The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime

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The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime

• Lesley McAra and Susan McVie
• University of Edinburgh

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Overview of seminar

• Programme aims and objectives
• Current phase of Study
• Key findings relating to youth justice
• Policy implications

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The Edinburgh Study

• Longitudinal study of pathways into and out of
  offending
• Funded by ESRC, the Nuffield Foundation, and the
  Scottish Government
• Aims to understand
• - Why some young people become heavily involved
  in crime and why most stop
• - Gender differences in offending
• - The influence of social and neighbourhood
  context
• - The impact of contact with agencies of
  control on subsequent behaviour

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The cohort

• Target group children in Edinburgh aged 12 in
  autumn 1998
• Mainstream (all 23), special (9 out of 12) and
  independent schools (8 out of 14)
• Cohort size 4,380
• Response rate in participating schools
• - 95 up to sweep 4
• - 90 at sweep 5
• - 81 at sweep 6

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Data sources

• Self report questionnaires (6 annual sweeps)
• Semi-structured interviews (sweeps 2 and 6)
• School, social work, childrens hearings records
  (annual sweeps)
• Teacher questionnaires (1999)
• Police juvenile liaison officer records
• Scottish criminal records (conviction data up to
  age 22)
• Parent survey (2001)
• Geographic information system

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Current phase

• Funded by Nuffield Foundation and undertaken in
  collaboration with the Scottish Government
• Aims
• to map the criminal justice careers of cohort
  members (from age 8, the age of criminal
  responsibility in Scotland, to 22)
• to explore transitions from the juvenile to adult
  system
• to assess the impact of these careers on
  desistance from criminal offending.
• Follows up sub-sample of around 444 cohort
  members, including
• - all those with offence referral to the
  childrens hearing system
• - two control groups (one matched to those with
  early history of referral one matched to those
  who had a first referral at age 15).

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Key Findings Relating to Youth Justice
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Four facts

• Persistent serious offending is associated with
  victimisation and social adversity
• Early identification of at-risk children is not a
  water-tight process and may be iatrogenic
• Critical moments in the early teenage years are
  key to pathways out of offending
• Diversionary strategies facilitate the desistence
  process.

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On the basis of these facts..

• Conundrum facing policy-makers how to develop a
  system of youth justice which is holistic in
  orientation (intervention proportionate to need)
  AND which maximises diversion from criminal
  justice?
• Solution age-graded services and support to
  include universal targeting in the early years
  and more finely tuned individual targeting in the
  teenage years
• Social justice not criminal justice

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Claim1 evidence

• Persistent serious offending is associated with
  victimisation and social adversity

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involvement in violent offending(Robbery,
carrying weapon, 6 incidents of assault in past
year)
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North Edinburgh state school pupils involvement
in violent offending(Robbery, carrying weapon,
6 incidents of assault in past year)
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Violence and vulnerability
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Violence and vulnerability cont.
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Violence and vulnerability cont.
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Claim 2 evidence

• Early identification of at-risk children is not a
  water-tight process

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Majority of serious and persistent offenders
under the radar (based on self-report data)
Chronic high level serious offenders n383 Chronic violent offenders n213 Violence at age 17 n352
Never known to childrens hearing system 69 67 77
Never known to social work 73 79 81
No convictions in criminal justice system by age 18 84 83 83

• - Serious offending 6 incidents of assault
  robbery weapon carrying fire-raising
• housebreaking breaking into motor vehicle to
  steal riding in stolen motor-vehicle
• - Chronic high level serious offenders 11
  incidents at every study sweep
• - Violence 6 incidents of assault robbery
  weapon carrying
• Chronic violence admitted to at least one
  violent offence every study sweep

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Majority of serious and persistent offenders
amongst north Edinburgh pupils under the radar
(based on self-report data)
Chronic high level serious offenders n71 Chronic violent offenders n38 Violence at age 17 n63
Never known to childrens hearing system 61 55 60
Never known to social work 72 74 75
No convictions in criminal justice system by age 18 72 74 72

• - Serious offending 6 incidents of assault
  robbery weapon carrying fire-raising
• housebreaking breaking into motor vehicle to
  steal riding in stolen motor-vehicle
• - Chronic high level serious offenders 11
  incidents at every study sweep
• - Violence 6 incidents of assault robbery
  weapon carrying
• Chronic violence admitted to at least one
  violent offence every study sweep

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How soon can we tell? cont.
Behavioural problems reported in CHS/SW files by age 5 n105 ()
Institutional pathways Referral to Reporter at age 13 37
Institutional pathways Referral to Reporter at age 15 45
Institutional pathways Conviction in adult system by age 22 46
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How soon can we tell? cont

• Inability to identify the vast majority of
  serious and persistent (self-reported) offenders
  from an early age
• Dunedin longitudinal study (see White et al.
  1990)
• - 19 wrongly predicted by age 11 (around 1 in 5
  false positive rate)
• - 35 wrongly predicted by age 15 (around 1 in 3
  false positive rate)
• - Predictability declines in the mid teenage
  years as other influences become important
• Due to the high rate of false positives among
  those children predicted to have antisocial
  outcomes, the usefulness of preschool behaviour
  predictors for selecting children for intensive
  early intervention efforts may be limited at
  present (pp 523)

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Claim 3 evidence

• Critical moments in the early teenage years are
  key to pathways out of offending

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Conviction trajectories(McAra and McVie 2010 in
press)
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Conviction trajectories(McAra and McVie 2010 in
press)
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What distinguishes the people who were convicted
early from each other at age 12?

• Nothing
• but, they are equally problematic!
• They are similar on the following measures
• They live in the top 25 deprived neighbourhoods
• They are entitled to free school meals
• They come from broken families with poor
  supervision and high levels of conflict
• They belong to delinquent peer groups
• They hang around the streets most days
• They are badly behaved at school
• And they are impulsive, social alienated and
  morally accepting of offending behaviour
• and

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they reported exactly the same levels of serious
offending
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What changed between age 12 and 15?

• The group that went on to have a pattern of
  chronic convictions got worse in terms of
• truancy from school
• exclusion from school
• getting into trouble with the police
• receiving statutory supervision from CHS
• NOTE the groups did not differ on any of these
  things at age 12

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What about those young people who were not
convicted until later?

• Those convicted later showed problematic signs at
  age 12
• Parental conflict, family breakdown and poor
  supervision
• Alcohol use and impulsive tendencies
• Weak attachment to school and peer involvement in
  offending
• But they were more advantaged than others at age
  12
• Less socially deprived
• Less involvement in offending, hanging around and
  drug use
• Better behaved at school, less truancy and
  exclusion
• Less contact with the police or the CHS
• Better social skills and a better moral attitude

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So what changed to lead to their conviction
between age 12 and 15?

• On some measures they were similar to early onset
  groups at age 12 but got worse at age 15
• Family breakdown and parental supervision
• Involvement with delinquent peers
• On some measures they were better than early
  onset groups at age 12, but became the same as
  them by age 15
• More likely to be living in an area of social
  deprivation
• More likely to hang out on the streets, take
  drugs and get involved in serious offending
• On other measures they were better than early
  onset groups at age 12 and got worse by age 15,
  but so did the early onset chronics
• More likely to truant from school and get
  excluded
• More likely to get into trouble with the police

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Claim 4 evidence

• Diversionary strategies facilitate the desistence
  process

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The usual suspects(McAra and McVie 2005, 2007a)

• Working cultures of police and Reporter mean that
  certain categories of youngsters are constantly
  recycled into system whilst other equally
  serious/vulnerable offenders escape tutelage of
  agencies altogether
• Children with previous form
• - 7 times more likely to be formally charged by
  police
• - 4 times more likely to be referred by police
  to Reporter
• - 3 times more likely to be brought to a hearing
  by Reporter
• (the usual suspects are mostly boys, from
  socially deprived areas living in single parent
  households)

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Damaging features of system contact (McAra and
McVie 2007a)

• Compulsory measures of care appear to inhibit the
  normal process of desistance from serious
  offending that is evident from around age 14 in
  the cohort
• Conversely police warnings/charges (but no
  further action) associated with a significant
  reduction in serious offending one year later
• Edinburgh Study findings in tune with other
  international comparative research e.g.
  Denver/Bremen longitudinal studies (Huizinga et
  al. 2003)

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Impact of agency contact

• We looked at 3 levels of agency contact at age
  15-
• Being charged by the police
• Being referred to the Reporter, but no action
• Being referred to the Reporter, and brought to a
  hearing
• To make sure we were comparing like with like we
  matched young people on the basis of their
  offending, background characteristics,
  lifestyles, risk factors and family backgrounds.
• We then compared each set of matched pairs to see
  how their offending changed (intervention group v
  comparison group)

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Involvement in serious offending one year later
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Within group change in serious offending from
age 15 to age 16
INTERVENTION GROUP COMPARISON GROUP
Stage 1 Charge -50 (.000) -43 (.001)
Stage 2 Reporter contact -39 (.001) -42 (.000)
Stage 3 Supervision -31 (NS) -49 (.001)
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Supervision requirements
Nature of contact of cases brought to hearing (n59)
Regular child and family 63
Regular individual work with the child 25
Irregular contact 20
Specialist services
Educational welfare/psychologist 56
Youth strategy group 49
Work on offending 36
Mental health services 10
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Regular one-to-one contact with a social worker

• Regular one-to-one contact with social worker age
  15 statistically significant decline (p lt.000)
  in serious offending over the next year
• Lack of regular one-to-one contact with social
  worker age 15 no statistically significant
  change in serious offending

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Youth to adult criminal justice transitions
up-tariffing the vulnerable(McAra and McVie
2007b, 2010a and 2010b)
convicted by age 22 imprisoned by age 22
Never known to CHS 10 0.4
Referred on offence grounds ever 55 13
Placed in residential care ever 77 31
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Youth to adult criminal justice transitions
up-tariffing the vulnerable(McAra and McVie
2007b, 2010a)

• Key factors predicting transition from childrens
  hearings to adult system are
• - Excluded from school by 3rd year of secondary
  school
• - Early history of police warning/charges
• - Being male
• - Assessed as most needy in reporter
  files

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The revolving door (McAra and McVie 2010b)
Convicted by 18 but not imprisoned further criminal conviction by age 22 43
Convicted by 18 and imprisoned further criminal conviction by age 22 80
Convicted by 18 and imprisoned further period of imprisonment by age 22 70
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Longer term impact of school exclusion
Outcomes Those excluded by S3 n471 Not excluded
Serious offender at age 17/18 (self-report) 47 24
Criminal conviction by age 22 50 12
Conviction for serious violence by age 22 22 2
Imprisonment by age 22 5 0.2
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Lessons from the Scottish Case
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Core messages

• Persistent serious offending linked to
  victimisation and social adversity
• Early identification difficult and risk of
  labelling (creating a self-fulfilling prophecy)
• Critical moments in early teenage years key to
  pathways out of offending
• Diversionary strategies effective
• Key question how to develop a youth justice
  policy which is both holistic (intervention
  proportionate to need) and maximises diversion
  from criminal justice?

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Early years Transition into teenage years Transitions into early adulthood
Universal targeting communities not individuals Poverty Relationships and parenting Pre-school and early years education Outreach services School inclusion (Police) diversionary activities Youth justice intervention based on desistance paradigm Support into further education, training or employment Support for those leaving care system Intensive support for most vulnerable offenders known to youth justice (at point of entering adult criminal justice system) Retain 16-17 year olds in youth rather than adult justice
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Themes and questions for discussion

• The disjuncture between self-reported offending
  and institutional contacts
• Vulnerable transition points
• - primary to secondary education
• - leaving institutional care
• - exiting the childrens hearing system
• - leaving prison
• Given the facts about youth crime and justice
  what are the key gaps in current service
  provision and how could existing services be made
  more effective?
• The challenges posed by the current economic
  context and the likelihood of a change in
  Scottish government in 2011..

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ReferencesMcAra and McVie, 2005, The Usual
Suspects? Young People, Street Life and the
Police, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 5
(1)1-36McAra and McVie, 2007a, Youth Justice?
The Impact of System Contact on Patterns of
Desistance from Offending, European Journal of
Criminology, 4 (3)McAra and McVie, 2007b,
Criminal Justice Transitions, Research Digest,
no. 14McAra and McVie, 2010a, Youth Crime and
Justice Key messages from the Edinburgh Study of
Youth Transitions and Crime, Criminology and
Criminal Justice, 10 (2) 179-209. McAra and
McVie, 2010b (forthcoming), Criminal Justice
Pathways Key findings from the Edinburgh Study
of Youth Transitions and Crime, Research Digest,
no. 15www.law.ed.ac.uk/cls/esytc/