DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03548
title: Childhood Victimization and Delinquency, Adult Criminality, and Violent Criminal Behavior in a Large Urban County in the Northwest United States, 1980-1997
title: Archival Version

description: This research project was designed as a replication and
extension of earlier research on how childhood victimization relates
to delinquency, adult criminality, and violent criminal behavior
(CHILD ABUSE, NEGLECT, AND VIOLENT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR IN A MIDWEST
METROPOLITAN AREA OF THE UNITED STATES, 1967-1988 (ICPSR 9480)). The
study consisted of a sample of abused and neglected children who were
made dependents of the Superior Court of a large urban county in the
Northwest between 1980 and 1984, and a matched control group of
children. Dependency records were obtained from the county court
house. Control match criteria were collected from Department of Health
birth records data. Type of abuse/neglect precipitating the dependency
petition was collected and coded using a modified version of the
Maltreatment Classification Coding Scheme (MCS). Data on juvenile
arrests from juvenile court records, including both number and types,
were collected for each abused and/or neglected youth and each matched
control subject. Adult criminal arrests, excluding routine traffic
offenses, for all abused and neglected subjects and matched controls
were collected from local, county, state, and federal law enforcement
sources. A subset of arrests consisting of violent crimes was
developed as a key outcome of interest. Major types of variables
included in this study are demographics, criminal records, dependency
records (only for those subjects abused/neglected as children),
including type and severity of child abuse/neglect, and census
socioeconomic variables. Several derived variables were also
included.
description: This research project was designed as a
 replication and extension of earlier research on how childhood
 victimization relates to delinquency, adult criminality, and violent
 criminal behavior (CHILD ABUSE, NEGLECT, AND VIOLENT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR
 IN A MIDWEST METROPOLITAN AREA OF THE UNITED STATES, 1967-1988 (ICPSR
 9480)). This study had four major goals: (1) to document the
 prevalence of delinquency, adult criminality, and violence in a new
 cohort of abused and/or neglected children and matched controls,
 representing a different geographic area (Northwest), time period
 (1980s), and ethnic composition (to include Native American youth) as
 compared to earlier studies, (2) to examine the extent to which there
 are gender and ethnic differences in the relationship between
 childhood victimization and crime and violent offending, (3) to
 determine the extent to which different types of maltreatment
 (physical and sexual abuse and neglect) are associated with increased
 risk of subsequent delinquent, adult, and violent criminal behavior,
 and (4) to examine the extent to which placement experiences mediate
delinquent and criminal consequences.
description: This study consisted of a sample of substantiated
 cases of abused and neglected children who were made dependents of the
 Superior Court of a large urban county in the Northwest between 1980
 and 1984, and a matched control group of children. Control match
 criteria were collected from Department of Health birth records
 data. Dependency records were obtained from the county court
 house. Type of abuse/neglect precipitating the dependency petition was
 coded using a modified version of the Maltreatment Classification
 Coding Scheme (MCS). The MCS provides a mechanism for classifying
 maltreatment by subtypes with up to six levels of severity for each
 maltreatment allegation type. Data on juvenile arrests from juvenile
 court records, including both number and types, were collected for
 each abused and/or neglected youth and each matched control
 subject. Adult criminal arrests, excluding routine traffic offenses,
 for all abused and neglected subjects and matched controls were
 collected from local, county, state, and federal law enforcement
 sources. Each jurisdiction has its own coding system for crimes, so a
 coding scheme was developed for this study to allow arrest comparisons
 across jurisdictions. Duplicate charges were removed from the dataset
 through individual examination of each case and comparison to charges
 from each data source. It is possible that some crimes were not
 attributed to an individual due to matching issues, but this was
 minimized by a thorough examination of each name, other identifying
information, and charge.
description: Demographic variables for all subjects include
 gender, ethnicity, and age on March 1, 1999. Criminal record variables
 include age at first offense, number of juvenile and adult offenses,
 number of charges at different jurisdictional levels, and number and
 type of offenses. A variable for violent crimes was created and
 provides counts of arrests for attempted murder, rape and sexual
 assault, kidnapping, homicide, assault, child abuse, burglary and
 trespassing, theft and robbery, and vehicular homicide. Dependency
 record variables, which only apply to subjects abused/neglected as
 children, include age at dependency, reason for dependency, type of
 maltreatment, type of order at dependency, reason for resolution of
 dependency, final disposition, length of dependency, caregiver's
 relationship to child, caregiver problems at dependency, identified
 child problems at dependency, whether a child was placed as a result
 of the dependency, type of placement, length of placement, and whether
 the child remained in placement at the resolution of dependency.
 Variables based on MCS are included for several types of maltreatment,
 and their values reflect the severity of the maltreatment. Types of
 maltreatment included are physical abuse, which is divided into eight
 subtypes according to the location of the abuse on the child's body,
 emotional abuse, which is divided into 26 subtypes, sexual abuse,
 neglect, which is divided into eight subtypes, including failure to
 provide food, clothing, shelter, medical treatment, or hygiene, lack
 of supervision, a poor supervision environment, educational
 maltreatment, use of an unsuitable substitute caregiver, involving
 child in illegal activities, and whether the child used
 drugs/alcohol. Census variables included are census tract in which
 child was born, population of the census tract, percent of the
 population under 14 years, percent of households with a single female
 head, percent of single female heads of household with children,
 percent of families below the poverty line, percent of African
 Americans below the poverty line, percent of Native Americans below
 the poverty line, percent of Asians below the poverty line, mean and
 median family income, percent of families receiving federal
 assistance, percent of people over 25 with a high school diploma, and
 socioeconomic status of the census tract. A number of derived
variables are also included.
description: Response Rates: Not applicable.
description: Presence of Common Scales: The study used the Maltreatment Classification Coding
Scheme (MCS) developed by Barnett, Manly, and Ciccheti.
description: All dependency petitions filed between 1980 and 1984 on
 children aged from birth to 11 years were included in the initial
 sample. A total of 2,262 dependency petitions were identified as
 meeting the study criteria. After initial examination, 187 cases were
 excluded because the case was transferred out of the area, the child
 died, or the dependency record was not available. Of the remaining
 2,075 dependent children, 1,198 were excluded from the study because
 they either were not born in the state, were not made a dependent in
 the county of interest, or their dependency record was not
 located. This left a final group of 877 abused and neglected
 children. To locate a matched control group, a file of all youth born
 within the jurisdiction of interest in the same time period as the
 abuse and neglect group was obtained from the Department of Health
 (DOH). DOH birth records were searched until each abuse and/or neglect
 case in the study had a corresponding matched control based on age
 (within three months), gender, ethnicity, and approximate
 socioeconomic status. Approximate socioeconomic status matching for
 the controls was based on birth in the same or similar census tract as
 the abuse and neglect group. Census tracts were clustered based on
 median family income, percent on welfare, percent persons below
 poverty level, percent persons over 25 with a high school diploma, and
 percent single female head of household. Once a "matched pool" was
 identified, child abuse and neglect registry records were reviewed in
 order to exclude any of the matched controls found to have a child
 abuse and neglect report history from the sample pool. These
procedures produced a one-to-one matched control group of 877 cases.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Childhood Victimization and Delinquency, Adult Criminality, and Violent Criminal Behavior in a Large Urban County in the Northwest United States, 1980-1997
description: All children aged from birth to 11 years during the period
1980-1984 in a large urban county in the Northwest.
description: The user guide, codebook, and data collection
instrument are provided by ICPSR as separate 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 on the ICPSR Web site.