations in recidivism. This study considers this by evaluating the predictive validity of the Residential Positive Achievement Change Tool (R-PACT), a fourth-generation risk assessment instrument adopted by Florida for use in all of its juvenile residential facilities. The R-PACT includes a wide variety of static and dynamic risk and needs scales that are used here to predict reoffending among 4,700 released juvenile offenders in Florida. We devote special attention to (1) whether R-PACT scales typically predict reoffending and (2) whether the R-PACT’s predictive validity varies across different subgroups of offenders. In considering these questions, we also consider whether the predictive risk and protective factors in prior research are predictive in the R-PACT as well. The analysis revealed relatively strong support for the R-PACT, but there were nuanced exceptions to that pattern. We discuss the implications these findings have for assessing risk, monitoring progress among residential youth, and predicting reoffending.

Early Aggression and Later Delinquency: Considering the Redirecting Role of Good Parenting

Childhood aggression consistently predicts delinquency during adolescence, but research in this area reveals exceptions, with some highly aggressive children becoming relatively nondelinquent adolescents. This directs attention to the factors that explain why early aggression is sometimes not followed by later delinquency. This study considers that parenting marked by attachment, consistent monitoring, and the avoidance of harshness and hostility may be one such factor. This is considered with data from a sample of roughly 800 U.S. families, with analyses focused on 217 youth who were highest in aggression at 4–7 years of age. The analysis revealed substantial variation among aggressive youth in the quality of parenting that they received from ages 9 to 12. This variation helped explain variation in age 15 delinquency, with this relationship being mediated by adolescent levels of school bonds, susceptibility to peer pressure, and low self-control. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory, future research, and policy efforts to reduce delinquency among aggressive and antisocial children.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF ARREST FOR COLLEGE ENROLLMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF LONG-TERM EFFECTS AND MEDIATING MECHANISMS†

This study draws on labeling theory and education research on the steps to college enrollment to examine 1) whether and for how long arrest reduces the likelihood that high-school graduates will enroll in postsecondary education and 2) whether any observed relationships are mediated by key steps in the college enrollment process. With 17 years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) and propensity score matching, we derived matched samples of arrested and nonarrested but equivalent youth (N = 1,761) and conducted logistic regression and survival analyses among the matched samples to examine the short- and long-term postsecondary consequences of arrest. The results revealed that arrest reduced the odds of 4-year college enrollment directly after high school, as well as that high-school grade point average and advanced coursework accounted for 58 percent of this relationship. The results also revealed that arrest had an enduring impact on 4-year college attendance that extended into and beyond emerging adulthood. Two-year college prospects were largely unaffected by arrest. These findings imply that being arrested during high school represents a negative turning point in youths’ educational trajectory that is, in part, a result of having a less competitive college application. Implications are discussed.

New Students’ Peer Integration and Exposure to Deviant Peers: Spurious Effects of School Moves?:

School moves during adolescence predict lower peer integration and higher exposure to delinquent peers. Yet mobility and peer problems have several common correlates, so differences in movers’ and non-movers’ social adjustment may be due to selection rather than causal effects of school moves. Drawing on survey and social network data from a sample of seventh and eighth graders, this study compared the structure and behavioral content of new students’ friendship networks with those of not only non-movers but also students about to move schools; the latter should resemble new students in both observed and unobserved ways. The results suggest that the association between school moves and friends’ delinquency is due to selection, but the association between school moves and peer integration may not be entirely due to selection.

Risk Factors for Substance Misuse and Adolescents' Symptoms of Depression

PURPOSE Depressive symptoms during adolescence are positively associated with peer-related beliefs, perceptions, and experiences that are known risk factors for substance misuse. These same risk factors are targeted by many universal substance misuse prevention programs. This study examined whether a multicomponent universal substance misuse intervention for middle schoolers reduced the associations between depressive symptoms, these risk factors, and substance misuse. METHODS The study used data from a place-randomized trial of the Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience model for delivery of evidence-based substance misuse programs for middle schoolers. Three-level within-person regression models were applied to four waves of survey, and social network data from 636 adolescents followed from sixth through ninth grades. RESULTS When adolescents in control school districts had more symptoms of depression, they believed more strongly that substance use had social benefits, perceived higher levels of substance misuse among their peers and friends, and had more friends who misused substances, although they were not more likely to use substances themselves. Many of the positive associations of depressive symptoms with peer-related risk factors were significantly weaker or not present among adolescents in intervention school districts. CONCLUSIONS The Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience interventions reduced the positive associations of adolescent symptoms of depression with peer-related risk factors for substance misuse.