New Releases From

OJJDP

Office of Juvenile Justice

and Delinquency Prevention Working for Youth Justice and Safety

Visit the OJJDP Web site for these new releases, additional publications, 

and other resources: ojjdp.gov

NEW RELEASES

These new releases are available 

online and in print:

Community Supervision of Underage Drinkers

Delinquency Cases in Juvenile Court, 2009

Effects and Consequences of Underage Drinking

Juveniles in Residential Placement, 2010

Nature and Risk of Victimization: Findings From the 

Survey of Youth in Residential Placement

The Northwestern Juvenile Project: Overview

PTSD, Trauma, and Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders in 

Detained Youth

Transfer of Juveniles to Adult Court: Effects of a Broad 

Policy in One Court

Underage Drinking: Practice Guidelines for 

Community Corrections

ONLINE ONLY

Download these new online publications:

AMBER Alert Best Practices

Child and Youth Victimization Known to Police, School, 

and Medical Authorities

Delinquency Cases Waived to Criminal Court, 2009

Disproportionate Minority Contact In Focus Fact Sheet 

Highlights of the 2010 National Youth Gang Survey 

Juvenile Delinquency Probation Caseload, 2009 

Find additional information on 

these topics, and more, at 

OJJDP.gov: 

• Child Protection

• Gender/Race/Ethnicity

• Health

• Statistics

• Victims

Also available on the site is 

OJJDP’s e-News.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

ojjdp.gov Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Melodee Hanes, Acting Administrator

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.

Transfer of Juveniles to Adult Court: 

Effects of a Broad Policy in One Court

Edward P. Mulvey and Carol A. Schubert

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.

December 2012

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

ojjdp.gov Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Robert L. Listenbee, Administrator

Beyond Detention

Even though research indicates that the majority of youth in the juvenile justice system have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, reports issued by the Surgeon General and the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health show that juvenile detainees often do not receive the treatment and 

services they need.

This bulletin series presents the results of the Northwestern Juvenile Project, the first large-scale, prospective longitudinal study of drug, alcohol, and psychiatric disorders in a diverse sample of juvenile detainees. Individual bulletins examine topics such as suicidal behaviors in youth in detention, posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma among this population, functional impairment in youth after detention, and barriers for youth who need to receive mental health services. 

Nearly all detained youth eventually return to their communities and the findings presented in this series provide empirical evidence that can be used to better understand how to meet youth’s mental health needs and provide appropriate services while in detention and after their release. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention hopes this knowledge will help guide innovative juvenile justice policy and create a better future for youth with psychiatric disorders in the justice system.

PTSD, Trauma, and Comorbid

Psychiatric Disorders in

Detained Youth

Karen M. Abram, Linda A. Teplin, Devon C. King, Sandra L. Longworth, Kristin M. Emanuel,

Erin G. Romero, Gary M. McClelland, Mina K. Dulcan, Jason J. Washburn, Leah J. Welty, 

and Nichole D. Olson

Highlights

This bulletin examines the results of the Northwestern Juvenile Project—a prospective longitudinal study of youth detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Chicago, IL. The authors discuss their findings on the prevalence of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among juvenile detainees and PTSD’s tendency to co-occur with other psychiatric disorders. 

Some findings include the following:

• Of the study sample, 92.5 percent of youth had experienced at least one trauma, 84 percent had experienced more than one trauma, and 56.8 percent were exposed to trauma six or more times.

• Witnessing violence, the most common trauma, was far more common in this study sample than in most community studies of youth and 

young adults.

• More than 1 in 10 detainees had PTSD in the year prior to the 

interview. 

• Among participants with PTSD, 93 percent had at least one comorbid psychiatric disorder. Among males, having any psychiatric diagnosis significantly increased the odds of having comorbid PTSD.

June 2013

Robert L. Listenbee, Administrator May 2013

Access OJJDP publications online at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ojjdp

Office of Justice Programs Innovation • Partnerships • Safer Neighborhoods www.ojp.usdoj.gov

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

Access OJJDP publications online at ojjdp.gov

A Message From OJJDP

The Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement, Juvenile Residential 

Facility Census, and Survey of Youth 

in Residential Placement (SYRP) 

comprise the nation’s most comprehensive data collection program on 

youth in custody and the facilities 

that hold them. The Office of Juvenile 

Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

(OJJDP) sponsors these surveys and 

disseminates the findings to provide a 

snapshot of the youth who comprise 

the nation’s juvenile placement population, the facilities where they reside, 

and the conditions in which they live. 

Conducted in 2003, SYRP is the first 

study to assess rates of victimization 

for youth in custody and the only study 

to do so across a range of domains: 

theft, robbery, physical assault, and 

sexual assault. As reported in this 

bulletin, the researchers found that 

46 percent of youth had property 

taken in their absence, 10 percent 

were directly robbed, 29 percent were 

threatened or beaten, 9 percent were 

beaten and injured, and 4 percent 

were forced to engage in sexual activity. These findings signal the urgent 

need for policy and program initiatives 

that will reduce victimization and improve protections for confined youth. 

One of OJJDP’s primary mandates is 

to prevent the victimization of youth 

in custody. We hope that this bulletin 

will inform juvenile justice professionals and policymakers about how youth 

experience confinement and how 

they can improve facility structure and 

operations that often exacerbate those 

experiences. 

Nature and Risk of 

Victimization

Andrea J. Sedlak, Karla S. McPherson, and Monica Basena

The Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP) is the third component in the 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s constellation of surveys providing 

updated statistics on youth in custody in the juvenile justice system. It joins the Census of 

Juveniles in Residential Placement and the Juvenile Residential Facility Census, which 

are biennial mail surveys of residential facility administrators conducted in alternating years. SYRP is a unique addition, gathering information directly from youth through 

anonymous interviews. This bulletin series reports on the first national SYRP, covering its 

development and design and providing detailed information on the youth’s characteristics, 

backgrounds, and expectations; the conditions of their confinement; their needs and the 

services they received; and their experiences of victimization in placement.

This bulletin covers key findings from the 

Survey of Youth in Residential Placement 

on youth’s victimization in placement, 

including their experiences of theft, robbery, physical assault, and sexual assault. 

It presents the details of youth’s reports 

about these victimization experiences, 

indicating the prevalence and frequency of 

victimization, the perpetrators involved, 

the use of weapons, and any injuries 

resulting from the victimization. Because 

SYRP provides substantial information 

about youth’s characteristics, needs, and 

conditions of confinement (Sedlak and 

Bruce, 2010; Sedlak and McPherson, 2010a, 

2010b), it also provides a rich basis for understanding the context of victimization. 

The bulletin describes a variety of youth 

characteristics and facility conditions 

that correlate with victimization rates and 

identifies a core set of risk factors that 

predict the probability of a youth experiencing violence in custody. 

SYRP findings are based on interviews 

with a nationally representative sample of 

7,073 youth in custody during spring 2003, 

using an audio computer-assisted selfinterview methodology. Facility administrators provided additional information 

about facility structure and operations 

by verifying the facility’s answers on the 

most recent Juvenile Residential Facility 

Census (JRFC) survey and by completing 

Findings From the survey oF youth in residential Placement

U.S. Department 

Of

of Justice

fice of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention