Some Initial Findings and Policy Implications of the Pathways to Desistance Study

Abstract

Little is known about how adolescents curtail their offending and make positive adjustments to early adulthood. The Pathways to Desistance study follows 1,354 serious adolescent offenders to provide information about these processes. This paper summarizes some initial findings from the study and lays out their potential policy implications. The findings covered include the variability in the sample, the importance of the link between substance use and offending, and the possible implications of institutional care.

Keywords:

• juvenile delinquency
• services for juvenile delinquents
• juvenile crime
• developmental criminology
• desistance from crime

Notes

The project described was supported by funds from the following organizations: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, National Institute of Justice, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, William Penn Foundation, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA019697), Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the Arizona Governor's Justice Commission. We are grateful for their support. The content of this article, however, is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of these agencies. Datasets from the Pathways to Desistance study will be archived in successive releases at the Inter-University Consortium on Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan, beginning in 2012. Information about the study and its findings can be found at [email protected].