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                            Funding & Awards
 Pathways to Desistance
Award Information
Awardee
              University of Pittsburgh
Award #
              2008-IJ-CX-0023
Funding Category
              Competitive
Location
                    Pittsburgh, PA
Congressional District
              18
Status
              Closed
Funding First Awarded
              2008
Total funding (to date)
              $995,707
Original Solicitation
              NIJ FY 08 ORE Crime and Justice
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2008, $995,707)
The purposes of the proposed research are to support the next two years of the Pathways to Desistance study, an ongoing investigation of the ways in which serious adolescent offenders stop their involvement in crime and make successful transitions to adulthood.  This study is a multi-site, collaborative, longitudinal research project following 1,354 serious juvenile offenders, examining factors related to positive and negative psychological and behavioral outcomes.  The study identifies variations in patterns of desistance from antisocial activity and examines the role of social context, developmental change, and system involvement in promoting change.  The study provides empirical information needed to improve decision-making by court and social service personnel about juveniles' future risk and amenability to treatment, as well as guidance for important, ongoing policy debates about alternative approaches for dealing with serious young offenders.

All but a few members of the study sample have now been followed for over five years (from an average age of 16 at enrollment to a current mean age of 21).  The long term research plan is to gather data covering an eight-year period after court involvement, so that participants will average 24 years of age at the end of data collection.  The length of this follow-up period is dictated by prior research, which indicates that significant desistance from criminal activity occurs in the early-20s for most individuals, and that many of the potential factors that might precipitate desistance from antisocial activity (e.g., marriage, steady employment) do not occur with great frequency until the early or mid-20s. Thus, the mid-20s is the critical age end point necessary to identify desistance from criminal offending as well as the events that promote this process.

This research project collects rich data regarding numerous topics of direct relevance to intervention efforts with serious adolescent offenders as they become young adults.  These include extensive information regarding the nature and consequences (both positive and negative) of offenders' involvement with services and their experiences and perception of sanctions.  In addition, the sample contains a large proportion of minority offenders (both African-American and Latino), allowing for analyses of differential effects of system involvement on individuals from different ethnic groups.  Of equal importance, this study also establishes an infrastructure for future secondary data analyses by other investigators; creating the most comprehensive, complete longitudinal data set regarding serious offenders available to date.


ca/ncf



  
Grant-Funded Publications
        
                      Adolescent Emotion Regulation and Future Psychopathology: A Prospective Transdiagnostic Analysis
                  Longitudinal association between callous-unemotional traits and friendship quality among adjudicated adolescents
                  Traumatic brain injury and adverse psychological effects: Examining a potential pathway to aggressive offending
                  A Longitudinal Assessment of Head Injuries as a Source of Acquired Neuropsychological Deficits and the Implications for Criminal Persistence
                  A Longitudinal Examination of the Association Between Intelligence and Rearrest Using a Latent Trait-State-Occasion Modeling Approach in a Sample of Previously Adjudicated Youth
                  Does Future Orientation Moderate the Relationship Between Impulse Control and Offending? Insights From a Sample of Serious Young Offenders
                  Does Gang Membership Pay? Illegal and Legal Earnings Through Emerging Adulthood
                  Lack of Health Insurance Among Juvenile Offenders: a Predictor of Inappropriate Healthcare Use and Reincarceration?
                  Perceived Gun Access and Gun Carrying Among Male Adolescent Offenders
                  Substance Use Initiation Among Justice-Involved Youths: Evidence From the Pathways to Desistance Study
                                                                      BJA Bulletins,
                  Trajectories of Alcohol and Marijuana Use Among Primary Versus Secondary Psychopathy Variants Within an Adjudicated Adolescent Male Sample
                  An Evaluation of the Directional Relationship Between Head Injuries and Subsequent Changes in Impulse Control and Delinquency in a Sample of Previously Adjudicated Males
                  Pathways to Desistance
                  Recidivism in a Sample of Serious Adolescent Offenders
                  Consequences of Incarceration for Gang Membership: A Longitudinal Study of Serious Offenders in Philadelphia and Phoenix
                  Juvenile Waiver as a Mechanism of Social Stratification: a Focus on Human Capital
                  "No Remorse, No Repent": Linking Lack of Remorse to Criminal Offending in a Sample of Serious Adolescent Offenders
                  Longitudinal Patterns of Legal Socialization in First-Generation Immigrants, Second-Generation Immigrants, and Native-Born Serious Youthful Offenders
                  Examination of Change in Dynamic Risk of Offending Over Time Among Serious Juvenile Offenders
                  Assessing the Mental Health/Offending Relationship Across Race/Ethnicity in a Sample of Serious Adolescent Offenders
                  Applying General Strain Theory to Youth Commercial Sexual Exploitation
                  Differentiating Serious Adolescent Offenders Who Exit the Justice System From Those Who Do Not
                  How Well Do the Adolescent Risk Factors Predict Re-arrest Frequency Across Race/Ethnicity Among Serious Adolescent Offenders
                  Take My License n' All That Jive, I Can't See ... 35: Little Hope for the Future Encourages Offending Over Time
                  The Unpredictability of Murder: Juvenile Homicide in the Pathways to Desistance Study
                  Probation Intensity, Self-Reported Offending, and Psychopathy in Juveniles on Probation for Serious Offenses
                  On the Relationships Between Commercial Sexual Exploitation/Prostitution, Substance Dependency, and Delinquency in Youthful Offenders
                  Unpredictability of Murder: Juvenile Homicide in the Pathways to Desistance Study
                  Comparing Official and Self-Report Records of Offending Across Gender and Race/Ethnicity in a Longitudinal Study of Serious Youthful Offenders
                  Age-Graded Risks for Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Male and Female Youth
                  Pathways to Desistance - Final Technical Report
                  "A Good Man Always Knows His Limitations": The Role of Overconfidence in Criminal Offending
                  Does Time Matter? Comparing Trajectory Concordance and Covariate Association Using Time-Based and Age-Based Assessments
                  Continuity and Change in Gang Membership and Gang Embeddedness




  
Grant-Funded Datasets
        
                      http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR32282
                  http://jiv.sagepub.com/

  
Date Created: September 25, 2008
    
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