DOI: 10.3886/icpsr09986
title: Criminal Careers of Juveniles in New York City, 1977-1983
title: Archival Version

description: This longitudinal study of juvenile offenders traces the
 criminal histories of a sample of juveniles, including those who were
 "dropouts" (juvenile offenders who did not go on to become adult
 criminal offenders) and those who continued to be arrested, ranging
 from those with only one subsequent arrest to "persisters"
 (juveniles who did become career criminal offenders). The data are
 intended to address the following questions: (1) Are serious juvenile
 offenders more likely than nonserious juvenile offenders to become
 adult offenders? (2) Are offenders who begin at a younger age more
 likely to have more serious criminal careers than those who begin when
 they are older? (3) As a criminal career progresses, will the offender
 become more skilled at one type of offense and commit that type of
 crime more frequently, while decreasing the frequency of other types
 of crimes? (4) As a criminal career continues, will the offender
 commit progressively more serious offenses? (5) How well can it be
 predicted who will become a high-rate offender? Part 1 of this study,
 Juvenile Case File, contains data on a subsample of 14- and
 15-year-olds who were brought to Probation Intake in the New York City
 Family Court for delinquency offenses. Included are variables for the
 date and type of arrest, disposition and sentence of the offender, and
 sex and race of the offender, as well as questions concerning the
 offender's home environment and highest school grade completed. Part
 2, Arrest and Incarceration Event File, includes information on prior
 delinquency arrests, including the date of arrest, the charge and
 severity, and the disposition and sentence, as well as similar
 information on subsequent offenses that occurred up to six years after
 the original delinquency offense. Included for each incarceration is
 the status of the offender (juvenile or adult), the date of admission
to a facility, and the length of time incarcerated.
description: This longitudinal study of juvenile offenders
 traces the criminal histories of a sample of juveniles, including
 those who were "dropouts" (juvenile offenders who did not go on to
 become adult criminal offenders) and those who continued to be
 arrested, ranging from those with only one subsequent arrest to
 "persisters" (juveniles who did become career criminal
 offenders). Much of the research attempting to examine the links
 between chronic adult offenders and the frequency and severity of
 juvenile criminality has been retrospective in nature. In such
 studies, criminal history and other background factors about subjects
 who have already committed crimes are examined. Predictive factors are
 assessed by looking backward. However, this type of research provides
 no information on those juvenile offenders who did not go on to be
 severe, repeat adult offenders. To predict future criminality
 correctly, both types of offenders ("dropouts" as well as
 "persisters") must be part of the analysis. To address this concern,
 the investigators conducted a prospective study, providing
 longitudinal arrest data on a sample of juvenile offenders. The data
 address the following questions: (1) Are serious juvenile offenders
 more likely than nonserious juvenile offenders to become adult
 offenders? (2) Are offenders who begin at a younger age more likely to
 have more serious criminal careers than those who begin when they are
 older? (3) As a criminal career progresses, will the offender become
 more skilled at one type of offense and commit that type of crime more
 frequently, while decreasing the frequency of other types of crimes?
 (4) As a criminal career progresses, will the offender commit
 progressively more serious offenses? (5) How well can high-rate
offenders be predicted?
description: This study employed a longitudinal prospective
 design. The investigators randomly selected 14- and 15-year-olds who
 were referred by police to Probation Intake in the New York City
 Family Court as a result of an arrest on delinquency charges. This
 group was followed until September 1983 (up to six years of
 follow-up). All subsequent arrests, dispositions, and incarcerations,
 both juvenile and adult, were recorded during this portion of data
 collection. A great deal of attention was focused on gathering data
 from various sources and organizing these data into a useful database.
 The investigators collected a large portion of data from the Family
 Court Disposition Study (FCDS). The investigators used the FCDS as the
 pool from which the sample was selected and as a source of data about
 juveniles' prior criminal history and current court case. In addition,
 the researchers extracted data about subsequent juvenile contacts with
 the criminal justice system from the Probation Department files and
 the Police Department arrest files. The investigators also obtained
 data regarding the sample's later contacts with the criminal justice
 system from three existing official record systems, the New York City
 Criminal Justice Agency (CJA), the New York State Division of Criminal
 Justice Services (DCJS), and the Office of Court Administration
(OCA).
description: Part 1 of this study contains data on a subsample
 of 14- and 15-year-olds who were brought to Probation Intake for
 delinquency offenses. Included in this file are variables such as
 arrest charge categorized into type and severity, date of arrest for
 the sample case, disposition and sentence of the sample case, sex and
 race of the offender, highest school grade completed, persons with
 whom the offender was residing, employment status of the household
 members, and the welfare status of the household. Included in Part 2
 is information on age at first arrest, total number of prior
 delinquency arrests, and detailed information on up to ten prior
 delinquencies, such as arrest charge and severity, date of offense,
 disposition, and sentence. Part 2 also contains subsequent arrest and
 incarceration records of the offender. Included for each subsequent
 arrest is the status of the arrestee (juvenile or adult), the charge,
 categorized by type and severity, the date of the arrest, the
 conviction charge(s) by type and severity, the disposition of the
 arrest, sentence, and the date of the sentence. Included for each
 incarceration is the status of the offender (juvenile or adult), the
date of admission to a facility, and the length of time incarcerated.
description: Response Rates: A response rate for the subsample selected from
 the FCDS study is not applicable, since the investigators used
 secondary data sources. The rate at which the investigators obtained
 subsequent arrest and incarceration records was 66.7 percent. Arrest
 and incarceration records for 1,261 of the 1,890 juvenile offenders in
the FCDS subsample were obtained.
description: Presence of Common Scales: None
description: The sample was originally drawn by the Vera Institute of
 Justice's Family Court Disposition Study (FCDS). The FCDS randomly
 sampled one of ten juvenile delinquency cases appearing at Probation
 Intake in the New York City Family Court during a one-year period, and
 one in six of all status offense cases. The present study selected a
 subsample from the FCDS study based on two selection criteria. First,
 only those offenders brought to Probation Intake for delinquency
 offenses were included, and not those referred to court for status
 offenses. Second, in order to maximize the length of time that the
 offenders could be followed as adults, only the oldest juveniles were
 selected from the FCDS. The final sample for the present study
 includes juveniles at ages 14 and 15 who had been brought to Probation
 Intake in the New York City Family Court from April 1, 1977, to March
 31, 1978. The FCDS subsample also constituted the sample for which up
 to ten prior delinquency arrests and all subsequent juvenile and adult
arrests and incarcerations up to 1983 were collected.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Juvenile Case File
DS2: Arrest and Incarceration Event File
description: Juveniles at ages 14 and 15 who had been referred by
 police to Probation Intake in the New York City Family Court as a
result of arrest on delinquency charges.
description: (1) Part 2 is a hierarchical data file, in which the
 number of records for each individual depends on the number of
 subsequent arrests and incarcerations he/she experienced. The file
 contains records of 1,082 juvenile arrests, 4,119 adult arrests, and
 1,191 incarcerations across 1,267 individuals. Each record in the file
 is identified by the variables RECTYPE and INDICAT. The variable
 RECTYPE indicates whether the record is a header record (there are two
 header records per case), an arrest record, or an incarceration
 record. The variable INDICAT marks whether the data on the record
 refer to an event that took place when the offender was a juvenile or
 an adult. The unit of analysis in Part 2 depends on how the user reads
 in the data. If the user reads in only the first two header records,
 the individual offender becomes the unit of analysis. If the user
 reads in only arrest records or only incarceration records, the arrest
 event or the incarceration event becomes the unit of analysis. Since
 both Parts 1 and 2 contain a common identifier, data from the two
 files can be merged. (2) The codebooks for this collection are
 provided as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The PDF file format
 was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using
 PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on
 how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided through the
ICPSR Website on the Internet.