The impact of school climate and policy on delinquency and justice system careers

Citation

Wical, Nicolas & Kapur, Tarika (2014). The impact of school climate and policy on delinquency and justice system careers. 2014 Add Health Users Conference. Bethesda, MD.

Abstract

In 2011, the Vera Institute of Justice was awarded a grant to explore the independent and interactive effects of school-level and individual level factors on juvenile delinquency and long-term adult criminal offending. Specifically, we examined the impact of school climate and disciplinary practices (e.g. zero tolerance policies), controlling for personal and environmental factors on juvenile delinquency and adult criminal justice system involvement. These factors were explored using multi-level modeling techniques with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Overall, we found no evidence that attending a school with zero tolerance policies either deters delinquency or places youth at a higher likelihood of becoming justice-system involved, in the short or long-term. In addition to a detailed discussion of our methods and results, the challenges and data limitations encountered during the analyses stages will be discussed.

URL

https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/docs/events/20140613_Add_Health_Users_Conference_Abstracts.pdf

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

2014 Add Health Users Conference

Author(s)

Wical, Nicolas
Kapur, Tarika

Year Published

2014

City of Publication

Bethesda, MD

Reference ID

6240