Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D. Law and Psychiatry Program Department of Psychiatry

1. Pathways to Desistance: A Longitudinal Study of Serious Adolescent Offenders Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D. Law and Psychiatry Program Department of Psychiatry University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine National Juvenile Justice Network Teleconference January 28, 2010

2. Pathways to Desistance StudySupported by • Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention • National Institute of Justice • National Institute on Drug Abuse • John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation • Pennsylvania Commission on Crime & Delinquency • Arizona Governor’s Justice Commission • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation • William Penn Foundation • William T. Grant Foundation

3. Pathways to Desistance Study Working Group Members • Edward Mulvey • Laurence Steinberg • Elizabeth Cauffman • Laurie Chassin • George Knight • Carol Schubert • Sandra Losoya • Robert Brame • Jeffrey Fagan • Alex Piquero

4. Clarion soldier to get Medal of Honor 19-year-old threw himself on grenade to save comrades Saturday, May 24, 2008 By Milan Simonich, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "My intent was to portray Ross as an average boy who made mistakes early in his life and then surprised everybody by doing an extraordinary thing after undergoing a transformation that started with his probation and continued with his Army discipline. It's important to me to tell people that they can't count a child out because of his mistakes," Tom McGinnis said.

5. Pathways to Desistance Study Reasons for the study • Richer information about serious adolescent offenders • Picture of the desistance process • Individual maturation • Life changes • Systems involvement • Improved practice and policy in juvenile justice • Risk assessment • Targeted interventions and sanctions

6. Study Design • Two sites: Philadelphia and Phoenix • Enroll serious adolescent offenders • 1,354 felony offenders, aged 14 -18 • Females and adult transfer cases • Regular interviews over eight years • Initial interviews • Time point interviews • Release interviews • Other sources of information • Collateral interviews • Official records

7. Who are these adolescents? • 16 years old on average • 86% male • Average of two prior court appearances • About half appearing for a felony against a person • Ethnically diverse

8. What we look at Family Context • Parental Monitoring • Parental Relationships • Parent orientation Background Characteristics • Personal characteristics (e.g. family, marital relationships) • Academic achievement and commitment • Routine activities • Offense history • Alcohol and drug use/abuse • Exposure to violence • Psychopathy • Emotional reactivity • Acculturation • Personality Psychological Mediators • Psychological development • Mental health symptoms and threat-control override • Head injury • Use of social services • Perceptions of opportunity • Perceptions of procedural justice • Perceived thrill of doing crime • Moral disengagement • Religious orientation • Costs and rewards of offending Personal Relationships • Relationships with romantic partner & friends • Peer delinquency and gang involvement • Contact with caring adult Community Context • Neighborhood conditions • Community involvement • Personal capital and social ties • Life Changes • Monthly data available regarding: Living arrangements School involvement Legal involvement Work Romantic relationships Social service involvement/sanctions

9. Living Situation Calendar

10. Progress so far • Entire sample past the 72 month follow-up point • About 90% of interviews completed at each time point • Over 24,000 interviews completed

11. Examples of topics being investigated • Procedural justice • Perceptions of risk/benefit of crime • Psychosocial maturity and criminal offending • Effects of substance use treatment • Acculturation/enculturation • Family functioning • Perceptions of opportunities • Neighborhood effects • Service Provision/Institutional Care

12. Self-Reported Offending over Time

13. Self Reported Offending over Three YearsMales only Group 5 (8.5%) Group 4 (15.1%) Group 3 (18.3%) Group 2 (33.8%) Group 1 (24.2%)

14. Mean Number of Re-arrests Through 36 Months for Each Group Mean number of re-arrests Self-reported offending group

15. Percent of time in institution over three years for each group Percent time in institution

16. Average Percent in Each Setting at Each Time Point

17. Conclusions • In serious offenders, small group (8-9%) with high and continued offending, and larger group with high and declining offending (15%) • Largest group (about 58%) reports low levels of offending, but still spends about 30% of follow up period in institutional care • Can’t predict the high end persisters from desisters very well from baseline characteristics • Placement history is very similar for these groups

18. Placement in a Juvenile Institution

19. Data • Juvenile Court cases in both sites • N = 921 • probation = 502 • institutional placement = 419 • Outcomes are: • rate of re-arrest (by year) • level of reported antisocial activity • 66 variables measured at baseline, including demographic, familial, peer, legal, psychological, mental health related, substance abuse, psycho-social maturity and prior adjustment

20. Research Question #1 Is there a treatment effect of placement vs. probation on subsequent rate of re-arrest or self-reported antisocial activity?

21. Placement vs. ProbationNaïve Comparison

22. Propensity Score Matching • Two step process: • A propensity score is calculated for each case. It is the predicted probability that you get placed given all of the background characteristics considered • Take each placed case and match it to one or more probation case with similar propensity score • We then can look to see if the placed group looks similar to the matched probation group on a variety of characteristics that might affect the outcome • If the groups look alike, we can attribute any difference in the outcomes to the fact that they were placed

23. Getting Balanced Groups using Propensity Scores • Overall, 42 of 66 baseline variables were significantly different between the placed and probation groups • After matching, 64 out of 66 variables were NOT significantly different between the placed and probation groups • In other words, we have ruled out these 64 variables as potential causes of group differences in the outcomes

24. Treatment Effect of PlacementMatched Groups No significant differences between groups in rate of re-arrest

25. Research Question #2 Is there a community safety benefit for a longer length of stay in a juvenile institution?

26. Methodology for Length of Stay • Length of stay is broken up into discrete “doses” • Methods to get similar cases across different levels of the “dose” • 65 of 66 variables show no difference among the groups, meaning we can rule them out as causes of differences in outcomes • Response Curve is estimated

27. Dosage Categories Doses roughly correspond to quartiles: 1) 0-6 mo., 2) 6-10 mo., 3) 10-13 mo., 4) > 13 mo. Histogram of LOS in months

28. Dose-Response Curve Quartiles as Doses

29. Dose-Response Curve 3 Month Intervals as Doses

30. Conclusions • For intermediate lengths of stay (i.e., 3-13 months), there appears to be little or no marginal benefit for longer lengths of stay in a juvenile institution • Inferences about the impact of shorter and longer stays are less certain • < 3 mo. – too little power • > 13 mo. – too much variability • Caution about need to account for treatment in these settings

31. Substance Use Treatment

32. High Rates of Substance Use Disorders (Past Year Diagnoses) Males Females Some substance use diagnosis: 37% 35% A-A = African-American C= Caucasian, non-Hispanic H = Hispanic

33. There is Variability in Substance Use Over Time (Males) High Stable (11.0%) High Declining (7.6%) Moderate (33.4%) Low (34.6%) Abstainers (13.4%)

34. Treatment Effects • With family involvement, significant short term (6-month) effects of treatment on • Alcohol use • Marijuana use • Offending • Strengths of the analyses • Test of treatment as actually provided • Controlling for “street time” • Above and beyond drug testing • Not a one-shot “Inoculation” • Chronic, relapsing, remitting disorder • 68% of males with an initial disorder got treatment in the first year

35. Summary and Implications • Substance use is a prevalent, strong predictor of offending • There is variability in substance use over time (not very predictable from initial factors) • Treatment had short term (but not long-term) effects on substance use and offending • Justice system involvement can be anopportunity for treatment

36. Themes so far • These adolescents are not uniformly “bad” kids on the road to adult criminal careers. Instead, a large proportion report low levels of offending after court involvement. • Longer institutional stays do not appear to reduce offending. • Substance use is a major factor related to continued criminal activity in serious adolescent offenders. Fortunately, treatment for substance use seems to work to reduce offending.

37. “Be of use”

38. Contact Information Principal Investigator Edward P. Mulvey, Ph.D. mulveyep@upmc.edu Study Coordinator Carol A. Schubert, M.P.H. schubertca@upmc.edu