Pathways to Desistance

How and why do many serious adolescent offenders stop offending while others continue to commit crimes? This series of bulletins presents findings from the Pathways to Desistance study, a multidisciplinary investigation that attempts to answer this question.

Investigators interviewed 1,354 young offenders from Philadelphia and Phoenix for 7 years after their convictions to learn what factors (e.g., individual maturation, life changes, and involvement with the criminal justice system) lead youth who have committed serious offenses to persist in or desist from offending.

As a result of these interviews and a review of official records, researchers have collected the most comprehensive dataset available about serious adolescent offenders and their lives in late adolescence and early adulthood.

These data provide an unprecedented look at how young people mature out of offending and what the justice system can do to promote positive changes in the lives of these youth.

About the Pathways to Desistance Study

The Pathways to Desistance study is a multidisciplinary, multisite longitudinal investigation of how serious juvenile offenders make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. It follows 1,354 young offenders from Philadelphia County, PA, and Maricopa County, AZ (metropolitan Phoenix), for 7 years after their conviction. This study has collected the most comprehensive dataset currently available about serious adolescent offenders and their lives in late adolescence and early adulthood. It looks at the factors that lead youth who have committed serious offenses to persist in or desist from offending. Among the aims of the study are to:

•Identify initial patterns of how serious adolescent offenders stop antisocial activity.

•Describe the role of social context and developmental changes in promoting these positive changes.

•Compare the effects of sanctions and interventions in promoting these changes.

Characteristics of Study Participants

Enrollment took place between November 2000 and March 2003, and the research team concluded data collection in 2010. In general, participating youth were at least 14 years old and younger than 18 years old at the time of their study index petition; 8 youth were 13 years old and 16 youth were older than age 18 but younger than 19 at the time of their index petition. The youth in the sample were adjudicated delinquent or found guilty of a serious (overwhelmingly felony-level) violent crime, property offense, or drug offense at their current court appearance. Although felony drug offenses are among the eligible charges, the study limited the proportion of male drug offenders to no more than 15 percent; this limit ensures a heterogeneous sample of serious offenders. Because investigators wanted to include a large enough sample of female offenders—a group neglected in previous research—this limit did not apply to female drug offenders. In addition, youth whose cases were considered for trial in the adult criminal justice system were enrolled, regardless of the offense committed.

At the time of their baseline interview, participants were an average of 16.5 years old. The sample was 84 percent male and 80 percent minority (41 percent black, 34 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent American Indian/other). For approximately one-quarter (25.5 percent) of study participants, the study index petition was their first petition to court. Of the remaining participants (those with a petition before the study index petition), 69 percent had 2 or more prior petitions; the average was 3 in Maricopa County and 2.8 in Philadelphia County (exclusive of the study index offense). At both sites, more than 40 percent of the adolescents enrolled were adjudicated of felony crimes against persons (i.e., murder, robbery, aggravated assault, sex offenses, and kidnapping). At the time of the baseline interview for the study, 50 percent of these adolescents were in an institutional setting (usually a residential treatment center); during the 7 years after study enrollment, 87 percent of the sample spent some time in an institutional setting.

Interview Methodology

Immediately after enrollment, researchers conducted a structured 4-hour baseline interview (in two sessions) with each adolescent. This interview included a thorough assessment of the adolescent’s self-reported social background, developmental history, psychological functioning, psychosocial maturity, attitudes about illegal behavior, intelligence, school achievement and engagement, work experience, mental health, current and previous substance use and abuse, family and peer relationships, use of social services, and antisocial behavior.

After the baseline interview, researchers interviewed study participants every 6 months for the first 3 years, and annually thereafter. At each followup interview, researchers gathered information on the adolescent’s self-reported behavior and experiences during the previous 6-month or 1-year reporting period, including any illegal activity, drug or alcohol use, and involvement with treatment or other services. Youth’s self-reports about illegal activities included information about the range, the number, and other circumstances of those activities (e.g., whether or not others took part). In addition, the follow-up interviews collected a wide range of information about changes in life situations (e.g., living arrangements, employment), developmental factors (e.g., likelihood of thinking about and planning for the future, relationships with parents), and functional capacities (e.g., mental health symptoms).

Researchers also asked participants to report monthly about certain variables (e.g., school attendance, work performance, and involvement in interventions and sanctions) to maximize the amount of information obtained and to detect activity cycles shorter than the reporting period.

In addition to the interviews of study participants, for the first 3 years of the study, researchers annually interviewed a family member or friend about the study participant to validate the participant’s responses. Each year, researchers also reviewed official records (local juvenile and adult court records and FBI nationwide arrest records) for each adolescent.

Investigators have now completed the last (84-month) set of followup interviews, and the research team is conducting analyses of interview data. The study maintained the adolescents’ participation throughout the project: At each followup interview point, researchers found and interviewed approximately 90 percent of the enrolled sample. Researchers have completed more than 21,000 interviews in all.

Highlights From Pathways to Desistance: A Longitudinal Study of Serious Adolescent Offenders

Edward P. Mulvey

March 2011

The Pathways to Desistance Study is a large collaborative, multidisciplinary project that is following 1,354 serious juvenile offenders ages 14–18 (184 females and 1,170 males) for 7 years after their conviction (for more detailed information, see “Study Design”).1 This study has collected the most comprehensive data set currently available about serious adolescent offenders and their lives in late adolescence and early adulthood. It looks at the factors that lead youth who have committed serious offenses to continue or desist from offending, including individual maturation, life changes, and involvement with the criminal justice system.

Study Findings

The primary findings of the study to date deal with the decrease in self-reported offending over time by most serious adolescent offenders, the relative inefficacy of longer juvenile incarcerations in decreasing recidivism, the effectiveness of community-based supervision as a component of aftercare for incarcerated youth, and the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment in reducing both substance use and offending by serious adolescent offenders.

Most youth who commit felonies greatly reduce their offending over time, regardless of the intervention. Approximately 91.5 percent of youth in the study reported decreased or limited illegal activity during the first 3 years following their court involvement. In particular, two groups of male offenders—those with high, stable offending rates, and those with high, but declining offending rates—had very different outcomes despite similar treatment by the juvenile justice system (see figure 1). For both groups, approximately 40 percent of offenders were in jail or prison across the 3-year followup period (see “Study Design”); each group also had similar percentages under detention or in a contracted residential placement (about 20 percent of each group was in each of these forms of supervision). Overall, approximately 50 percent of the youth in each group were under some form of supervision during the followup period, and about 20 percent were receiving community-based services.

Therefore, institutional placement and the type of setting appeared to have little effect on which high-end offenders persisted in offending and which reduced their offending (Mulvey et al., 2010).

Longer stays in juvenile institutions do not reduce recidivism, and some youth who had the lowest offending levels reported committing more crimes after being incarcerated. The researchers looked at two groups of cases that were adjudicated in juvenile court at both the Philadelphia and metropolitan Phoenix sites. Of 921 offenders who remained in the juvenile system, 502 received probation and 419 were placed in institutions. The researchers then matched the two groups based on 66 variables that would affect the probability that an individual offender would be placed in an institution to rule out those variables as potential causes of different outcomes between the placement and probation groups. After 64 of those 66 variables were ruled out, the two groups showed no significant differences in their rate either of rearrest or of self-reported offending. Also, when the researchers matched groups of offenders with similar backgrounds, they found that, for lengths of stay between 3 and 13 months, youth who stayed in institutions longer showed little or no decrease in their rates of rearrest compared with those with shorter stays (Loughran et al., 2009). Moreover, in another set of analyses, the study found that the group of offenders with the lowest levels of self-reported offending actually raised their levels of offending by a small but statistically significant amount following stays in institutions (Mulvey et al., 2010).

Community-based supervision as a component of aftercare is effective for youth who have committed serious offenses, and offenders who receive community-based services following incarceration are more likely to attend school, go to work, and reduce offending. Because the project collects monthly data about institutional placement, probation, and involvement in community-based services, investigators were able to examine the effects of aftercare services for 6 months after a court-ordered placement (the period when such services are presumably provided with greater intensity in most locales). Increasing the duration of community supervision reduced reported reoffending. In addition, although returning offenders generally received supervision only, rather than treatment, the research showed that in the 6 months after release, youth who were involved in community-based services were more likely to avoid further involvement with the juvenile justice system (Chung, Schubert, and Mulvey, 2007).

Substance abuse treatment reduces both substance use and criminal offending, at least in the short term. Research has consistently shown that substance use among adolescents is linked to serious juvenile offending. The adolescent offenders profiled in the Pathways to Desistance study reported very high levels of substance use and substance use problems.2 Substance use was linked to other illegal activities engaged in by the study participants. It is a strong, prevalent predictor of offending. The presence of a drug or alcohol disorder and the level of substance use were both shown to be strongly and independently related to the level of self-reported offending and the number of arrests. This relationship held even when drug-related offenses and behaviors were removed from the offending measures, and characteristics including socioeconomic status, gender, and ethnicity were controlled statistically (Mulvey, Schubert, and Chassin, 2010). The good news, however, is that treatment appears to reduce both substance use and offending, at least in the short term. Youth whose treatment lasted for at least 90 days and included significant family involvement showed significant reductions in alcohol use, marijuana use, and offending over the following 6 months (Chassin et al., 2009).

Conclusions

The most important conclusion of the study is that even adolescents who have committed serious offenses are not necessarily on track for adult criminal careers. Only a small proportion of the offenders studied continued to offend at a high level throughout the followup period. The great majority reported low levels of offending after court involvement, and a significant portion of those with the highest levels of offending reduced their reoffending dramatically. Two factors that appear to distinguish high-end desisters from persisters are lower levels of substance use and greater stability in their daily routines, as measured by stability in living arrangements and work and school attendance.

The second conclusion is that incarceration may not be the most appropriate or effective option, even for many of the most serious adolescent offenders. Longer stays in juvenile facilities did not reduce reoffending; institutional placement even raised offending levels in those with the lowest level of offending. Youth who received community-based supervision and aftercare services were more likely to attend school, go to work, and avoid further offending during the 6 months after release, and longer supervision periods increased these benefits. Finally, substance use is a major factor in continued criminal activity by serious adolescent offenders. Substance abuse treatment for young offenders reduces both substance use and non-drug-related offending in the short term, if the treatment period is long enough and if families take part in the treatment with the offender. Most young offenders who are diagnosed with substance abuse disorders, however, do receive treatment in institutions or community-based settings. Given that community-based supervision may reduce reoffending and promote prosocial attitudes and behaviors, and that continued substance abuse treatment may be needed to prevent longer term relapses, integrating substance abuse treatment into community-based services may realize greater benefits in reducing serious adolescent offending while providing more efficient and effective delivery of services.

Notes

1. OJJDP is sponsoring the Pathways to Desistance study in partnership with the National Institute of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant Number R01DA019697), the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the Arizona State Governor’s Justice Commission. Investigators for this study are Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh), Robert Brame, Ph.D. (University of North Carolina–Charlotte), Elizabeth Cauffman, Ph.D. (University of California–Irvine), Laurie Chassin, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sonia Cota-Robles, Ph.D. (Temple University), Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D. (Columbia University), George Knight, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sandra Losoya, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Alex Piquero, Ph.D. (Florida State University), Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H. (University of Pittsburgh), and Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. (Temple University). The rationale for the study may be found in Mulvey et al., 2004, and the details of operations can be found in Schubert et al., 2004.

2. During their baseline interviews, 57 percent of the respondents reported that they had smoked marijuana in the previous 6 months, 40 percent had drunk alcohol during that time, and 27 percent had used cocaine, hallucinogens, or other drugs. Approximately 48 percent of the study participants had used multiple substances during the 6 months before the baseline interviews and, in each followup interview, about 28 to 30 percent reported using multiple substances in the previous 6 months. In addition, at the time of the baseline interview, 37 percent of male study participants and 35 percent of female participants were diagnosed with a substance use disorder in the previous year, three to four times the rate in the general youth population (Mulvey, Schubert, and Chassin, 2010).

References

Chassin, L., Knight, G., Vargas-Chanes, D., Losoya, S., and Naranjo, D. 2009. Substance use treatment outcomes in a sample of male serious juvenile offenders. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 36:183–194.

Chung, L., Schubert, C.A., and Mulvey, E.P. 2007. An empirical portrait of community reentry among serious juvenile offenders in two metropolitan cities. Criminal Justice and Behavior 34(11):1402–1426.

Loughran, T., Mulvey, E.P., Schubert, C.A., Fagan, J., Losoya, S.H., and Piquero, A.R. 2009. Estimating a dose-response relationship between length of stay and future recidivism in serious juvenile offenders. Criminology 47(3):699–740.

Mulvey, E.P., Schubert, C.A., and Chassin, L. 2010. Substance Use and Offending in Serious Adolescent Offenders. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Mulvey, E.P., Steinberg, L., Fagan, J., Cauffman, E., Piquero, A., Chassin, L., Knight, G., Brame, R., Schubert, C., Hecker, T., and Losoya, S. 2004. Theory and research on desistance from antisocial activity in serious juvenile offenders. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 2(3):213–236.

Mulvey, E.P., Steinberg, L., Piquero, A.R., Besana, M., Fagan, J., Schubert, C.A., and Cauffman, E. 2010. Longitudinal offending trajectories among serious adolescent offenders. Development & Psychopathology 22:453–475.

Schubert, C., Mulvey, E., Cauffman, E., Steinberg, L., Losoya, S., Hecker, T., Chassin, L., and Knight, G. 2004. Operational lessons from the Pathways to Desistance Study. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 2(3):237–255.

Acknowledgments

Edward P. Mulvey, Director of the Law and Psychiatry Program at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and principal investigator for the Pathways to Desistance Study, prepared this document as a product of the Pathways to Desistance Project, which is supported by OJJDP grant 2007–MU–FX–0002 and National Institute of Justice grant 2008–IJ–CX–0023.

NCJ 230971

Substance Use and Delinquent Behavior Among Serious Adolescent Offenders

Edward P. Mulvey, Carol A. Schubert, and Laurie Chassin

December 2010

Highlights

The Pathways to Desistance study followed more than 1,300 serious juvenile offenders for 7 years after their conviction. In this bulletin, the authors present some key findings on the link between adolescent substance use and serious offending:

•Serious/chronic offenders are much more likely than other juvenile offenders to be substance users and to qualify as having substance use disorders. Substance use and offending at one age is a consistent predictor of continued serious offending at a later age.

•Dispositional factors (e.g., sensation seeking, behavioral disinhibition, poor affect regulation, stress, depression) can lead to “externalizing” behaviors such as substance use and criminal activity.

•Substance use and serious offending fluctuate in similar patterns over time, suggesting a reciprocal or sequential relationship, but no causal relationship has been proven.

•Substance use and serious offending decrease in late adolescence. Understanding the factors that enable youth to desist from these behaviors as they learn new skills and mature may reveal avenues for intervention.

Introduction

The nexus between substance use and offending during adolescence has important implications for juvenile justice interventions. Many of the adolescents who get in trouble with the law have problems with substance use, and their offending is tied to their involvement with drugs or alcohol. Gaining a deeper understanding of the dynamic ebb and flow of these behaviors is critical to refining treatment approaches and more effectively targeting prevention efforts for adolescent offenders. The right intervention at the right time in the development of these offenders could forestall a lifetime of substance use and offending that fuel each other in a destructive pattern.

Much work has been done on the relationship between adolescent substance use and offending, but most studies have focused on general community samples or samples of at-risk youth as they begin to engage in these behaviors. These efforts have produced a sizable literature documenting the factors related to the onset or maintenance of these behaviors independently of each other. Less research has focused on the reciprocal effects of these behaviors on each other during adolescence. Also lacking is a clear understanding of how these behaviors play out beyond the point in early adulthood when youth with established histories of offending and substance use cease one behavior or the other (see Hussong et al., 2004, for an exception). Information gathered from this vantage point, joined with extant research, will contribute to a more complete understanding of the link between substance use and offending and will enhance the knowledge base available to juvenile justice policymakers and practitioners.

One OJJDP-sponsored longitudinal study offers a particularly detailed and rich picture of substance use and offending in serious adolescent offenders over time, using regular interviews conducted over a period of 7 years after court involvement. The study, Pathways to Desistance: A Prospective Study of Serious Adolescent Offenders, follows a large sample of serious (overwhelmingly felony) offenders into early adulthood, providing insight into changes across multiple life domains that contribute to offenders’ desisting from or persisting in antisocial activities (Mulvey et al., 2004) (see “About the Pathways to Desistance Study”).1 The Pathways study is important to the juvenile justice field because serious offenders, such as those followed in this study, drive much of the policy debate in juvenile justice (Greenwood, 2006) and present the system with some of its most vexing practical challenges. Among its many goals, the study tests whether the relationships between substance use and offending observed in previous studies of community-based youth or youth in detention also hold for individuals who have more serious and/or chronic problems. The study also observes the joint desistance process for substance use and offending.

This bulletin describes what is known about the relationships between substance use and offending based on extant research and the Pathways data. It is the beginning, rather than the end, of an involved story. Researchers have observed several interesting and relevant relationships between these behaviors in the sample overall and in individuals during the 2-year period following their court involvement. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how substance use and offending interact and affect the desistance process in these adolescents.

What Do We Know?

Several general statements seem warranted, given previous research on this topic.

Substance Use Problems and Serious Delinquency Are Linked

Researchers consistently find a strong link between substance use problems and serious delinquency, regardless of how they structure the inquiry.

•Studies of youth in juvenile court demonstrate that a majority of court-involved adolescents have recently used illegal substances and that more serious and chronic adolescent offenders have used more substances and are more likely to qualify for a diagnosis of a substance use disorder (Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program, 1999; Huizinga and Jakob-Chien, 1998; Wilson et al., 2001; Teplin et al., 2002).

•Investigators who study large samples of community youth observe a strong association between reported serious offending and substance use in these groups (Johnston, O’Malley, and Bachman, 2006; Ford, 2005).

•Researchers who follow adolescent offenders over time find that substance use at one age is one of the most consistent indicators of continued serious offending at a later age (Dembo et al., 1993; Lipsey and Derzon, 1998; Dembo, Wareham, and Schmeidler, 2007; D’Amico et al., 2008; Hussong et al., 2004).

The issue of when and how individuals develop these co-occurring patterns of substance use and illegal activity is less clear. Some of the same factors that put an individual at risk for involvement in criminality also put that individual at risk for substance use problems (Hawkins, Catalano, and Miller, 1992; Iacono, Malone, and McGue, 2008; Mamorstein, Iacono, and McGue, 2009). Parental substance use disorders, poor parenting, conflictual family environments, and dispositional factors such as sensation seeking and behavioral disinhibition place an adolescent at higher risk of using drugs and alcohol and/or engaging in illegal acts (Hawkins, Catalano, and Miller, 1992).

In addition, adolescents with poor affect regulation, high levels of environmental stress, or depression may use drugs and alcohol to medicate themselves as a coping mechanism. However, these relations are less consistently found—especially once “externalizing behaviors” (e.g., substance use and criminal offending) are considered—and often appear in complex interactions (Hersh and Hussong, 2009). The relation between negative mood and alcohol use has been reported to be stronger among adolescents with fewer conduct problems (Hussong, Gould, and Hersh, 2008).

Substance Use and Offending Fluctuate in Similar Patterns Over Time

It is clear that these two behaviors are associated over time, although there does not seem to be a clear progression from one to the other. Several investigators report evidence that behavior problems and aggression at a younger age predict later adolescent illicit substance use (Henry, Tolan, and Gorman-Smith, 2001; Kellam et al., 1983; Mason, Hitchings, and Spoth, 2007; Wiesner, Kim, and Capaldi, 2005), escalations in use over time (Hussong and Chassin, 1998), and later diagnoses of substance abuse and dependence (Chassin et al., 1999; Disney et al., 1999). In addition, studies suggest that early substance use predicts subsequent criminal behavior in adolescents (Huizinga, Loeber, and Thornberry, 1995; Bui, Ellickson, and Bell, 2000; Ford, 2005; French et al., 2000; Loeber and Farrington, 2000).

Recent advances in statistical methods (e.g., joint trajectory analyses) have produced other insights into this temporal relationship. Joint trajectory analyses allow the researcher to examine the comparability of the patterns of these two behaviors as they progress over the same time period (Nagin, 2005). Research using this technique has demonstrated that criminal behavior and substance use follow parallel courses over time (Sullivan and Hamilton, 2007), suggesting a reciprocal relationship between the two behaviors. Whether the relationship is sequential or reciprocal can be debated; it may be that the relationship follows different patterns in different groups of youth. It is clear, however, that delinquent behavior and substance use problems go hand in hand in adolescence.

Multiple Mechanisms May Link the Behaviors

Substance use and delinquency can interrelate in several ways over the course of adolescence to promote dual involvement and set the stage for a difficult entry into young adulthood.

Substance use in and of itself is certainly not the primary cause of involvement in illegal activity. Substance use, however, may initiate or heighten the risk of offending either independently or in conjunction with other risk factors. There are several ideas about the ways that substance use might exert this effect, as illustrated in figure 1.

Substance use and offending might have a simple reciprocal relationship. “Being high” can lower inhibitions against involvement in criminal acts (a psychopharmacological explanation), and/or committing crime might be a way to obtain funds to support substance use (an instrumental explanation) (White et al., 2002; Goldstein, 1985). According to this formulation, one behavior indicates that the other behavior is more likely to occur.

As described earlier, substance use and offending might also be linked because they are both driven by common causes such as parental substance use disorders, disrupted and conflictual family environments, or shared dispositional risk factors. For example, Young and colleagues (2000) found a single spectrum that linked novelty seeking, conduct disorder, substance experimentation, and attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder in a sample of adolescent twins. One explanation is that a common tendency toward novelty seeking and difficulty with behavioral regulation leads to a variety of externalizing behaviors, including substance use and criminal offending. Alternatively, adolescents dealing with a particularly difficult or pervasive set of problems, like difficulties learning in school and a violent home life, might find escape in either substance use or illegal activity or both.

However, the common links are not necessarily limited to the individual adolescent. The influence of the peer group and/or neighborhood (social context) might determine the co-occurrence of substance use and offending. A large proportion of serious delinquent acts in mid- and late adolescence are committed in groups (Zimring, 1998), and substance use might be a particularly potent component of the group process (Mason et al., 2007). Alternatively, regular substance use may place adolescents in group situations where crime (particularly violence) is more likely (Goldstein, 1985; Fagan and Chin, 1991; MacCoun, Kilmer, and Reuter, 2003). Continued gang involvement, which increases the risk for crime and substance use during late adolescence (Thornberry, 1998; Thornberry et al., 2003), is an extreme case of this dynamic. Similarly, youth who live in high-crime neighborhoods might be introduced to drug use or recruited for criminal activities at a disproportionate rate compared with youth who live in more stable neighborhoods (Ellickson and McGuigan, 2000; Little and Steinberg, 2006).

Finally, criminal offending and substance use may both be part of a process of delayed development. In the years following adolescence, an individual’s continued drug or alcohol use may reduce his or her chances of a successful transition to developmentally appropriate adult roles such as employee, spouse, and parent (Chassin et al., 1999; Yamaguchi and Kandel, 1985). Adolescent substance use can produce a false sense of reality and autonomy that interferes with the development of emerging social competencies and coping skills (Baumrind and Moselle, 1985). Some data support this idea: Adolescents’ illegal drug use predicts a lower level of autonomy and less competence in young adulthood (Chassin, Pitts, and DeLucia, 1999), and adolescents in the juvenile justice system have a lower level of decisionmaking ability than do adolescents in the community who are of similar age and ethnic background (Grisso, 2004). However, the interplay among maturity, attainment of developmental competencies, drug use, and delinquency is largely unexplored terrain.

Substance Use and Offending Decrease in Late Adolescence

Another intriguing question about these behaviors, aside from how they fuel each other during adolescence, is how and why they both usually cease in early adulthood. Many studies show that both substance use problems and delinquency start during mid-adolescence and then stop or sharply decrease for many individuals in their 20s and 30s (Arnett, 2000). Criminologists agree on the existence of an age-crime curve, which shows that the likelihood of both official and self-reported criminal activity decreases during late adolescence and early adulthood (Piquero et al., 2002), with less than half of serious adolescent offenders continuing their criminal career into adulthood (Redding, 1997). Notably, similar age curves are observed for alcohol and drug use, substance use problems, and substance use diagnoses (Chen and Kandel, 1995; Bachman et al., 2002). One or more processes during late adolescence and early adulthood cause some individuals who engaged in these activities when they were younger—even very serious offenders or heavy substance users—to stop altogether or slow down their rate of offending and/or substance use if they remain active.

It is also clear that this dropoff does not follow the same pattern for everyone. Numerous analyses of data on longitudinal criminal offending and substance use indicate that this change follows several different patterns over time. Some subgroups continue at a high rate, others stop quickly and completely, and still others drop off at different rates of decline or at later ages (Broidy et al., 2003; Bachman et al., 2002). Although differences in sampling strategies, outcome measures, and analytic approaches affect the number of groups and the shapes of the “dropoff” curves obtained, studies consistently find different pathways of desistance from both substance use problems and criminal involvement in the period from late adolescence to early adulthood. A better understanding of the life events or interventions that affect these pathways would have important implications for developing interventions to enhance the desistance process.

Little Is Known About What Promotes Desistance

Several general mechanisms may promote desistance from substance use and/or criminal activity. One possibility is that normal developmental change in late adolescence and early adulthood makes criminal behavior and/or substance use less attractive or acceptable. As individuals become more mature socially, emotionally, and intellectually, changes in their moral reasoning, considerations regarding the future, impulse control, or susceptibility to peer influence may steer them away from antisocial, risky, and dangerous behavior and toward more socially desirable and safer activities (Keating, 2004; Steinberg and Cauffman, 1996). Immediate thrills and impressing friends hold less sway in the now larger picture of the world. In addition, individuals may acquire new skills (either personal or vocational) that lead to new opportunities and offer alternative forms of validation.

A different, but related, possibility is that the transition into adult roles (employment, family, and citizenship) promotes new behavioral patterns and demands that make involvement in antisocial activity less acceptable and rewarding (Cernkovich and Giordano, 2001; Hamil-Luker, Land, and Blau, 2004). Criminologists have long discussed the notion that increased involvement in “routine activities” should curb criminal involvement (Cohen and Felson, 1979; Osgood et al., 1996) because working at a job, engaging in more serious romantic relationships, starting a family, and fulfilling community roles should result in reduced exposure to settings where antisocial activities are the norm (Warr, 1998; Uggen and Manza, 2004; Sampson and Laub, 2003). In concrete terms, individuals who spend their daytime hours in a supervised workplace, their evening hours with their spouse and children, and their nighttime hours sleeping to rest for the next workday have little opportunity to engage in serious antisocial behaviors.

Evidence on substance abuse shows that adult role transitions are related to decreases in alcohol and drug use (Kandel and Yamaguchi, 1999; Bachman et al., 2002), and it is likely that regular fulfillment of activities related to adult roles also moves individuals out of the circles where criminal involvement is more prevalent and accepted.

A significant corollary of the general developmental view adds the dimension of social investment as a potentially important factor in this process (Laub, Nagin, and Sampson, 1998; Laub and Sampson, 2001). According to this view, it is not simply social roles that are important. Rather, the strength of individuals’ attachment and commitment to these new roles and opportunities plays a large part in determining whether they will continue their antisocial activities. If these new roles and opportunities create valued experiences (e.g., a loving relationship, respect as part of a work group) that are important to the individual offender, the individual increases his or her “social capital” (Portes, 1998) and may reach a point where the new lifestyle becomes a reality that is worth protecting. Once individuals form a commitment to work and family, they have something to lose and therefore something to guard. Many contend that positive change then occurs as an internal psychological realignment of self-conceptions takes hold (Kiecolt, 1994; Giordano, Cernkovich, and Rudolph, 2002); that is, an individual takes a proactive role in creating new opportunities for positive social involvement and integrates experiences and opportunities in light of a newfound, “reformed” self (Shover, 1996; Maruna, 2001).

In short, many substance-abusing juvenile offenders will desist from one or both of these behaviors in early adulthood, but very little is known about how these processes of desistance operate or what factors influence them. Without longitudinal information about the interaction of these two antisocial behaviors over time, it is difficult to guide the design of effective programs and policies for these adolescents.

Evidence From the Pathways to Desistance Study

The data in the Pathways study will increase understanding of the dynamics between substance use and criminal offending among serious adolescent offenders, individuals for whom interventions (either treatment or sanction oriented) would seem most appropriate and could hold considerable promise. It is not apparent that the relationships seen in broader samples of adolescents hold for this more restricted and problematic group of offenders. The relationship of substance use to offending over time may not be as powerful in a group of serious adolescent offenders, where both of these behaviors are more common. In addition, intervention and monitoring may be less effective, considering that these adolescents may be more established in a substance-using and criminal lifestyle.

The initial analyses presented in this bulletin include the early followup periods of the study and focus on several basic questions about the level of substance use problems found in this sample and the relationship of substance use and substance use problems to offending. Some interesting regularities emerge in these early followup periods, and the research team continues to examine these issues in ongoing analyses. Following is a summary of findings to date on several key issues.

Levels of Substance Use and Substance Use Problems Are High in Serious Offenders

Researchers examined baseline data and followup interviews to address this issue, providing insight into the patterns of substance use and substance use problems found in these adolescents at the time of their involvement with the court and in the subsequent 2-year period. In general, analysis found that reported substance use and substance use problems were both very high in this sample. The baseline data yielded the following information:

•Eighty-five percent of the sample reported using marijuana at some point in their lives, 80 percent reported using alcohol, 25 percent hallucinogens, 23 percent cocaine, 21 percent sedatives, 15 percent stimulants, 13 percent inhalants, 7 percent opiates, 16 percent ecstasy, 4 percent amyl nitrate odorizers, and 6 percent reported using some “other” drug at some point in their life.

•Forty percent of the participants reported consuming alcohol in the past 6 months, averaging between one and three times per month.

•Fifty-seven percent of the participants reported using marijuana in the past 6 months, averaging between one and three times per week.

•Twenty-seven percent reported using other illegal drugs (i.e., cocaine, hallucinogens, sedatives, inhalants, opiates, ecstasy, amyl nitrate odorizers, or “other”) an average of one or two times in the past 6 months.

The baseline data reveal considerable use of multiple substances. At the time of the baseline interview, approximately 48 percent of the sample reported having used more than one substance in the past 6 months. More than one-half (57 percent) of the sizable proportion of youth who reported using marijuana in the past 6 months also reported drinking alcohol, and 77 percent of youth who reported drinking alcohol in the past 6 months also reported using marijuana in that same time period. At each followup interview, 28 to 30 percent of the sample reported using more than one substance in the previous 6 months.

At the same time, a considerable proportion of the sample reported very limited substance use over the 24-month followup period. Approximately 26 percent of the sample reported no alcohol use during this period, 34 percent reported no marijuana use, and 64 percent reported no use of other drugs. Approximately 19 percent of the sample reported no use of any type of substance over the 24-month followup period.

For many of these adolescents, however, substance use and the resulting problems have reached a point of clinical concern. A substantial number of adolescents in the sample have diagnosable substance use disorders, based on criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM–IV) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).2 According to the DSM–IV, alcohol/drug abuse is characterized by the persistence of the substance use despite repeated negative consequences such as problems with work, school, and relationships. Alcohol/drug dependence is characterized by an inability to control or limit use; the development of tolerance (a need for increased dosages to achieve the same effect) and withdrawal symptoms are two indicators of substance dependence. In the Pathways data, at baseline, 37 percent of male participants and 35 percent of female participants met the DSM–IV diagnostic threshold for drug or alcohol abuse/dependence. These rates of disorder are approximately three to four times higher than those seen in samples of a comparable age group within the community as a whole (Lewinsohn et al., 1993; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2003).

Substance use is also linked to other illegal activities in this group. The presence of a drug or alcohol disorder and the level of substance use were both shown to be strongly and independently related to the level of self-reported offending and the number of arrests. This relationship held even when drug-related offenses and behaviors were removed from the offending measures and when a variety of covariates (i.e., socio-economic status, gender, and ethnicity) were controlled statistically.

There are strong, consistent relationships among ethnicity, gender, and substance use problems in this sample. African American adolescents have fewer symptoms of substance use dependence and social consequences from substance use than do Hispanic adolescents, and Hispanic adolescents have fewer symptoms or consequences than do white adolescents. Females also report significantly lower levels of dependence symptoms and social consequences, although with the same pattern of ethnic differences as shown for males. As seen in figure 2, African American adolescents are least likely to meet the diagnostic threshold for substance use disorder in the year prior to enrollment in the study. (This pattern also was found in other samples of juvenile offenders; see Teplin et al., 2002.)

The pattern of ethnic differences is also found in non-adjudicated community samples (Armstrong and Costello, 2002), indicating that some consistently powerful cultural/ethnic factors appear to operate in the lives of these serious offenders and also in their less antisocial community counterparts. These findings may also indicate that there are likely significant variations in the role of substance use and offending among different ethnic/racial groups of serious offenders. The mechanisms behind these observed ethnicity effects, however, are complex and underexamined in both community and offender samples. Economic and neighborhood opportunity as well as cultural and familial factors undoubtedly play some significant roles in producing the widely observed differences in substance use among these groups.

The Pathways study provides the opportunity to examine a particular mechanism related to these ethnicity differences, at least in relation to the Hispanic adolescents in the sample.3 Pathways investigators used a subset of the Pathways sample (300 male Mexican-American offenders) to examine the relationship of cultural adaptation to patterns of heavy episodic drinking and marijuana use from ages 15 to 20 (Losoya et al., 2008). Because of the richness of the Pathways data, these analyses were able to identify clear patterns of cultural adjustment over this time period as well as control for time in a supervised environment.

Losoya and colleagues found that bicultural adaptation (i.e., successful adaptation to both the ethnic and mainstream cultures) is related to lower substance use. That is, youth who retain some of the values of their native culture while also adapting to the mainstream culture do better. This work goes beyond simple racial comparisons to gauge the power of cultural processes that might affect Mexican-American youth. It is also important because it is the first time that researchers have considered these developmental processes for serious offenders. In addition, these findings highlight the interaction of cultural values and beliefs with behavior—a reminder that racial comparisons alone do not reveal the full story of ethnic differences.

Investigators also examined how involvement in offenses related to drug dealing and substance use overlap. Although the proportion of drug offenders was capped at 15 percent of the sample for the Pathways study, it is still possible to get a glimpse of how drug offenders may differ from other types of offenders. Sixty-three percent of the individuals in the sample who had drug charges also met the diagnostic criteria (based on the Comprehensive International Diagnostic Interview [CIDI]) for a substance use disorder. This is a significantly higher proportion than for offenders whose presenting offense was not a drug charge (63 percent versus 40 percent).

It is important to keep in mind that the prevalence rates of substance use and substance use problems in the study sample do not represent those likely to be found in the broad sample of juvenile offenders appearing before the court. The adolescents in the Pathways sample were chosen because they had been adjudicated of a serious offense and the number of individuals charged with a drug offense was capped. However, these prevalence rates provide some information about the magnitude of these problems among adolescent offenders at the “deep end” of the juvenile justice system. The problem of substance use seems rather formidable. A vast majority of these offenders have notable histories of substance use, a large proportion have diagnosable problems, and there is a clear link between the level of offending and the level of substance use in this sample of serious offenders.

Substance Use and Offending Appear To Have a Consistent Relationship

As noted earlier, offending and substance use and substance use problems appear to co-occur regularly in serious offenders; that is, offenders with high scores on one self-report measure also have high scores on the other self-report measure. One advantage of a longitudinal design such as that used in the Pathways to Desistance study is that behaviors can be examined for the consistency of their relationship to each other over time in the same individual. For example, investigators can examine whether one behavior (e.g., a certain level of substance use) consistently precedes or follows another behavior (e.g., self-reported offending) in a series of observations of an individual over time. Investigators in the Pathways study conducted such an analysis to determine whether the level of substance use was systematically related to the level of reported offending over time.

This analysis used the structural equation modeling (SEM) method to determine whether increased substance use predicted increased self-reported offending in the next followup period or the reverse (i.e., increased offending predicted increased substance use). This model also controlled for the effect of substance use and the level of offending in one time period on the likelihood of repeating that behavior in a subsequent time period.

As expected, substance use and offending in this model are significantly related to each other in the same time period and across time periods. In other words, individuals involved in substance use in one time period are more likely to be involved in offending during that same period and in the next time period. However, these preliminary analyses demonstrated that substance use predicts offending in the next time period more consistently than offending predicts substance use.

It is important to note two cautionary points about these findings. First, although SEM permits an assessment of the relationship between outcomes, the findings do not demonstrate causality and should not be interpreted as such. Second, these observed relationships are only preliminary because the study did not control for other case characteristics or life events that might alter the observed patterns. D’Amico and colleagues (2008) have taken a similar approach, but they introduced controls for other characteristics. When the controls were introduced, they found a reciprocal relationship between the two behaviors over time. As the Pathways study continues, investigators will need to add controls to determine whether the same effects are observed.

Offenders With Identified Substance Use Problems Are Receiving Treatment

Participants in the Pathways study provide information about the types of social services they receive while in institutional care and while in the community during each of the followup periods. In addition, investigators administer a structured clinical assessment instrument (the CIDI) that provides a diagnosis for several disorders, one of which is substance abuse/dependence. With these sources, researchers can ascertain whether the adolescents in the sample who most need treatment for substance use actually receive it. Following are some of the preliminary findings:

•Those with diagnosable substance use problems were four times more likely to receive treatment for drug and alcohol abuse than those with no substance use problems (44 percent versus 11 percent). This statistic suggests an appropriate targeting of services, even though many juvenile offenders with substance use disorders did not receive treatment.

•The residential setting matters (see Mulvey, Schubert, and Chung, 2007):

■Individuals with diagnosable substance use problems in adult jail and juvenile detention facilities were 2.7 times and 5.4 times as likely, respectively, to receive treatment for drug and alcohol abuse than youth without a diagnosable substance use problem.

■Regardless of whether the youth had a substance use problem, about 56 percent reported receiving treatment for drug and alcohol abuse in contracted residential settings, and 64 percent received the service in contracted residential mental health settings. Thus, in these settings, it appears that youth receive a “package” of treatment services even when there is not necessarily a clearly demonstrated need.

■After building in statistical controls for a set of background variables, analyses showed that, in the state-run juvenile correctional facilities included in this study, individuals with diagnosable substance use problems were also more likely to receive treatment for substance use issues than those without such problems.

•The vast majority who received treatment received it while in a facility, and very few youth in the sample (less than 10 percent) received treatment for substance use problems in the community. Despite widespread recognition of the importance of community-based treatment for substance use, it is clear that these adolescents, who appear to be in considerable need of such treatment, receive little of it.

Pathways investigators have also considered the effect of drug and alcohol treatment on later substance use in this group of serious offenders. Chassin and colleagues (2009) examined reductions in alcohol consumption, marijuana use, cigarette smoking, and nondrug offending in relation to whether adolescents received treatment, whether the treatment occurred over a sustained time period (at least 90 days), and whether the treatment included family participation. Sustained treatment and family participation are considered two elements of “best practices” for adolescent drug treatment (Bukstein and the Work Group on Quality Issues, 2005; National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2006). Chassin and her colleagues found evidence that, in general, drug treatment produced reductions in substance use that could not be explained by other factors (e.g., past use patterns, being confined, age-related reductions). In addition, reductions in nondrug offending were found, but only when treatment incorporated family members.

These findings are important because most studies examine a particular research therapy that is implemented with high levels of fidelity in a carefully controlled manner. These analyses, however, examine the effect of the usual treatments provided to juvenile offenders and have found that they do have an impact. In short, the general approach taken in the system appears to have an impact in reducing substance use and offending, if it is done for a sustained period and with family involvement. Substance use treatment, if done with recognized quality standards, can be a valuable component of the types of interventions offered in the juvenile justice system.

Unraveling to what extent reductions in substance use translate to sustained reductions in offending is a question that still needs to be addressed adequately. Reducing substance use is clearly not a panacea for reducing criminal offending; other interventions for risk factors uniquely related to offending are obviously still essential. It is important, however, to note the importance of family involvement to any of these efforts, wherever they are focused. It seems apparent that the dynamics of an adolescent’s family play a central role as a potential risk factor and are key to unlocking the mystery of how these two behaviors develop and continue for serious offenders.

In addition, Pathways investigators found that treatment lasting for at least 90 days was successful in reducing marijuana use, whereas reductions in cigarette smoking and nondrug offending were found only when treatment incorporated family members. These findings highlight the need for justice programs to incorporate best practices to realize optimal outcomes for this group of offenders.

Summary

The evidence from the Pathways to Desistance study provides a rich opportunity to examine the relations between substance use and criminal offending in a sample of serious adolescent offenders. The study’s data make it clear that, for serious offenders, substance use and criminal offending are strongly linked. Analyses so far have also shown that substance use is a substantial problem in this group of offenders, few offenders are receiving treatment in the community, and treatment for substance use holds some promise for reducing offending if the approaches reflect best standards of practice.

Further work will unravel some of the mechanisms connecting these two behaviors, and this information will have implications for understanding and intervening in both behaviors. The linkage between substance use and offending may reflect both reciprocity between the two behaviors and common causes; they may fuel each other, and both may be more likely given a common risk profile.

What is clear is that both behaviors decline as individuals, even serious adolescent offenders, enter young adulthood, and unlocking the factors that promote these declines could have substantial implications for improving outcomes for serious offenders. Additional studies are necessary to understand desistance from substance use and criminal offending (either in combination or individually) as well as variability across ethnic groups and genders. It is clear that there is a substantial unmet need for services among serious adolescent offenders, and targeting and improving substance use services for this group will help move them toward a successful transition to adulthood.

Endnotes

1. OJJDP is sponsoring the Pathways to Desistance study (Project Number 2007–MU–FX–0002) in partnership with the National Institute of Justice (Project Number 2008–IJ–CX–0023), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant Number R01DA019697), the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the Arizona State Governor’s Justice Commission. Investigators for this study are Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh), Robert Brame, Ph.D. (University of North Carolina–Charlotte), Elizabeth Cauffman, Ph.D. (University of California–Irvine), Laurie Chassin, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sonia Cota-Robles, Ph.D. (Temple University), Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D. (Columbia University), George Knight, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sandra Losoya, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Alex Piquero, Ph.D. (Florida State University), Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H. (University of Pittsburgh), and Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. (Temple University).

2. As part of the baseline interview, researchers administered the Comprehensive International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) (World Health Organization, 1990) to obtain a diagnosis of substance abuse or dependence.

3. The Hispanic subsample was examined mainly because researchers had a large enough group of these adolescents, adequate measures of acculturation and enculturation, and previous work on which to build.

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Acknowledgments

Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Law and Psychiatry Program at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC); Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H., is the Research Program Administrator of the Law and Psychiatry Program at WPIC; and Laurie Chassin, Ph.D., is Regents Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University.

NCJ 232790

Transfer of Juveniles to Adult Court: Effects of a Broad Policy in One Court

Edward P. Mulvey and Carol A. Schubert

December 2012

Highlights

This bulletin presents findings from the Pathways to Desistance study about the effects of transfer from juvenile court to adult court on a sample of serious adolescent offenders in Maricopa County, AZ. The authors compare the extant literature with findings from the Pathways study and discuss the possible implications of these findings for future changes in transfer statutes. Following are some key points:

•Adolescents in the adult system may be at risk for disruptions in their personal development, identity formation, relationships, learning, growth in skills and competencies, and positive movement into adult status.

•Most of the youth in the study who were sent to adult facilities returned to the community within a few years, varying widely in their levels of adjustment. Youth were more likely to successfully adjust when they were not influenced by antisocial peers.

•Prior work indicates that transferred youth are more likely to commit criminal acts than adolescents kept in the juvenile justice system.

•Findings from the Pathways study indicate that transfer may have a differential effect (either reducing or increasing offending), depending on the juvenile’s presenting offense and prior offense history.

Transferring an adolescent offender to adult court is a weighty decision. It has far-reaching implications for the adolescent involved and significant symbolic meaning for the justice system. For the adolescent, transfer to the adult system holds the possibility of harsher punishment (including physical, sexual, or psychological victimization by other inmates) and enduring developmental costs (Chung, Little, and Steinberg, 2005; Mulvey and Schubert, 2012). For the system, transferring an adolescent to adult court is an unambiguous statement that the criminal justice system will no longer shelter the adolescent, by virtue of his or her acts, from harsh justice. Transfer to adult court indicates that the demand for proportional punishment has trumped the goal of individualized rehabilitation found in the juvenile justice system (Zimring, 2005).

Since the court’s inception, juvenile justice policymakers and professionals have wrestled with the decision about when to transfer an adolescent to adult court (Tanenhaus, 2004). Currently, individual states have combinations of statutorily defined mechanisms for determining when the movement of a juvenile case to adult court is required or appropriate, including procedures such as judicial transfer, certification, automatic waiver, or direct file (Griffin, 2003; Fagan and Zimring, 2000). In general, state statutes define a set of crimes for adolescent offenders of a certain age that warrant processing in the adult system (i.e., a statutory exclusion from the presumed jurisdiction of the juvenile court). Most states also have a mechanism (e.g., decertification, reverse waiver) for returning the case to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court when deemed appropriate. (See Sickmund, 1994; Griffin, 2006; and Redding, 2008, for an elaboration of these statutory provisions.)

Statutory standards have not always driven the process of transferring an adolescent to adult court. For most of the history of the juvenile court, the decision to transfer an adolescent offender to the adult court rested primarily on the discretion of the juvenile court judge. Since the inception of the juvenile court in 1899, transfer was possible for a range of “heinous” offenses when the juvenile court judge deemed that the resources available to the court were insufficient to rehabilitate an adolescent (Tanenhaus, 2000).

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, a sharp rise in violent crime produced intense interest in the causes of juvenile crime and the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system. Juvenile arrests for violent offenses jumped dramatically during this time period, increasing 64 percent nationally between 1980 and 1994 (Butts and Travis, 2002). In addition, some highly publicized cases of juveniles committing repeated, serious violent offenses contributed to public perception that the juvenile justice system was inadequate to intervene effectively with adolescents who were a legitimate threat to public safety (Butterfield, 1995). These forces even prompted radical, and ultimately unfounded, rhetoric about a coming wave of adolescent “superpredators” unlike any previous juvenile offenders in their heartlessness and lack of response to interventions (DiIulio, 1995).

In this context, the public began to distrust the ability of the juvenile justice system to ensure public safety, and state legislatures added statutory provisions to ensure that youth who committed certain serious offenses were not roaming the streets. Between 1992 and 1999, all but one state expanded legislation that made it easier for juveniles to be tried as adults (Hansen, 2001). These changes increased the set of crimes that qualified an adolescent for transfer, lifted age restrictions, and added statutory exclusion and prosecutorial discretion as methods for achieving transfer to adult court. The movement of adolescents to adult court was no longer the product of a juvenile court judge exercising his or her discretion; it was instead largely the product of who fell into the statutorily defined net of eligibility and was not waived back to juvenile court. Rather than relying on a judgment of individual appropriateness regarding transfer, the emphasis was instead on the act, not the actor, and on retribution, not rehabilitation (Griffin, 2006).

Effects of Changes in Transfer Policies on Practice

It is generally believed that these statutory reforms produced an increase in the rate of transfer, at least in a large number of locales (Fagan, 2008; Penney and Moretti, 2005). However, it is difficult to gauge the specific effects of these changes because of the lack of comprehensive and consistent data about transferred adolescent offenders. No systematic national count of the number of youth who are transferred or waived to criminal court exists, nor are there consistent data on the characteristics of these adolescents across locales. The National Center for Juvenile Justice tracks judicial transfers made at the discretion of juvenile court judges. These figures show a clear decline in adolescent transfers using this mechanism, presumably because other statutory mechanisms have increased their rate of transfer (Adams and Addie, 2010). However, no accurate tallies of the total number of transfers across all possible mechanisms exists.

The sources for estimating the number of adolescents in adult prisons or jails on any given day or during any given period of time are also inconsistent (Woolard et al., 2005). According to available data, the number and proportion of adolescents in adult prisons appear to have peaked in the mid-1990s (about 5,000 prisoners, or 2.3 percent of the total prison population, according to Hartney, 2006) and to have fallen since then to less than 3,000, or 1.2 percent, in 2004 (Hartney, 2006; see Austin, Johnson, and Gregoriou, 2000, for somewhat larger estimates for the mid-1990s). Estimates of the number of adolescents in adult jails on any given day are considerably greater, ranging from about 7,000 (Hartney, 2006) to 19,000 (Austin, Johnson, and Gregoriou, 2000)—about 1 in 10 youth incarcerated in the United States are admitted to an adult prison or jail (Eggleston, 2007).

In addition, little is actually known about outcomes for adolescent offenders who are transferred to the adult system. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) funded a recent study to compile available information about the number of adolescents who were transferred across a range of locales and the subsequent sanctions these individuals received. Study results are anticipated in 2012 and are expected to be “the best national estimates ever, and the most detailed exploration of who the kids are and what actually happens to them” (Kelly, 2010, p. 31).

Despite the lack of definitive numeric estimates, it is reasonable to assume that the changes in transfer statutes have led to an increase in the heterogeneity of the youth sent to adult court in many locales (Schubert et al., 2010). That is, expansions of the transfer statutes and an increased reliance on the presenting offense have made it easier for the adult court to process a broader range of adolescents; these adolescents likely differ widely in their prior legal involvement, developmental status (because there is now a wider age span for youth who are eligible for transfer), and specific risk factors related to offending. In general, researchers believe that the group of adolescents now transferred to adult court includes “a broad range of offenders who are neither particularly serious nor particularly chronic” (Bishop and Frazier, 2000, p. 265).

Reconsideration of the Current Transfer Policy

The wisdom of current transfer policies has been widely questioned, and some have begun to voice two major concerns about the potential impacts of these practices (Fagan and Zimring, 2000; Redding, 2008). The first concern is about fairness: Does placement in adult court expose adolescents to punishments and conditions that are unduly harsh? The second concern is about utility: Does the practice of juvenile transfer to adult court actually reduce crime as compared with placement in juvenile court?

Possible Detrimental Effects of Transfer

This section discusses some of the detrimental effects of transferring juveniles to adult court.

Longer Sentences

One potentially harmful outcome for transferred adolescent offenders is a longer or harsher sentence than they might have experienced if they had remained in the juvenile justice system. Both sides of the political spectrum seem to believe that this is the case. Those in favor of “get tough” policies promote long sentences for youth and see transfer to the adult system as a method to achieve this end. Meanwhile, those opposing adult sentences for juveniles imply that transfer to adult court produces long confinement in an adult facility.

Although clearly there are adolescents who receive extended stays in adult correctional facilities that could not be imposed on them if they stayed in the juvenile justice system, the overall impact of transfer on extending institutional confinement for all adolescents involved in this process is not totally clear. For one thing, about 20 percent of transferred adolescent offenders receive probation in adult court (Bishop, 2000). For those who receive adult sentences, some evidence exists that juveniles who are transferred receive harsher or more punitive sentences compared with those who remain in the juvenile justice system (Kupchik, Fagan, and Liberman, 2003; Kurlychek and Johnson, 2004; Myers, 2003), possibly because the mere knowledge that a youth was transferred may convey a heightened level of risk to the judge, who may address it through a longer sentence (Kurlychek and Johnson, 2010). Males (2008), however, tracked 35,000 releasees from the California Department of Juvenile Justice and reported that juveniles were released from the adult system after a shorter time served than youth who were sentenced for the same offenses in the juvenile justice system.

Whatever the increased chance of extended incarceration might be with processing in the adult court, it is still clear that many adolescents who are processed in adult court are not necessarily confined for extended periods but, instead, come back to the community while they are still young adults. Redding (1999, citing a 1996 Texas study) reports that, although 87 percent of a sample of 946 juveniles received longer sentences in criminal court than they would have received in juvenile court, the average prison time actually served was only 3.5 years (an average of about 27 percent of the sentence imposed). In addition, BJS estimated that 78 percent of persons who were younger than age 18 when admitted to a state prison in 1997 would be released by age 21 (Strom, 2000). Whether or not they receive harsher sentences, the majority of adolescents transferred to the adult court are nonetheless coming back to the community during their early adulthood.

Victimization

Victimization in adult jail or prison presents another very real and troubling possibility for adolescents processed in the adult system. The idea that other inmates or guards may subject adolescent offenders to physical, sexual, or psychological victimization because they are confined in adult facilities gives pause to even the most ardent supporters of retribution as a justification for transfer. As Mulvey and Schubert (2012) note, “Doing the time for doing the crime might be seen as fair, but doing much worse time because the crime was done while an adolescent seems to tip the balance beyond even-handed justice” (p. 846).

The available evidence points to the conclusion that adolescents are at increased risk of being physically or sexually victimized when they are housed in adult facilities. Even though adolescents represent only a small proportion of inmates in adult facilities, in 2005, 21 percent of all victims of substantiated incidents of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence in jails were juveniles younger than age 18 (Beck and Harrison, 2008). In addition, Beyer (1997) states that juveniles in adult facilities are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted and two times more likely to be beaten by staff than youth held in juvenile facilities (see also Feld, 1977, for a discussion of violence in juvenile settings). These estimates, however, are based on limited data. Interviews of inmates that BJS researchers conducted indicate that the annual prevalence of sexual assaults in juvenile facilities may range from 12 percent (Beck, Harrison, and Guerino, 2010) to 20 percent (National Prison Rape Elimination Commission Report, 2009). In contrast, other survey data by Fagan and Kupchik (as cited in Fagan, 2008, p. 101) indicate that in the juvenile facilities examined, the rates of reported physical violence were greater than the rates that adolescents in adult facilities reported. Although the exact amount of increased risk of assault may be in question, the studies in this area generally document that the risk of assault for a juvenile in an adult facility is substantially greater than the risk for an adult in the same facility.

The fact that an adolescent is at increased risk for assault in an adult facility is not surprising—placements in prisons and jails put relatively immature and inexperienced adolescents into a social environment that requires a tough exterior to survive. Such an arrangement seems to inevitably increase an adolescent’s chances of being involved in a physical confrontation, either through efforts to establish a reputation or to resist assaults or sexual advances (Lane et al., 2002; McShane and Williams, 1989). The exact amount of increased risk of victimization is difficult to estimate, however, given the inadequacies of the data available and the tenuous validity of comparing datasets collected in different ways (Mulvey and Schubert, 2012).

Disruptions in Development

In addition to the immediate physical and psychological dangers resulting from incarceration, adolescents transferred to the adult system can also experience harmful disruptions in their development during late adolescence and early adulthood. Adolescent offenders can be assumed to be particularly diverse, and potentially delayed, in many aspects of social development (Monahan et al., 2009). Also, considerable evidence exists that prison and jail environments present challenges to one’s sense of self and identity that even hardened criminals find disorienting, upsetting, and traumatic. Particularly vulnerable adolescents are thus taking the next steps of their developmental journey in an environment that does not promote physical or emotional health and that may harm their progress as well. Although an adolescent and an adult might receive what appears to be an equivalent sentence for a similar crime (e.g., 3 years for a felony assault), adolescents are paying for their crimes at a different point in their life journey; the impact of this experience may be more dramatic as a result.

Identity formation is one of the most salient processes of adolescent development that incarceration might affect. To fashion a sense of self (i.e., to figure out who one is in relation to family and others, as well as what one’s future might hold), most adolescents follow a pattern of individuating from parents, orienting toward peers, and integrating components of attitudes and behavior into an autonomous self-identity (Collins and Steinberg, 2006). The last stage of this process involves choosing the identity that actually “fits” from the many that might have been “tried on”—as well as reconciling and consolidating what the person might want to be (the idealized self) with what the person might worry about being or becoming (the feared self) (Oyserman and Fryberg, 2006). Navigating this developmental period successfully requires supportive adults, healthy relationships with peers, and opportunities to make autonomous decisions (Scott and Steinberg, 2008).

Adolescents in adult facilities try to accomplish this developmental task in environments that present very real dangers to their safety; this is hardly an environment in which experimentation with a wide range of self-presentations or alternative viewpoints can be pursued with impunity. Instead, the pervasive influence of prisonization—adaptation to prison through identification with the role of being a criminal among criminals (Clemmer, 1958; Gillespie, 2003)—can be expected to undermine healthy identity development. In addition, the likelihood of receiving positive support for identity development from either peers or adults in these settings seems low. Peer relationships often offer little more than “schooling” that is useful for later criminality (Maruna and Toch, 2005), and adult relationships are likely to be negative. In the end, prisons and jails are primarily designed to break down identities, not foster new, resilient ones that are adaptive to the world outside the facility walls. Adolescents in these settings are forming a sense of who they are in an environment that tells them they should not trust anyone and they should not try to be different.

Adolescents in the adult system also often lose critical opportunities for learning in late adolescence. By definition, adolescence marks the transition period between childhood and adulthood during which an individual progresses toward adult levels of responsibility and adult roles. Adolescents gradually take greater control over an expanding range of life decisions; they also make mistakes, pick up pointers, and learn lessons along the way. According to Zimring (2005), during this period adolescents are operating with a “learner’s permit” for developing maturity; they are generally under the watchful eye of caring individuals and are afforded more tolerance from society for making bad choices.

Spending time in prison or jail, however, curtails the amount of an adolescent’s “practice time” to freely develop skills and competencies in several areas. Learning about job-related expectations, gaining résumé-building skills, discovering qualities in a potential life partner, learning how to spend unstructured time, and learning to manage a household are not easily acquired behavioral repertoires—they require some trial and error. The regimented and highly structured schedules and restrictions in jail and prison environments, however, at best reduce opportunities to develop lasting romantic relationships, identify career interests, or develop work skills. Even the most progressive of these environments (e.g., specialized young adult offender programs) cannot provide experiences as broad as those provided to unconfined youth.

Do Transfer Policies Reduce Crime?

Over the past two decades, researchers and policymakers have become increasingly interested in whether expanded statutory guidelines for juvenile transfers to adult court have actually reduced overall criminal offending by transferred adolescents or juvenile crime more generally. There are a number of ways in which such statutory guidelines could affect crime levels. First, locking up serious offenders could reduce crime because highly criminally active adolescents are removed from the streets during the years they would be committing these crimes (incapacitation). Second, tougher and more inclusive transfer policies could deter future crime; i.e., adolescent offenders transferred to adult court might refrain from future offending because they have learned that the criminal justice system will impose a harsh penalty if they offend seriously again (specific deterrence). In addition, other adolescents, although not transferred themselves, might reduce their offending because they are aware that harsher penalties are in place, thus making the cost of continued offending unacceptably high (general deterrence).

There is no solid empirical information about the potential effects of incapacitation on the offending of adolescents transferred to adult court. Such analyses would require estimates of the amount of crime that these individuals might have committed compared with the incapacitation effect that might have been obtained if these same individuals had remained in the juvenile justice system. Although some analyses indicate that increased incarceration rates have produced some incapacitation effect (Spelman, 2000), the amount of crime reduction attributable to expanded transfer policies is unclear. There is some reason to be skeptical that the effect would be large because the level of incapacitation achieved from incarceration depends on whether the most criminally active individuals are being confined. This is a questionable assumption, given that transfer statutes are based primarily on the current offense rather than the overall risk and chronicity of offending (Redding, 2008).

It is also unclear whether a general deterrence effect exists that is attributable to more stringent transfer statutes. Jensen and Metsger (1994), using a time-series approach, found a 13-percent increase in arrest rates for violent juvenile crime in Idaho after the implementation of an automatic transfer statute. Singer and colleagues (Singer and McDowell, 1988; Singer, 1996) found that a New York statute that automatically sends violent juvenile offenders to adult court had no deterrent effect on overall juvenile crime, even though the law was widely applied and publicized in the media. In contrast, Levitt (1998) conducted an econometrically oriented, multistate study that found support for a deterrence effect. In these analyses, the investigators found an estimated 25-percent decrease in violent juvenile crime and a 10- to 15-percent decrease in property crime that juveniles committed in states that had lowered the age of jurisdiction for transfer to adult court. The largest effects were in states with the greatest disparity in the severity of punishment between the adult and juvenile courts. Levitt’s study is notable for its unique methodological approach; it examined the associations between the statutory age of jurisdiction and observed crime rates rather than conducting a more typical analysis of crimes in comparable samples. Overall, the amount of research supporting or refuting general deterrence effects is extremely sparse and inconclusive (McGowan et al., 2007).

More work has been done regarding the specific deterrence effects of juvenile transfers to adult court; numerous studies compare the arrest histories of samples of juvenile offenders processed in the juvenile justice system with those processed in the adult court system. For example, Fagan and colleagues (Fagan, 1996; Kupchik, Fagan, and Liberman, 2003) examined a natural experiment on the deterrent effects of juvenile versus adult court sanctions by comparing recidivism among 15- and 16-year-olds from two matched communities (one in New York and one in New Jersey) who were charged with robbery and burglary. The transfer laws for these crimes differed in the two states (New York has a lower age of criminal responsibility for adult court), permitting a comparison of outcomes for youth who live in otherwise comparable neighboring counties. The researchers found that for robbery offenders, transfer was associated with a greater likelihood of, and quicker time to, rearrest. Although significant, these effects could only be generalized to robbery offenses, as the authors found no such significant differences for burglary offenders. In another well-known study, Bishop and colleagues (1996) and Winner and colleagues (1997) estimated the effects of transfers on future recidivism in a sample of Florida juvenile transfer cases, as compared with nontransfer cases, after matching on seven factors (number and seriousness of charges, number and seriousness of prior convictions, age, race, and gender). The researchers found that transferred youth had an increased likelihood of recidivism and reoffended more quickly than their nontransferred counterparts. Finally, Myers (2003) analyzed outcomes for 494 youth from Pennsylvania, 79 of whom were transferred to adult court and 415 who were retained in juvenile court. Using statistical controls for selection bias, Myers also concluded that transferred youth had greater rates of recidivism.

Studies like these have contributed to the conclusion that juvenile transfer policies uniformly produce negative outcomes. Some scholars have indicated that transferred adolescents are more likely to recidivate, recidivate at a greater rate, and be rearrested for more serious offenses, on average, than those retained in the juvenile justice system (Bishop and Frazier, 2000). In addition, several reports have asserted that transfer laws are at the least ineffective (i.e., they do not prevent future crime among those transferred; see Redding, 2008) and may in fact be harmful (i.e., counterproductive for the purpose of reducing crime and enhancing public safety; see McGowan et al., 2007; Young and Gainsborough, 2000).

The Next Generation of Transfer Research

The studies on which these conclusions are based are impressive; however, like all research, they have some inevitable limitations. First, it is debatable whether this research has fully addressed the issue of sample selection when assessing the impact of being transferred to adult court or retained in juvenile court. A comparison of offenders who are transferred to adult court and those who are not transferred involves two groups that are inherently different in important ways that predate incarceration and that may affect any comparison of the groups’ patterns of reoffending. Consequently, observed differences (e.g., greater arrest rates) in the transferred population cannot be accurately attributed to the transfer experience itself as long as these differences in outcomes might also be partially or fully attributable to fundamental differences between the transferred and retained youth. Prior work (e.g., Bishop et al., 1996; Winner et al., 1997) has controlled statistically for several factors (such as age, offense, and number of prior petitions) that might influence the likelihood that an individual’s case will be transferred to criminal court and are associated with greater levels of future arrest. These efforts undoubtedly provide some level of correction for existing group differences. Because there is no random assignment to the “treatment condition” of juvenile transfer to adult court, however, there is always the question of whether these methods have provided enough control to make the two groups directly comparable on outcomes (Loughran and Mulvey, 2010).

Second, this work focuses on the effects of transfer only in terms of the persistence of criminal involvement; the impact of transfer may also involve other social and developmental domains. For example, involvement with the adult court can affect facets of successful adjustment (e.g., employment and social relationships), either promoting or curtailing continued offending (Chung, Little, and Steinberg, 2005). Although the question of whether transfer increases or decreases the rate of future arrests is certainly a salient policy issue, it does not address the other effects on an adolescent’s life and life chances.

Third, these studies have not rigorously and consistently considered the possibility of variation in subgroups. The transferred group might contain identifiable subgroups with different outcomes related to case characteristics. Certain identifiable groups of transferred adolescent offenders (e.g., those charged with particular types of crimes) might be more likely to have positive or negative outcomes. Some types of youth may be easily deterred (e.g., those with limited legal histories or who have positive peer support), whereas others may not consider the possibility of prison time a sufficient threat to desist from crime. Alternatively, certain malleable characteristics (e.g., association with antisocial peers, substance use) may be related to positive or negative outcomes among transferred adolescents, providing guidance about the factors that should be assessed for adolescents who are eligible for transfer and those who should be targeted for intervention. Unfortunately, studies about transfer to adult court have paid only cursory attention to this issue, usually comparing two broad groups: youth retained in the juvenile justice system versus those transferred to adult court. When variability was considered in these analyses, comparisons were usually made within groups formed on the basis of charged offenses (Fagan, 1996; Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 1986; Petersilia et al., 1985).

The final point is particularly relevant when fashioning future research studies. Expanded statutes that create a wider net to catch juvenile offenders for transfer to adult court will likely lead to an “inappropriate aggregation” (Zimring, 1998)—that is, different types of offenders, with different responses to transfer consequences, are inadvertently combined for analytic purposes. If marked variability exists in the effects of transfer on subgroups of those adolescents who are eligible to be transferred, then looking for a single effect across all transferred individuals is an inadequate way to evaluate the merits of transfer policy. A more realistic, and potentially valuable, method would be to see how juvenile transfer to adult court might have differential effects, depending on the characteristics of both the offender and the offense. For example, inexperienced offenders might respond very differently to criminal sanctions when compared with more seasoned offenders (Loughran et al., 2012; Pogarsky and Piquero, 2003). If, as asserted earlier, transfer to adult court is an enduring component of the criminal justice process, the core question is not whether transfer policy is “good” or “bad”; instead, the question is how to refine this practice to do more good and less harm. Thus, a “new generation” of research on this topic should provide information about differential outcomes for transferred youth and point to ways in which transfer statutes can more effectively target the appropriate groups of adolescents.

Analyses of Juvenile Transfer Using Data From the Pathways to Desistance Study

Pathways to Desistance1 investigators and collaborators from the juvenile justice system in Maricopa County, AZ, examined the outcomes of transfer to adult court for youth enrolled in the Pathways study from that locale (see “About the Pathways to Desistance Study”). The goals of the analyses were (1) to describe the variability in outcomes for transferred youth and (2) to assess the effect of transfer to adult court, both overall and for subgroups of adolescents with different histories and who were convicted of different types of offenses. The approach used for the data analyses was developed in collaboration with juvenile court professionals, judges, and policymakers from Maricopa County; this addressed issues being discussed in Arizona at the time regarding possible changes in its transfer statute.

Data from the Pathways study were well suited to these tasks. First, the study captures a comprehensive array of information about serious adolescent offenders who are making the transition to adulthood—indicators of individual functioning, psychosocial development, family context, personal relationships, and community context—all of which have not been examined previously for this group. Second, it offers an opportunity to investigate juvenile transfer in one locale (Maricopa County, AZ) with a high rate of transfer to adult court, an example of what occurs when highly inclusive statutory guidelines are put into place.

The Sample

The analyses reported here used only cases enrolled in the Pathways study from Maricopa County, AZ. There are 654 adolescents in this Arizona sample; 193 (29 percent) of them were transferred to adult court. In the Philadelphia sample, there was a much lower rate of transfer to adult court; only 51 (7 percent) of the 700 enrollees were transferred to adult court for the offense that made them eligible for the study. The statutes in Arizona throw a wide net for transfer to adult court, and thus provide a reasonable test of the effects of a broad transfer statute on adolescent outcomes.

Under Arizona law, there are multiple paths (judicial, statutory, and prosecutorial) by which a youth can be transferred, there is a broad range of offenses that can produce automatic transfer, and the age of exclusion from juvenile court is in some situations quite young (e.g., 8 years old). Also, there is no provision for a hearing to return to juvenile court if an adolescent is charged with an offense eligible for transfer, and once a juvenile from Arizona has been prosecuted as an adult in criminal court, all subsequent cases involving that youth (regardless of the crime) come under adult criminal court jurisdiction. Six other states (California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Vermont) offer the same range of transfer mechanisms, and nearly every other state has some combination of the options available in these states (Griffin, 2006).

Youth from the Pathways study who were transferred to adult court in Arizona were, on average, 17 years old, predominantly minority (59 percent Hispanic, 12 percent African American, 21 percent white, and 8 percent other), and overwhelmingly male (94 percent). The sample included 10 girls. This group had an average of three petitions to juvenile court prior to their baseline interview. Their first petition, on average, was at age 15, and 29 percent of the transferred youth had no court petitions prior to the offense qualifying them for inclusion in the study.

There were notable differences between the group of 193 adolescents transferred to adult court and the 461 participants retained in the Arizona juvenile court system. Those in the transferred group were significantly older at the time of enrollment, older at their first petition to court, had more prior petitions before the study baseline interview, were more likely to be members of a minority group, had parents with a lower level of education, and were involved with more antisocial peers.

The individuals studied here were followed from the time of study enrollment through their 4-year followup interview (average followup period = 1,544 days). During that 4-year period, a maximum of seven followup interviews could have been completed. Eighty-one percent (n = 156) of the 193 adolescents transferred to adult court completed all 7 followup interviews, and another 10 percent (n = 20) missed only 1 interview. Twenty-eight of these adolescents spent the entire 4-year followup period in a correctional facility as a result of the offense that qualified them for the study (these adolescents are excluded from later analyses of the community adjustment of the transferred youth).

What Happens to Transferred Adolescents?

A series of analyses (Schubert et al., 2010) describes the variability in the sample of 193 adolescents in Arizona who were transferred to adult court in terms of community outcomes. The measures of community outcomes were (1) arrest following release from the initial disposition stay, (2) subsequent overnight stay in a facility after the initial disposition stay, (3) reported participation in antisocial activities, and (4) participation in gainful activity, defined as either working or attending school. Researchers integrated information from the interviews with the adolescents and official records to calculate these outcome measures. Schubert and colleagues (2010) provide more information about the measures used for each outcome.

In addition to describing the prevalence of outcomes for these adolescents, the researchers also examined the case characteristics associated with different outcomes; i.e., they looked at whether particular case characteristics were associated with a greater likelihood of arrest, placement in an institution, self-reported antisocial activities, or participation in gainful activity. For these analyses, researchers assigned each case a set of risk-need factor scores that depicted the youth’s status regarding a range of background characteristics known to be predictive of continued future offending (see Mulvey, Schubert, and Chung, 2007, for more details regarding the instruments used and the calculation of these scores). The risk-need scores calculated were (1) association with antisocial peers, (2) antisocial attitudes, (3) parental antisocial history, (4) school difficulties, (5) substance use problems, and (6) mood/anxiety problems. A series of regressions tested whether legal, demographic, psychological, and risk-need case characteristics predicted the time to occurrence of each of the outcomes.

Findings include the following:

•Youth who are transferred to the adult system do not always experience “hard time.” Although 73 percent of this sample were incarcerated (either in prison or jail), 19 percent were placed on probation and 8 percent had their cases dismissed.

•Youth experience many challenges in the community while on probation or following release from an adult facility. Although the vast majority are involved in gainful activity quickly (within 2.5 months) and consistently (for nearly three-quarters of the months they spend in the community), the majority (77 percent) also resumed some level of antisocial activity and two-thirds were subsequently arrested or placed in an institutional setting. Only 18 of these youth (out of 193) managed to break out of this antisocial pattern completely.

•In this sample, prior history was strongly related to outcomes. Youth who were transferred to adult court at their first court petition were older and more mature; they also had a lower rate of rearrest and were more likely to return to gainful activity than those who had prior court petitions. The level of prior offending, even among transferred adolescents who committed more serious crimes, was related to subsequent adjustment in the community. Those with fewer prior petitions generally had significantly better outcomes than those who had more prior petitions to court.

•Legal factors (e.g., number of prior petitions, age at first prior offense, and whether the offense was a crime against a person) and the six risk-need factors predicted certain outcomes. However, psychological (e.g., IQ, measures of psychosocial maturity) and demographic (e.g., age, ethnicity, level of parental education) factors were not related to outcomes.

•Youth who associated with more antisocial peers resumed antisocial activity more quickly and were rearrested more quickly than those who had more positive social relationships. This supports the general contention that juveniles, even serious offenders who are transferred to adult court, are highly susceptible to negative peer influences and outside pressures.

How Does Transfer to Adult Court Affect Future Offending?

A second series of analyses (Loughran et al., 2010) builds on the initial descriptive work and tests whether similar youth (some transferred and some retained in the juvenile justice system) were more or less successful in the community. The research team used propensity score matching (Rosenbaum and Rubin, 1983) in these analyses to construct two groups of youth—one group that was transferred to adult court and another group that was retained in juvenile court—that had similar background characteristics. The outcomes for these two groups were then compared to see if being transferred to adult court had a positive or negative effect.

In this situation, the propensity score matching procedure first uses a wide variety of variables to construct a model that differentiates the cases transferred to adult court from those retained in the juvenile justice system. It then assigns each case a propensity score that reflects how much that individual case “looks like” a case that would be transferred to adult court. Each case that was actually transferred is then matched with a case that was not transferred but has the same propensity score. The groups constructed this way (i.e., the transferred group and the matched group) are then compared to make sure that they are equivalent on a variety of case characteristics. If they are similar on a large number of background characteristics, these factors can be eliminated as potential causes of any observed group differences on outcomes. In this set of analyses, the transferred group and the matched group (derived from propensity score matching) were equivalent on the case characteristics shown in the sidebar, “Characteristics With No Difference Between Matched Groups of Offenders.”

The adolescents transferred to adult court and the matched comparison group were compared on the outcomes of rearrest and self-reported involvement in antisocial activities. These analyses produced three principal findings:

•A review of the entire sample of transferred juveniles and their matched comparison cases in the juvenile justice system showed no effect of transfer on the rate of rearrest. Unlike previous studies, the researchers found that when background characteristics (e.g., psychosocial maturity, risk-need indicators, emotional reactivity) were stringently controlled for, transfer to adult court did not raise the arrest rate appreciably.

•Despite this overall null effect, there was evidence of differential effects of transfer. Transferred adolescents charged with crimes against persons (e.g., felony assault, robbery) showed lower rates of rearrest, and transferred adolescents charged with property crimes (e.g., burglary) showed greater rates of rearrest (see figure below). These effects were present even after controlling for other factors that were statistically significantly different between the juveniles transferred to adult court and those retained in the juvenile justice system. The figure illustrates the differences in the rearrest rates for each group.

•Individuals with either no prior petitions or one prior petition fared better in terms of being rearrested, regardless of court jurisdiction (i.e., adult or juvenile court).

Discussion of Findings

The findings reported in this bulletin are compelling because they extend the story regarding what is known about juveniles transferred to adult court while addressing some limitations in previous investigations. The sample is composed entirely of serious juvenile offenders; the outcomes observed and the comparison cases considered are highly appropriate for examining the impact of transfer. These are the adolescents who are most likely to be transferred to adult court. Because the datasets are comprehensive, the researchers were able to rule out a wide range of possibly confounding factors; this is an improvement over much of the existing research, which contains more limited data (Kurlychek and Johnson, 2010). Perhaps most important, the Pathways data provide a unique opportunity to more fully explore the issue of heterogeneity among transferred individuals, the importance of which other researchers have emphasized (Bishop, 2000; Zimring, 1998). A considerable amount of variability exists within the Pathways sample of transferred youth in Arizona in both legal and certain risk-need factors as well as adjustment following involvement in the adult court system.

It is important to remember, however, that these analyses reflect regularities in one locale only. The use of data from Maricopa County illustrates the processes that would probably be seen in other metropolitan areas with highly inclusive transfer policies. At the same time, different results may be obtained in different locales with different types of offenders or different practices. More research on these differences is clearly needed.

Despite this limitation, findings across both sets of analyses still highlight the following points relevant to locales with high rates of transfer to adult court. First, transferred youth do come back to the community and most of them continue to be involved in criminal behavior. Following release from an adult facility or while on probation, these youth managed to return to school or work. However, nearly half of the released youth reported engaging in persistent antisocial activity, and about two-thirds were rearrested or returned to an institutional setting. At the same time, these results indicate that some characteristics related to these negative outcomes (e.g., antisocial attitudes, association with antisocial peers) could be targets for intervention when these young people return to the community.

Second, this work suggests ways to refine the groups who are eligible for transfer so that transfer policy can be more limited and effective. These analyses provide clear evidence that certain case characteristics, most notably type of offense and prior history, are differentially related to outcomes among transferred adolescents. Transfer seems to have its intended effect with serious violent offenders, but it has a detrimental effect with serious property offenders. Similarly, serious adolescent offenders with no prior petitions are likely to increase their rearrest rate if transferred, compared with adolescents retained in the juvenile justice system. Taken together, these issues provide a springboard for discussions about how to improve current practices, and whether adolescents charged with certain types of offenses might be more successful and law-abiding if they remain in the juvenile justice system. These are the next challenging topics for discussion when considering reasonable reforms to the practice of transferring juveniles to adult court.

Endnotes

1. OJJDP is sponsoring the Pathways to Desistance study (Project Number 2007–MU–FX–0002) in partnership with the National Institute of Justice (Project Number 2008–IJ–CX–0023), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant Number R01DA019697), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the Arizona State Governor’s Justice Commission. Investigators for this study are Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh), Robert Brame, Ph.D. (University of North Carolina–Charlotte), Elizabeth Cauffman, Ph.D. (University of California–Irvine), Laurie Chassin, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sonia Cota-Robles, Ph.D. (Temple University), Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D. (Columbia University), George Knight, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sandra Losoya, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Alex Piquero, Ph.D. (Florida State University), Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H. (University of Pittsburgh), and Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. (Temple University). More details about the study can be found in a previous OJJDP fact sheet (Mulvey, 2011) and at the study Web site (www.pathwaysstudy.pitt.edu), which includes a list of publications from the study.

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Acknowledgments

Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Law and Psychiatry Program at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC), University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H., is the Research Program Administrator of the Law and Psychiatry Program at WPIC.

NCJ 232932

Behavioral Health Problems, Treatment, and Outcomes in Serious Youthful Offenders

Carol A. Schubert and Edward P. Mulvey

June 2014

Highlights

The Pathways to Desistance study followed more than 1,300 serious youthful offenders for 7 years after their court involvement. In this bulletin, the authors investigate the overlap between behavioral health problems and the risk of future offending and the delivery of mental health services to young offenders in institutions and after release. Selected findings are as follows:

•Adolescent offenders with behavioral health problems other than substance abuse were at no greater risk of rearrest or engaging in antisocial activities than young offenders without these problems.

•Study participants with substance use disorders had more negative outcomes and fewer positive outcomes. Substance use disorders, unlike other types of behavioral health problems examined, made the effects of some risk markers for offending even more powerful.

•A substantial percentage of youth with diagnosable mental health and substance use problems did not receive services in residential settings. Even fewer youth with these problems reported receiving community-based services.

•More frequent aftercare services significantly reduced the odds of an arrest or return to an institution during the 6-month aftercare period. Each added month of services reduced the odds for these outcomes by 12 percent.

This bulletin summarizes findings from three sets of analyses of data from the Pathways to Desistance study1 (see “About the Pathways to Desistance Study”). These analyses addressed (1) the overlap of behavioral health problems and offending behavior among participating youth, (2) the match between their disorders and the care they received in juvenile justice settings, and (3) the continuation of care that study participants received in the community upon their release from an institutional setting. Taken together, these results suggest the need to modify expectations about reducing criminal offending by offering mental health services in juvenile justice. They also point to potential opportunities for system improvement.

The bulletin first presents background information on the greater prevalence of behavioral health problems among serious juvenile offenders compared with the general juvenile population; the increased risk of troublesome life outcomes, including arrest and court involvement, among youth diagnosed with behavioral health and substance use problems; the interplay among shared risk factors for behavioral health problems and offending in this age group; and the potential benefits of mental health treatment for youthful offenders.

Next, the bulletin presents the methodology used in the Pathways to Desistance study to assess behavioral health problems, criminogenic risk, and selected negative and positive outcomes, including rearrest, antisocial activity, and gainful activity. It also presents analyses involving subgroups of study participants that assess (1) the overlap between behavioral health problems and risk of future criminal offending and the role of behavioral health problems in such offending, (2) the delivery of mental health and substance use treatment services in custodial settings, and (3) the continuance of those services in community-based and aftercare settings. Finally, the bulletin discusses the implications of the study findings for juvenile system policy and practice and concludes with recommendations for directing mental health and substance use treatment services more effectively to reduce the risk of future offending.

Mental Health Diagnosis and Treatment in the Juvenile Justice System

In recent years, the juvenile justice system has moved from a prevailing view of young offenders as “superpredators” to a more sympathetic and, arguably, realistic view of these youth as troubled young persons (Grisso, 2007). As part of this reorientation, policymakers and practitioners have made considerable efforts to identify and address the needs of the youth in their care more adequately. These efforts have included a number of strategies, such as systematic screening to identify youth needs with instruments like the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (Hoge and Andrews, 2002) and The Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument (Grisso and Barnum, 2001), structured decisionmaking to determine detention admission (e.g., the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative), implementation of best practices for service provision (Greenwood, 2008), and promotion of broad system-level performance indicators (Loughran, Godfrey, and Mengers, 2010; Lipsey, 2009). Many of these efforts have focused on youthful offenders with behavioral health needs because these youth are usually viewed as having addressable disorders that the juvenile justice system might miss and as being particularly vulnerable to potential negative effects from involvement with that system.

Prevalence of Behavioral Health Disorders Among Juvenile Offenders

Juvenile offenders with behavioral health needs merit closer attention than they presently receive. Researchers have firmly established that juvenile offender populations have disproportionately higher rates of diagnosable behavioral health disorders compared with the general young population. Exact prevalence rates differ, depending on the measurement method used, but estimates suggest that 50 to 70 percent of juvenile offenders have a diagnosable behavioral health disorder (Colins et al., 2010; Fazel, Doll, and Långström, 2008; Teplin et al., 2002; Kazdin, 2000), whereas only about 9 to 13 percent of youth in the general population are thought to meet the criteria for a diagnosable disorder (Wasserman, Ko, and McReynolds, 2004). Furthermore, many youth in the juvenile justice system have more than one disorder. A study of juvenile detainees in Chicago showed that nearly 30 percent of females and more than 20 percent of males with substance use disorders also had a mental health disorder (Otto et al., 1992). These general patterns are also found among young offenders in the adult system. Findings from Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys indicate that at least two-thirds of younger inmates (age 24 or younger) in the adult system had a behavioral health problem (James and Glaze, 2006). Additionally, rates of substance use disorders were highest among inmates with mental health problems; approximately 70 percent of inmates with a mental health problem also had a substance use disorder (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999).

Increased Risk of Adverse Outcomes Among Youth With Mental Health and Substance Use Problems

Evidence also shows that youth with behavioral health problems are more likely to have troublesome life outcomes, including court involvement. Vander Stoep and colleagues have demonstrated that youth diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder have higher arrest rates than undiagnosed youth in the general population (Vander Stoep et al., 2000; Evens and Vander Stoep, 1997). Other researchers have shown that the presence of co-occurring disorders increases the chances of criminal involvement in emerging adulthood (Connell and Dishion, 2006; Loeber, Farrington, Stouthamer-Loeber, Moffitt, and Caspi, 1998) and that both the presence and number of comorbid disorders within a sample of substance-abusing and delinquent youth predicted subsequent negative outcomes, including arrest (Copeland et al., 2007). Substance use disorders and externalizing disorders2 appear to be particularly problematic for a range of outcomes, including increased high school dropout rates, lack of family cohesion, and general delinquency (Chassin, Flora, and King, 2004; Huizinga and Jakob-Chien, 1998; Hawkins, Catalano, and Miller, 1992; Randall et al., 1999).

Disentangling Shared Risk Factors for Mental Health Problems and Offending

Determining the relationship between mental health problems and offending is complicated. Although these two problems often go hand in hand, it is not clear that one causes the other. Many youth who offend do not have a mental health problem, and many youth who have a mental health problem do not offend (Grisso, 2007; Huizinga et al., 2000; Masten et al., 2004).

This co-occurrence of problems may be a byproduct of shared risk. Many of the risk factors for the development of mental disorders and offending behavior are the same, and any particular risk factor may produce more than one distinct effect (Lyman, 1998; Loeber, 1990). For example, a chaotic home environment might increase the chances of a child developing a mental health problem or engaging in criminal activity, but this risk factor in and of itself does not guarantee one outcome or the other. Youth exposed to a number of risk factors may be at elevated risk of developing mental health problems, engaging in offending behavior, or both.

A range of risk factors for the development of mental health problems and offending behavior have been identified. In general, these risk factors have the following characteristics:

•They cross multiple, similar domains—for example, neglectful parenting and association with antisocial peers are risks for both offending and behavioral health disorders (Dishion and Patterson, 2006; U.S. Public Health Service, 2000; Goldweber, Broidy, and Cauffman, 2009).

•They co-occur—it is rare for only one risk factor to be present—and the operation of a second risk factor often increases the impact of the first (Holmes, Slaughter, and Kashani, 2001; U.S. Public Health Service, 2000).

•They are rarely one-directional—the risk factor influences the behavior as much as the outcome dampens or exacerbates the risk factor (Van Kammen and Loeber, 1994; Anthony and Forman, 2003).

Moreover, youth’s possible responses to exposure to risk factors can vary considerably. The level of risk that a risk factor presents can be dynamic, changing with age and context (Huizinga and Jakob-Chien, 1998). The presence of certain risk factors does not guarantee a uniform response because individual factors, such as resilience, can alter a young person’s course (Cicchetti, 2006; Luthar, 2003). Finally, youth in the juvenile justice system often have a constellation of difficulties, of which a behavioral health disorder may be just one (Dishion and Patterson, 2006; Goldweber, Broidy, and Cauffman, 2009; Huizinga et al., 2000).

Because of these complications, it seems reasonable to examine the extent to which the risk factors related to criminal involvement are also related to the presence of mental health problems and to see which factors are related to later criminal offending. The analyses presented in this bulletin shed some light on this question—one that has implications for juvenile justice policy and practice.

Potential Benefits of Mental Health Services for Youthful Offenders

The overlap between behavioral health disorders and juvenile justice system involvement has led many policymakers and practitioners to investigate the possible benefits of providing mental health treatment for youth in the juvenile and adult justice systems. In general, the expectation is that providing appropriate mental health services should, in a large proportion of cases, stabilize the individual, reduce his or her involvement in antisocial behaviors, and thus reduce his or her chance of being rearrested. For example, a National Conference of State Legislatures report states that “comprehensive responses to court-involved juveniles with mental health needs can help … to produce healthier young people who are less likely to act out and commit crimes” (Hammond, 2007). The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and the American Correctional Association also asserted that youth would stay out of jail if they received the mental health treatment they need (Carty, Weedon, and Burley, 2004).

Although the changes in practice discussed above are important for ensuring that at-risk youth receive appropriate mental health services, the extent to which juvenile offenders who receive such services would reduce their offending has not been determined. The research is limited on whether and how mental health treatment relates to later offending or to the positive adjustment of youthful offenders.

Assessment of Mental Health Problems, Criminogenic Risk, and Life Outcomes for Pathways Study Participants

The Pathways to Desistance study examined the relationship between mental health problems and criminal offending as well as life outcomes for the serious offenders who took part in the study. Researchers assessed individuals enrolled in the study for a range of mental health problems and for risk markers related to continued offending, including demographic, family history, peer, legal, psychological, psychosocial maturity, and adjustment measures. In addition, regular interviews and official records provided data about outcomes over a 7-year period that extended into early adulthood. These ingredients presented an opportunity to explore the relationships among mental health problems, criminogenic risk, and life outcomes more comprehensively than is usually possible.

The Pathways data can address four issues: (1) whether youthful offenders with mental health problems differ from other serious offenders in their general risk for re-offending, (2) how the life outcomes for these individuals compare with those of other serious offenders, (3) what life factors or personal characteristics are related to better or worse outcomes, and (4) whether these life factors or personal characteristics differ for those with a mental health problem. To answer these questions, the researchers analyzed interview data from a group of Pathways participants to determine the prevalence of mental health diagnoses, criminogenic risk, and negative and positive outcomes related to these factors (Schubert, Mulvey, and Glasheen, 2011).

Assessing Mental Health Problems Among Pathways Study Participants

The researchers assessed all 1,354 Pathways study participants for the presence of certain mental health problems using several assessment tools. They used—

•Eight modules from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) (World Health Organization, 1990) to determine the lifetime presence of major depression, dysthymia, mania, alcohol abuse and dependence, drug abuse and dependence, and posttraumatic stress disorder. The CIDI is a comprehensive, fully structured clinical assessment of psychiatric disorders.

•The Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) (Reynolds and Richmond, 1985) to identify youth with high anxiety symptoms. A total anxiety score was computed on the basis of 28 items across 3 subscales (physiological anxiety, worry/oversensitivity, and social concerns/concentration). For the purpose of these analyses, scores at or greater than one standard deviation from the sample mean were taken as indicators of high anxiety. Although not a diagnostic tool, the RCMAS has empirical support for its validity as a measure of anxiety in youth of the same age and ethnic composition as the Pathways sample (Reynolds, 1980; Varela and Biggs, 2006; Lee et al., 1988).

•The Disruptive Behavior Disorders scale (Pelham et al., 1992) to assess attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at baseline. Unlike previous assessments, which relied on youth self-reports, the researchers based the assessment of ADHD symptoms on parent/guardian reports, a more valid indicator in this context.

The Pathways study did not assess for the presence of conduct disorder because the researchers expected that a substantial majority of the sample would meet the criteria (see Copeland et al., 2007; Eppright et al., 1993, with 90 percent of its juvenile offender sample diagnosed with conduct disorder). Multiple studies have demonstrated that conduct disorder is often a precursor to, or coexists with, criminal behavior (Farrington, 1999; Loeber, Farrington, Stouthamer-Loeber, and Van Kammen, 1998); and conduct disorder often co-occurs with mood disorders, which are more often the primary diagnosis in juvenile offender samples (McManus et al., 1984).

Assessing Criminogenic Risk for Future Offending

The Pathways study incorporated numerous baseline measures with demonstrated relationships to criminal offending in youth. From these measures, the researchers selected 121 possible variables related to continued offending; they represented a variety of domains, including demographics, family history, peers, legal, psychological, psychosocial maturity, and adjustment measures. The researchers used a data reduction technique called principal components analysis (Jolliffe, 2002) to reduce the 121 baseline variables to a set of 6 summary scores, each representing a distinct broad risk marker related to the risk of future offending. The six risk markers were (1) negative peer influence, (2) antisocial attitudes, (3) antisocial history, (4) psychosocial maturity, (5) perceived severity of court sanctions, and (6) parent criminality/substance use.

Assessing Outcomes for Pathways Study Participants

Researchers used interview data and official records to determine how these individuals fared over the 7 years after enrollment in the study. Three indicators of community adjustment—two negative and one positive—were considered for their relationship to the presence of mental health problems:

•Rearrest. Arrest prior to the age of 18 was based on official records of a petition to juvenile court recorded in each county. Arrest after the age of 18 was based on a combination of the county court record information and FBI arrest records. Probation violations were not counted as rearrests because they do not necessarily represent a new criminal act. A rearrest rate was calculated by dividing the number of petitions/arrests by the number of eligible months in the recall period. An eligible month was defined as a month in which the youth spent no less than 3 weeks in the community; the sample had an average of 50 eligible months during which the outcomes were measured.

•Antisocial activity. A modified version of the Self-Report of Offending (Elliot, 1990; Huizinga, Esbensen, and Weihar, 1991) scale was used at each interview to measure the youth’s involvement in any of 22 antisocial and illegal activities (the most serious acts commonly found on self-report scales). The participant indicated whether he or she was involved in each activity and the month in which the activity occurred. The proportion of months during which the youth reported antisocial acts was used as an indicator of level of involvement in antisocial activity (calculated as the number of months with two or more self-reported antisocial activities divided by the number of eligible months in the recall period).

•Gainful activity. Participants were considered “gainfully active” for a month if they attended school or worked during that time. Attending school in a month was defined as being enrolled in any type of school and not absent more than 5 days during the month. Being employed in a month was defined as working at least 21 hours per week for at least 2 weeks during the month. A proportion score represented the number of months the youth attended school or was employed divided by the number of eligible months in the recall period. The proportion scores were converted into three equal groups: low, medium, and high proportion of time gainfully active.

Analysis of Pathways Study Data Regarding the Effect of Mental Health Disorders and the Delivery of Mental Health Services

The researchers then conducted three sets of analyses on the Pathways study data. The first set of analyses tried to determine the overlap between mental health problems and the risk of future offending and the contribution of mental health problems to negative outcomes (rearrest and antisocial activity). The second and third sets of analyses looked at the delivery of mental health services to study participants with identified mental health problems during institutional placement and after their release.

Characteristics of the Subsample Analyzed

A subsample of 949 youth (797 males and 152 females) from the Pathways study was used for the series of data analyses summarized below. These were youth for whom the researchers had complete mental health assessments and sufficient time to observe outcomes.3 This subset of Pathways youth was primarily male (84 percent) and minority (43 percent African American, 31 percent Hispanic, 22 percent white, and 4 percent other). Of these youth, 56 percent were from Philadelphia and 44 percent were from Phoenix. The mean age at baseline was 16 years old. On average, these youth had three petitions to court prior to the baseline interview and were 15 years old at the time of their first petition. Regarding the subsample’s index offenses (i.e., the serious offense that qualified them for the study), 37 percent were violent crimes against another person (e.g., robbery or assault), 28 percent were property crimes (e.g., burglary), 18 percent were drug-related offenses, 9 percent were weapons offenses, 4 percent were sex crimes, and 4 percent were other types of crimes (e.g., conspiracy, intimidation of a witness).

More than half of the subsample included in these analyses (62.4 percent) met the criteria for at least one of the assessed mental health disorders. Of those with at least one mental health disorder, 39 percent met the threshold for more than one disorder. The figure below shows the prevalence rates in this sample for the mental health problems assessed.

Effects of Mental Health Problems on the Risk of Future Offending

Using the information gained in the assessments, the researchers set out to determine whether mental health problems have any unique influence on outcomes beyond the six criminogenic risk markers. In other words, when taking into account an individual’s set of risk factors related to the likelihood of future offending, does the presence of a mental health problem contribute any additional risk of reoffending? The researchers also tested whether the identified risk factors for reoffending operated differently between those youth with and those without mental health problems to determine whether mental health problems moderated the relationship between criminogenic risk markers and outcomes. Certain risk factors (e.g., peer influences) might be more or less powerful when they are present alongside a mental health problem.

Some important findings emerged from these analyses (presented in detail in Schubert, Mulvey, and Glasheen, 2011). First, when looking solely at the relationship between mental health problems and outcomes without considering any criminogenic risk factors, mental health problems (affective disorder, ADHD, or anxiety disorder) were not significantly associated with the rearrest, antisocial activity, or gainful activity outcomes. Youth with mental health problems not related to substance abuse had the same type of outcomes as the study participants without these disorders.

Second, criminogenic risk factors were related to some disorders. Study participants with affective, substance use, and anxiety disorders had high levels of risk for reoffending; those with ADHD had the lowest levels of risk related to future offending. After controlling for demographic variables and risk factors, however, study participants with the tested mental health problems were at no greater risk for rearrest or engaging in antisocial activities than the young offenders without these problems.

The presence of a substance use disorder, however, does affect outcomes. Study participants with substance use disorders, compared with those without such disorders, had higher rates of rearrest, more self-reported antisocial activity, and less time spent in gainful activity. Also, some risk markers had stronger effects on outcomes in those with substance use disorders compared with those without (i.e., the effect of a risk marker was even stronger in those with a substance use disorder).

These findings indicate that criminogenic risk factors are appreciably higher in groups of youthful offenders with certain mental health problems (affective disorders, substance use disorders, and anxiety disorders), but these mental health problems are not highly related to either positive or negative outcomes. In other words, the risk factors have equivalent effects on outcomes in both those with and without the tested mental health problems. The only clear exception to this observation is that substance use is associated with poorer outcomes, making the effect of risk factors on outcomes significantly worse.

Pathways study findings also offer some insight into the regularities of service delivery for youth with identified disorders in both custodial and community-based settings.

Delivery of Mental Health Services to Serious Youthful Offenders in Custodial Settings

In contrast to the adult criminal justice system, the juvenile justice system strongly believes in providing services to reduce the likelihood of reoffending. Theoretically, this would be done with interventions meant to reduce risk or address needs related to an individual’s likelihood of continued antisocial behavior. It has not been determined, however, that the services offenders receive in the juvenile justice system align with the needs identified in assessments.

Using a subsample of 868 youth in the Pathways study who were followed for 2 years after their enrollment,4 the researchers examined the extent to which specific risks/needs were related to types of services provided. Specifically, the researchers asked the following:

•Were youth with mood/anxiety problems more likely to receive mental health services (defined as individual sessions with a psychologist or treatment on a mental health unit)?

•Were youth with substance use problems more likely to receive drug and alcohol treatment services?

The researchers concentrated on these two types of problems because of their importance as a focus for intervention (Grisso, 2004) and because the data would enable them to discern whether and when appropriate services were provided. For this set of analyses, the researchers used the assessment tools described earlier to identify youth with significant mood/anxiety and substance use problems. In addition to simply determining whether the youth with these problems received any appropriate services, the researchers also examined whether those services were more or less likely to be offered in different institutional settings. They looked at four types of institutional settings (state-run juvenile corrections facilities, contracted residential settings, detention centers, and jails/prisons) across the Philadelphia and Phoenix data collection sites. They used the youth’s self-reports to determine whether they had received certain types of treatment.

Some of the findings were in line with previous work in this area, but others were unexpected (results are presented in detail in Mulvey, Schubert, and Chung, 2007).

•The amount of services provided to youthful offenders with diagnosable problems differed considerably across institutional settings, with jails/prisons providing the fewest services and contracted residential settings with a mental health emphasis providing the most.

•A substantial percentage of youth with diagnosable problems did not receive services for those problems. Depending on the setting, 7 to 59 percent of youth with a mood/anxiety problem did not receive mental health services, and 11 to 56 percent of adolescents with substance use disorders did not receive drug and alcohol treatment services. The youth’s gender or ethnicity did not influence these patterns, and the patterns did not differ by site (i.e., Philadelphia versus Phoenix).

•Even though many youth with diagnosable disorders did not receive services, those with a disorder were generally more likely to receive services than those youth without the disorder (again, depending on the setting). For example, youth with a mood/anxiety disorder were four times more likely (adjusted for background characteristics related to service receipt) to receive mental health services in state-run juvenile correctional facilities (Youth Development Centers in Pennsylvania and the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections) than those without a mood/anxiety problem. Youth with a substance use problem were four to five times more likely to receive drug and alcohol services in state-run facilities than those who did not have a substance use problem. Jails/prisons provided fewer services overall than other residential placements, but youth in jail or prison with a substance use disorder were twice as likely to get drug and alcohol services as those without a substance use disorder. Thus, the use of screening tools, although imperfect, helps institutional staff identify and direct services toward individuals in need.

Two other findings emerged. First, state-run juvenile corrections facilities were more likely to provide appropriate, individualized services to those with an identified problem than were contracted residential facilities. Second, across all setting types, youth were more likely to receive drug and alcohol services the longer they were in the facility. This observation is likely the result of the operational realities related to moving a newly admitted client from the intake stage (during which initial evaluations by the facility personnel may be occurring) to full participation in services. Providing adequate time in the setting for service delivery is important to accommodate these operational realities and to permit adequate time in treatment to promote stable behavioral change (Day and Howells, 2002; Gendreau and Goggin, 1996; National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2006).

These findings indicate that some youth with serious problems are being identified and treated in most settings, but still only to a limited extent. Youth with identified needs are receiving targeted service at higher rates than their counterparts, particularly if their stay is long enough to allow the service to be initiated. Still, approximately one-half of these youth with identifiable disorders did not receive appropriate services. There appears to be a substantial missed opportunity to provide appropriate services for youth in need in these settings.

Delivery of Mental Health Services to Serious Youthful Offenders in the Community

Youth making the transition from residential placements back to the community need a variety of supportive services. These individuals are often high-risk offenders who, as noted earlier, face multiple problems of adjustment in the community. Awareness of the challenges that these youthful offenders face has led to the development of aftercare program models that include frequent and coordinated supervision and involvement with community-based services before and after juvenile offenders are released from residential settings (Altschuler and Armstrong, 1994; Bullis, Yovanoff, and Havel, 2004).

Using a sample of 413 youth participating in the Pathways study,5 the researchers looked at how community-based services and court supervision affect multiple indicators of adjustment in the first 6 months in the community following release from a juvenile residential setting (Chung, Schubert, and Mulvey, 2007). Some relevant points regarding community-based treatment emerged from this investigation:

•Only 35 percent of these youth reported participating in community-based services during the 6 months immediately following release. This means that substantially more than one-half of youth who returned to the community from institutional care had no aftercare services during this critical adjustment period.

•After controlling for demographic and risk characteristics, greater intensity of aftercare services (more frequent contact) significantly reduced the odds of an arrest or return to an institutional setting during the 6-month aftercare period. Each additional month of services reduced the odds of these outcomes by 12 percent during the 6-month aftercare period.

These findings indicate that providing services during the aftercare period has a positive impact, even after controlling for level of risk; however, the great majority of youth returning home from an institutional stay do not receive these services.

Based on these findings, the researchers investigated the prevalence of community-based services beyond the 6-month aftercare period. They identified the subset of study participants who met criteria for a mental health problem (i.e., ADHD, high anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, major depression, dysthymia, or mania) in the year prior to the baseline interview (31 percent of the full study sample) and examined how many of them indicated that they had received community-based treatment for a mental health problem during the 7-year period following study enrollment (i.e., through their mid-20s). An individual was coded as receiving community-based services if he or she acknowledged participation in any of the following: sessions with a psychologist, counselor, or social worker; a mental health treatment group; or a partial treatment or day hospitalization program.

These analyses showed a low rate of participation in community-based services. Only 34 percent of these youth participated in the defined community-based treatments, even when examined over the 7-year followup period. Among the group who received at least one community-based service, individuals reported participating in that service on about 2 days out of every 100 days they spent in the community. The researchers found a similar low prevalence (30 percent) and intensity for involvement with community-based substance use services over the 7-year period among study participants who met criteria for a substance use disorder at baseline.

Implications for Juvenile Justice Policy and Practice

Although the Pathways study findings regarding the relationships between mental health problems and criminal offending are not definitive, they suggest significant advances in understanding these relationships. They highlight the connection between substance use disorders and outcomes. The presence of a substance use disorder increases the likelihood of continued offending in serious youthful offenders beyond what one might expect from knowing only the general risk markers connected with an individual. This is consistent with a growing body of research demonstrating that substance use and offending often go hand in hand for both juvenile and adult offenders (Clingempeel, Britt, and Henggeler, 2008; Elbogen and Johnson, 2009; Steadman et al., 1998; Teplin, Abram, and McClelland, 1994). At the same time, the findings indicate that the link between the presence of a behavioral health problem and later outcomes might not be as strong as was initially thought. These findings highlight the need to exercise caution regarding expectations that treating mental health problems will reduce recidivism (although it should be clear that the Pathways analyses did not test the effect of treatment in general or the impact of varying levels of quality of treatment). Rather, they support the current dual focus of the juvenile justice system’s programming—addressing both criminogenic risk and mental health problems. Finally, this work highlights the need to further expand what is understood of the role of mental health problems (other than substance use) on outcomes and how treatment may or may not moderate or mediate these relationships. In particular, it is important to differentiate between criminogenic risk and mental health symptoms at a more refined level than the Pathways study information would permit. As noted earlier, a complicated relationship and overlap exists between criminogenic risk and mental health problems. For example, low impulse control could be both a criminogenic risk factor and part of a cluster of symptoms related to ADHD. This would make it difficult for the Pathways study analyses to find an independent effect of mental health disorders beyond the risk factor. Until these issues are sorted out, this work should not be interpreted as a definitive statement about the role of mental health symptoms or the utility of treating mental health problems. These analyses represent the initial step in empirically testing these relationships.

These findings do not imply that the recent system-level policy and practical focus on identifying juvenile offenders with mental health problems and providing evidence-based treatments is misguided. Indeed, a strong ethical case can be made for securing mental health care for these youth; they are in the care of the state and, as guardian, the state should do whatever one would do for one’s own children. The high prevalence of mental health problems in juvenile offender samples suggests a clearly addressable impediment to the future health and adjustment of these youth. Conversely, a legitimate argument can be made that the juvenile justice system is not charged with optimizing development for youth in its care nor is it equipped to do so (Grisso, 2007). The strongest argument to refute this perspective—that the state is not obligated to ensure mental health care for serious juvenile offenders—would be a clear demonstration that mental health problems greatly increase the risk of future offending and that treatment significantly reduces that risk. However, the current findings do not support such a direct argument because some mental health problems (e.g., substance use disorders) are related to recidivism and others (e.g., depression) do not seem to be, and because the impact of treatment was not tested. Based on what is understood about these relationships, it appears that although public safety concerns may provide a strong justification for the delivery of mental health treatment services to young offenders, they may provide an insufficient argument for the juvenile justice system being the main provider of those services. Rather, the most potent rationale for providing these services within the juvenile justice system may be the ethical obligation to offer targeted care that addresses the identified needs of youth in the system and the continued responsibility to assess the system’s ongoing practices in the provision of care.

The recent systemwide efforts to screen youth more carefully to identify their areas of risk/need and provide evidence-based treatments represent a tremendous advance in providing targeted care for juvenile offenders in the system. By identifying a subgroup of youth for diversion, this work has led to a reduction in the need for the juvenile justice system to provide mental health services to seriously disordered youth who have a low risk for continued offending. For youth at a greater risk for continued offending, however, these efforts may not pay off unless they are coupled with equal improvements in translating the results of the screening into individualized care and expanding the use of mental health and substance use treatment services beyond the walls of juvenile justice facilities.

Conclusion

These analyses only scratch the surface of how mental disorders relate to offending among serious youthful offenders and how services might be provided to offenders with behavioral health problems. They raise additional questions that should be addressed. So far, two messages seem clear from this work on the Pathways to Desistance study:

•Serious juvenile offenders in the justice system have a constellation of problems, and focusing treatment on mental health problems alone is probably not going to greatly reduce future offending. Treating substance use problems, addressing criminogenic risk factors, and providing specialized mental health care are all likely to be necessary to reduce future offending significantly.

•Developing an integrated system of care should be a focus of juvenile justice reform. Based on the alarmingly low levels of involvement with appropriate services seen in the lives of serious youthful offenders, it is clear that much remains to be done in implementing community-based care.

The development of a better system should build on current screening and diversion efforts. A system that expands the use of structured risk and needs assessments and connects the assessment results with services could ensure that more services, and more appropriate services, are provided. Risk and needs identification can explicitly guide the types and intensity of treatment that the court and service providers deliver, as long as the court provides the infrastructure and motivation to do so. Translating information about youth into provision of a range of appropriate services in the community is the next challenge.

The Pathways study findings so far suggest that there is room for improvement in this regard, current systemwide efforts notwithstanding. Ensuring that screening and assessment results are used to individualize treatment for youth in residential care and connect youth with appropriate community care seems possible. Right now, though, it is still apparently an aspiration rather than a reality.

The potential benefit of these efforts seems clear. In one study, youth for whom a low proportion of identified criminogenic needs was matched with therapeutic services reoffended at a higher rate and significantly earlier than youth for whom a greater proportion of needs was matched with services (Vieira, Skilling, and Peterson-Badali, 2009).

Additionally, a small but rapidly growing number of studies is showing that substance use treatment can produce statistically significant reductions in substance use among juvenile offenders (and in samples in which most but not all of the participants are juvenile offenders; e.g., Dennis et al., 2005; Hser et al., 2001; Randall and Cunningham, 2003). For example, looking at a small subset of the Pathways participants, Chassin and colleagues (2009) found evidence that substance use treatment in juvenile justice settings produced significant decreases in substance use 6 and 12 months later, and interventions with family involvement produced statistically significant reductions in nondrug offending.

Intervention with serious youthful offenders makes sense, and the challenge is to get the right mix of services to the right youth. As the Pathways study indicates, this challenge can only be met successfully if juvenile justice professionals make greater use of structured risk and needs assessments to direct young offenders with mental health needs to services, evaluate criminogenic risk factors and mental health needs of young offenders, provide treatment for substance use disorders, and integrate residential treatment services more closely with community-based aftercare. Much work remains to be done.

Endnotes

1. OJJDP is sponsoring the Pathways to Desistance study (project number 2007–MU–FX–0002) in partnership with the National Institute of Justice (project number 2008–IJ–CX–0023), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant number R01DA019697), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the Arizona State Governor’s Justice Commission. Investigators for this study are Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh), Robert Brame, Ph.D. (University of North Carolina–Charlotte), Elizabeth Cauffman, Ph.D. (University of California–Irvine), Laurie Chassin, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sonia Cota-Robles, Ph.D. (Temple University), Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D. (Columbia University), George Knight, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sandra Losoya, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Alex Piquero, Ph.D. (Florida State University), Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H. (University of Pittsburgh), and Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. (Temple University). More details about the study can be found in a previous OJJDP fact sheet (Mulvey, 2011) and at the study Web site (www.pathwaysstudy.pitt.edu), which includes a list of publications from the study.

2. Externalizing disorders are those that manifest themselves in children’s outward behavior problems and reflect the child acting negatively on his or her external environment (Liu, 2004). These disorders are marked by disruptive, hyperactive, and aggressive behavior (Hinshaw, 1987); they include attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional-defiant disorder, and antisocial personality disorder (Liu, 2004).

3. Pathways study enrollees whose cases were transferred to adult court (n = 244), who had an incomplete diagnostic interview (n = 48), were missing more than 1.5 years of followup data (n = 112), or did not spend at least 3 weeks out of 1 month in the community during the followup period (n = 1) were excluded from the study sample (Schubert, Mulvey, and Glasheen, 2011).

4. The analysis of the delivery of mental health and substance use treatment services in custodial settings studied the service histories of a subset of the full sample following the completion of the 24-month followup interview. A partial sample was used because early versions of the followup interview questionnaire lacked the detailed questions regarding service provision upon which this analysis is based. The 868 participants included in this analysis are drawn equally from both sites (425, or 49 percent, from Philadelphia County, and 443, or 51 percent, from Maricopa County). Because this analysis focuses on service patterns over 2 years, it includes youth processed in either the juvenile or adult systems as well as those sent to institutional care and those placed on probation as a result of the study index petition. Twenty-four percent of the participants included in this analysis (n = 211) were processed in the adult court system; the vast majority of these (n = 170) were from Maricopa County. Of those youth processed in the juvenile court system, a little more than one-half (51 percent) were given probation as the result of the study index petition and the remaining 49 percent were sent to placement (Mulvey, Schubert, and Chung, 2007).

5. For the analysis of the provision of community-based mental health services, the researchers studied the population of youth released from custody facilities following a juvenile court commitment, regardless of the type of facility (youth processed in adult court were excluded from the analysis). During the enrollment phase of the Pathways study, 547 offenders were processed in the juvenile system and sent to institutional placements as a result of the offense that led to their enrollment. The analysis was limited to 413 of these youth who had at least 6 months of reentry data available following release from their initial court placements; the release date could not be determined for 74 cases, and less than 6 months of postrelease data were available for 60 cases (Chung, Schubert, and Mulvey, 2007). For demographic and offense data regarding this subsample and more details regarding the analytic strategy, see Chung, Schubert, and Mulvey (2007).

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Acknowledgments

Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H., is the Research Program Administrator of the Law and Psychiatry Program at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC), University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Law and Psychiatry Program at WPIC.

NCJ 242440

Psychosocial Maturity and Desistance From Crime in a Sample of Serious Juvenile Offenders

Laurence Steinberg, Elizabeth Cauffman, and Kathryn C. Monahan

March 2015

Highlights

The Pathways to Desistance study followed more than 1,300 serious juvenile offenders for 7 years after their conviction. In this bulletin, the authors present key findings on the link between psychosocial maturity and desistance from crime in the males in the Pathways sample as they transition from midadolescence to early adulthood (ages 14–25):

•Recent research indicates that youth experience protracted maturation, into their midtwenties, of brain systems responsible for self-regulation. This has stimulated interest in measuring young offenders’ psychosocial maturity into early adulthood.

•Youth whose antisocial behavior persisted into early adulthood were found to have lower levels of psychosocial maturity in adolescence and deficits in their development of maturity (i.e., arrested development) compared with other antisocial youth.

•The vast majority of juvenile offenders, even those who commit serious crimes, grow out of antisocial activity as they transition to adulthood. Most juvenile offending is, in fact, limited to adolescence.

•This study suggests that the process of maturing out of crime is linked to the process of maturing more generally, including the development of impulse control and future orientation.

Involvement in delinquent and criminal behavior increases through adolescence, peaking at about age 16 (in cases of property crime) or age 17 (in cases of violent crime) and declining thereafter (Farrington, 1986; Piquero, 2007; Piquero et al., 2001). Although a small number of youth persist in antisocial behavior across this developmental period, the vast majority of antisocial adolescents desist from criminal behavior as they enter adulthood (Laub and Sampson, 2001; Piquero, 2007; Sampson and Laub, 2003). Understanding why most juvenile offenders desist from antisocial activity as a part of the normative transition into adulthood may provide important insights into the design of interventions aimed at encouraging desistance. This bulletin describes findings from the Pathways to Desistance study, a multisite, longitudinal sample of adolescent (primarily felony) offenders (see “About the Pathways to Desistance Study”).1 This study explores the processes through which juvenile offenders desist from crime and delinquency.

Theories of the Psychosocial Maturation Process

Both sociological and psychological theories suggest that one reason most adolescents desist from crime is that they mature out of antisocial behavior, but sociologists and psychologists have different ideas about the nature of this maturation. A traditional sociological view is grounded in the notion that the activities individuals typically enter into during early adulthood—such as full-time employment, marriage, and parenthood—are largely incompatible with criminal activity (Sampson and Laub, 2003). Thus, according to this view, individuals desist from antisocial behavior as a consequence of taking on more mature social roles, either because the time and energy demands of these activities make it difficult to maintain a criminal lifestyle or because embracing the socially approved roles of adulthood leads individuals to adopt more conventional values and attitudes.

The conventional psychological view describes a different scenario. According to this view, desistance from antisocial behavior is the product of psychosocial maturation (Cauffman and Steinberg, 2000; Steinberg and Cauffman, 1996; Monahan et al., 2009), which includes the ability to:

•Control one’s impulses.

•Consider the implications of one’s actions on others.

•Delay gratification in the service of longer term goals.

•Resist the influences of peers.

Thus, psychologists see that much juvenile offending reflects psychological immaturity and, accordingly, they view desistance from antisocial behavior as a natural consequence of growing up—emotionally, socially, and intellectually. As individuals become better able to regulate their behavior, they become less likely to engage in impulsive, ill-considered acts.

Although the sociological and psychological explanations of desistance from antisocial behavior during the transition to adulthood are not incompatible, there has been much more research in the sociological tradition, largely because psychological maturation during young adulthood has received relatively little attention from psychologists. Indeed, most research on psychological development during adolescence has focused on the first half of the adolescent decade rather than on the transition from adolescence to adulthood (Institute of Medicine, 2013), perhaps because social scientists widely assumed that there was little systematic development after midadolescence (Steinberg, 2014). However, recent research indicating protracted maturation (into the midtwenties) of brain systems responsible for self-regulation has stimulated interest in charting the course of psychosocial maturity beyond adolescence (Steinberg, 2010). Because juvenile offending is likely to wane during late adolescence and young adulthood (age 16 through age 25), it is important to ask whether desistance from crime and delinquency is linked to normative processes of psychological maturation.

Psychologist Terrie Moffitt (1993, 2003) has advanced the most widely cited theory regarding psychological contributors to desistance from antisocial behavior during the transition to adulthood. She distinguished between the vast majority of individuals (90 percent or more, depending on the study) whose antisocial behavior stopped in adolescence (adolescence-limited offenders) and the small proportion of individuals whose antisocial behavior persisted into adulthood (life-course persistent offenders). Moffitt suggested that different etiological factors explained these groups’ involvement in antisocial behavior. Moffitt hypothesizes that adolescence-limited offenders’ involvement in antisocial behavior is a normative consequence of their desire to feel more mature, and their antisocial activity is often the result of peer pressure or the emulation of higher status agemates, especially during midadolescence, when opposition to adult authority may confer special prestige with peers. In contrast, she thinks that antisocial behavior that persists into adulthood is rooted in early neurological and cognitive deficits that, combined with environmental risk, lead to early conduct problems and lifelong antisocial behavior. Although the identification of variations in these broad patterns of antisocial behavior has led Moffitt to refine her framework (Moffitt, 2006; Moffitt et al., 2002), the scientific consensus is that the distinction between adolescence-limited and life-course persistent offenders is a useful one.

Although Moffitt never explicitly outlined the role of normative psychosocial maturation in her framework, it follows from this perspective that growth in psychosocial maturity underlies adolescence-limited offenders’ desistance from antisocial behavior. That is, if adolescence-limited offenders engage in antisocial behavior to appear and feel more mature, the genuine process of maturation should lessen their need to engage in antisocial behavior to achieve this end, thereby contributing to desistance from crime and delinquency. Moreover, juvenile offenders who are relatively more mature for their age, or who mature faster than their peers, should “age out” of offending sooner than others. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that this is the case. In a previous analysis of earlier waves of data from the Pathways study, the researchers found that youth whose antisocial behavior persisted into their early twenties were significantly less psychosocially mature than youth who desisted from antisocial behavior (Monahan et al., 2009). In this bulletin, the researchers explore whether this pattern characterizes trajectories of antisocial behavior through age 25.

Models of Psychosocial Maturity

Many psychologists have proposed theoretical models of psychosocial maturity (e.g., Greenberger et al., 1974). The researchers’ approach to measuring psychosocial maturity is based on a model advanced in the 1990s (Steinberg and Cauffman, 1996), which suggested that during adolescence and early adulthood, three aspects of psychosocial maturity develop:

•Temperance. The ability to control impulses, including aggressive impulses.

•Perspective. The ability to consider other points of view, including those that take into account longer term consequences or that take the vantage point of others.

•Responsibility. The ability to take personal responsibility for one’s behavior and resist the coercive influences of others.

Previous studies have demonstrated that youth with lower temperance, perspective, and responsibility report greater antisocial behavior (Cauffman and Steinberg, 2000) and that, over time, deficiencies in developing these aspects of psychosocial maturity are associated with more chronic patterns of antisocial behavior (Monahan et al., 2009).

The researchers’ model of psychosocial maturation maps nicely onto one of the most widely cited criminological theories of antisocial behavior: Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) General Theory of Crime, which posits that deficits in self-control are the cause of criminal behavior. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s definition of self-control, like the definition of maturity, includes components such as orientation toward the future (rather than immediate gratification), planning ahead (rather than impulsive decisionmaking), physical restraint (rather than the use of aggression when frustrated), and concern for others (rather than self-centered or indifferent behavior) (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990). Although the General Theory of Crime is useful in explaining which adolescents are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior (i.e., the ones with poor self-control), it does not explain why most antisocial adolescents desist as they mature into adulthood. From a developmental perspective, it may be variability in both individuals’ level of maturity during adolescence and their degree of change in maturity over time that distinguishes between those whose antisocial behavior wanes and those whose antisocial behavior persists during the transition to adulthood. The General Theory of Crime predicts that, at any point in time, individuals who are less mature than their peers would be more likely to engage in antisocial behavior. In this bulletin, the researchers examine this proposition but also ask whether individuals who mature more quickly over time compared to their peers are more likely to desist from crime as they get older.

To investigate whether and to what extent changes in psychosocial maturity across adolescence and young adulthood account for desistance from antisocial behavior, it is necessary to study a sample of individuals who are known to be involved in antisocial behavior. The Pathways study affords an ideal opportunity to do this because it is the first longitudinal study that examined psychosocial development among serious adolescent offenders during their transition to adulthood. As a result, the researchers examined whether the majority of juvenile offenders demonstrate significant growth in psychosocial maturity over time, as the psychological theories of desistance predict, and whether individual variability in the development of psychosocial maturity accounts for variability in patterns of desistance. They also examined whether differential development of psychosocial maturity over time is linked to differential timing in desistance; presumably, those who mature faster should desist earlier. Because individuals generally cease criminal activity by their midtwenties (Piquero, 2007), this extension of a previous analysis through age 25 allows greater confidence in any conclusions drawn about the connection between psychosocial maturation and desistance from antisocial behavior.

Measuring Psychosocial Maturity

As noted earlier, in the researchers’ theoretical model, psychosocial maturity consists of three separate components: temperance, perspective, and responsibility (Steinberg and Cauffman, 1996). Each of these components was indexed by two different measures. For more detail on the psychometric properties of the measures, see Monahan and colleagues (2009).

Temperance

The measures were self-reported impulse control (e.g., “I say the first thing that comes into my mind without thinking enough about it”) and suppression of aggression (e.g., “People who get me angry better watch out”), both of which are subscales of the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (Weinberger and Schwartz, 1990).

Perspective

The measures were self-reported consideration of others (e.g., “Doing things to help other people is more important to me than almost anything else,” also from the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory; Weinberger and Schwartz, 1990) and future orientation (e.g., “I will keep working at difficult, boring tasks if I know they will help me get ahead later”) (Cauffman and Woolard, 1999).

Responsibility

The measures were self-reported personal responsibility (e.g., “If something more interesting comes along, I will usually stop any work I’m doing,” reverse scored) from the Psychosocial Maturity Inventory (Greenberger et al., 1974), and resistance to peer influence (e.g., “Some people go along with their friends just to keep their friends happy, but other people refuse to go along with what their friends want to do, even though they know it will make their friends unhappy”) (Steinberg and Monahan, 2007).

In addition to examining each indicator of psychosocial maturity independently, the researchers also standardized each measure across the age distribution and then calculated the average to create a global measure of psychosocial maturity.

Measuring Antisocial Behavior

Involvement in antisocial behavior was assessed using the Self-Report of Offending, a widely used instrument in delinquency research (Huizinga, Esbensen, and Weihar, 1991). Participants reported if they had been involved in any of 22 aggressive or income-generating antisocial acts (e.g., taking something from another person by force, using a weapon, carrying a weapon, stealing a car or motorcycle to keep or sell, or using checks or credit cards illegally). At the baseline interview and the 48- through 84-month annual interviews, these questions were asked with the qualifying phrase, “In the past 12 months have you … ?” At the 6- through 36-month biannual interviews, these questions were asked with the qualifying phrase, “In the past 6 months, have you … ?” The researchers counted the number of different types of antisocial acts that an individual reported having committed since the previous interview to derive the measure of antisocial activity. So-called “variety scores”2 are widely used in criminological research because they are highly correlated with measures of seriousness of antisocial behavior yet are less prone to recall errors than self-reported frequency scores, especially when the antisocial act is committed frequently (such as selling drugs). In the Pathways sample, self-reported variety scores also were significantly correlated with official arrest records (Brame et al., 2004).

Identifying Trajectories of Antisocial Behavior

The first task was to see whether individuals followed different patterns of antisocial behavior over time. The research team used a type of analysis called group-based trajectory modeling (Nagin, 2005; Nagin and Land, 1993) to determine whether they could reliably divide the participants into distinct subgroups, each composed of individuals who demonstrated a common pattern of antisocial behavior. This analysis indicated that there were five different patterns, which are shown in figure 1.

The first group (low, 37.2 percent of the sample) consisted of individuals who reported low levels of offending at every time point. The second group (moderate, 13.5 percent) showed consistently moderate levels of antisocial behavior. The third group (early desisters, 31.3 percent) engaged in high levels of antisocial behavior in early adolescence, but their antisocial behavior declined steadily and rapidly thereafter. The fourth group (late desisters, 10.5 percent) engaged in high levels of antisocial behavior through midadolescence, which peaked at about age 15 and then declined during the transition to adulthood. The fifth group (persistent offenders, 7.5 percent) reported high levels of antisocial behavior consistently from ages 14 to 25.

Several points about these patterns are noteworthy:

•As expected—and consistent with other studies—the vast majority of serious juvenile offenders desisted from antisocial activity by the time they were in their early twenties. Less than 10 percent of the sample could be characterized as chronic offenders. This statistic is similar to that reported in other studies.

•More than one-third of the sample were infrequent offenders for the entire 7-year study period. Although all of these individuals were arrested for a very serious crime during midadolescence, their antisocial behavior did not continue.

•Even among the subgroup of juveniles who were high-frequency offenders at the beginning of the study (about 40 percent of the sample), the majority stopped offending by the time they reached young adulthood. Indeed, at age 25, most of the individuals who had been high-frequency offenders when they were in midadolescence were no longer committing crimes. This, too, is consistent with previous research showing that very few individuals—even those with a history of involvement in serious crime—were engaging in criminal activity after their midtwenties.

Patterns of Change in Psychosocial Maturity Over Time

The researchers next examined patterns of change in psychosocial maturity. Was adolescence a time of psychosocial maturation for these juveniles? Was it a period of continued growth in temperance, perspective, and responsibility? To answer these questions, they used an approach called growth curve modeling. This statistical technique examines whether, on average, individuals matured over the course of the study and whether there was significant variability within the sample in the level, degree, and rate of change in psychosocial maturation.

Across each of the six individual indicators of psychosocial maturity—impulse control, suppression of aggression, consideration of others, future orientation, personal responsibility, and resistance to peer influence—and the global index of psychosocial maturity, the pattern of results was identical. Individuals showed increases in all aspects of psychosocial maturity over time, but the rate of increase slowed in early adulthood.

Figure 2 illustrates this pattern; it shows the growth curve for the composite psychosocial maturity variable and steady psychosocial maturation from age 14 to about age 22, and then maturation begins to slow down. The researchers investigated whether psychosocial maturation actually stopped by the end of adolescence and found that it did not. Rather, they found that, across each of the six indicators of psychosocial maturity and the global measure of psychosocial maturity, individuals in the Pathways sample were still maturing psychosocially at age 25. At this age, individuals in the sample continued to increase in impulse control, suppression of aggression, consideration of others, future orientation, personal responsibility, and resistance to peer influence—indicating that psychosocial development continues beyond adolescence. This finding is consistent with new research on brain development, which shows that there is continued maturation of brain systems that support self-regulation—well into the midtwenties. It is important to note that this pattern of growth was seen in a sample of serious juvenile offenders, a population that is often portrayed as “deviant.”

Although these analyses indicate that, on average, adolescence and (to a lesser extent) early adulthood are times of psychosocial maturation, the analyses also indicated—not surprisingly—that individuals differ in their level of psychosocial maturity (i.e., some are more mature than others of the same chronological age) and in the way they develop psychosocial maturity during adolescence and early adulthood (i.e., some mature to a greater degree or faster than others) (see Monahan et al., 2009, for a fuller discussion). These results confirm that the population of juvenile offenders—even serious offenders—is quite heterogeneous, at least with respect to their psychosocial maturation. This variability also leads to the question of whether differences in patterns of offending are linked to differences in patterns of psychosocial development.

Psychosocial Maturation and Patterns of Offending

If it is true that desistance from crime during the transition to adulthood is due, at least in part, to normative psychosocial maturation, then there should be a connection between patterns of offending and patterns of psychosocial growth. Juvenile offenders vary in their patterns of offending and their patterns of psychosocial development. Are the two connected? More specifically, is psychosocial maturation linked to desistance from antisocial behavior? To explore this question, the researchers compared patterns of development in psychosocial maturity within each of the antisocial trajectory groups (figure 3). They selected age 16, the average age of participants when first enrolled in the study, to compare analyses that examined absolute levels of maturity with those that examined changes in maturity over time across the entire age range (ages 14–25).

As hypothesized, individuals in different antisocial trajectory groups differed in their absolute levels of psychosocial maturity and the extent to which their psychosocial maturity increased with age. The pattern of group differences was similar for the different psychosocial maturity subscales and for the composite psychosocial maturity index. At age 16, persistent offenders were significantly less mature than individuals in the low, moderate, and early desister groups and were not significantly different from those in the late desister group. Moreover, at age 16, late desisters, who did not start desisting from crime until about age 17, were significantly less mature than early desisters, whose desistance from crime was evident before they turned 16. The findings regarding changes in maturity over time were consistent with the concept that desistance from antisocial activity is linked to the process of psychosocial maturation. As expected, offenders who desisted from antisocial activity during adolescence showed significantly greater growth in psychosocial maturity than those who persisted into adulthood.

These findings are important for several reasons:

•Even in a population of serious juvenile offenders, there were significant gains in psychosocial maturity during adolescence and early adulthood. Between ages 14 and 25, youth continue to develop an increasing ability to control impulses, suppress aggression, consider the impact of their behavior on others, consider the future consequences of their behavior, take personal responsibility for their actions, and resist the influence of peers. Psychosocial development is far from over at age 18.

•Although the rate of maturation slows as individuals reach early adulthood (about age 22), it does not come to a standstill. Individuals are still maturing socially and emotionally when they are in their midtwenties; much of this maturation is probably linked to the maturation of brain systems that support self-control.

•There is significant variability in psychosocial maturity within the offender population with respect to both how mature individuals are in midadolescence and to what extent they continue to mature as they transition to adulthood.

•This variability in psychosocial maturity is linked to patterns of antisocial activity. Less mature individuals are more likely to be persistent offenders, and high-frequency offenders who desist from antisocial activity are likely to become more mature psychosocially than those who continue to commit crimes as adults. The association between immature impulse control and continued offending is consistent with Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime, which posits that poor self-control is the root cause of antisocial behavior (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990), and with Moffitt’s theory of “adolescence-limited offending,” which suggests that most antisocial behavior in adolescence is the product of transient immaturity (Moffitt, 1993, 2003, 2006; Moffitt et al., 2002).

Summary

Far more is known about the factors that cause young people to commit crimes than about the factors that cause them to stop committing crimes. The Pathways to Desistance study provides evidence that, just as immaturity is an important contributor to the emergence of much adolescent misbehavior, maturity is an important contributor to its cessation. This observation provides an important complement to models of desistance from crime that emphasize individuals’ entrance into adult roles and the fact that the demands of these roles are incompatible with a criminal lifestyle (Laub and Sampson, 2001; Sampson and Laub, 2003).

The results of the analyses suggest that the transition to adulthood involves the acquisition of more adultlike psychosocial capabilities and more adult responsibilities; however, not all adolescents mature to the same degree. Youth whose antisocial behavior persists into early adulthood exhibit lower levels of psychosocial maturity in adolescence and also demonstrate deficits in the development of psychosocial maturity compared with other antisocial youth. In a sense, these chronic offenders show a lack of psychosocial maturation that might be characterized as arrested development. Although it is reasonable to assume that this factor contributed to persistent involvement in criminal activity, researchers do not know the extent to which continued involvement in crime impeded the development of these individuals. To the extent that chronic offending leads to placement in institutional settings that do not facilitate positive development, the latter is certainly a strong possibility. In all likelihood, the connection between psychosocial immaturity and offending is bidirectional; that is, each factor affects the other factor. One important implication for practitioners is that interventions for juvenile offenders should be aimed explicitly at facilitating the development of psychosocial maturity and that special care should be taken to avoid exposing young offenders to environments that might inadvertently derail this developmental process. More research is needed that examines outcomes of interventions for antisocial youth that go beyond standard measures of recidivism.

Perhaps the most important lesson learned from these analyses is that the vast majority of juvenile offenders grow out of antisocial activity as they make the transition to adulthood; most juvenile offending is, in fact, limited to adolescence (i.e., these offenders do not persist into adulthood). Although this is well documented, the researchers believe that the Pathways study is the first investigation to show that the process of maturing out of crime is linked to the process of maturing more generally. It is therefore important to ask whether the types of sanctions and interventions that serious offenders are exposed to are likely to facilitate this process or are likely to impede it (Steinberg, Chung, and Little, 2004). When the former is the case, the result may well be desistance from crime. However, if responses to juvenile offenders slow the process of psychosocial maturation, in the long run these responses may do more harm than good.

Endnotes

1. OJJDP is sponsoring the Pathways to Desistance study (project number 2007–MU–FX–0002) in partnership with the National Institute of Justice (project number 2008–IJ–CX–0023), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant number R01DA019697), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the Arizona State Governor’s Justice Commission. Investigators for this study are Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh), Robert Brame, Ph.D. (University of North Carolina–Charlotte), Elizabeth Cauffman, Ph.D. (University of California–Irvine), Laurie Chassin, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sonia Cota-Robles, Ph.D. (Temple University), Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D. (Columbia University), George Knight, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Sandra Losoya, Ph.D. (Arizona State University), Alex Piquero, Ph.D. (University of Texas–Dallas), Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H. (University of Pittsburgh), and Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. (Temple University). More details about the study can be found in a previous OJJDP fact sheet (Mulvey, 2011) and at the study website (www.pathwaysstudy.pitt.edu), which includes a list of publications from the study.

2. The variety score is calculated as the number of different types of antisocial acts that the participant reported during the period that the interview covered, divided by the number of different antisocial acts the participant was asked about.

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Acknowledgments

Laurence Steinberg, Distinguished University Professor and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology at Temple University, is one of the principal investigators on the Pathways to Desistance study. His research focuses on brain and behavioral development in adolescence.

Elizabeth Cauffman, Professor and Chancellor’s Fellow in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine, is one of the principal investigators on the Pathways to Desistance study. Dr. Cauffman is interested in applying research on normative and atypical adolescent development to issues with legal and social policy implications.

Kathryn C. Monahan is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Monahan’s research focuses on risk and resilience during adolescence in typically developing and high-risk populations.

NCJ 248391

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