The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime The Long View University of St Andrews 27 February 2004

Research team Lesley McAra David J. Smith Co-directors Susan McVieSenior Research Fellow Paul Bradshaw/ Lucy Holmes Research Fellow Jackie PalmerFieldwork and data manager

Aims 1.To understand why some young people become heavily involved in crime, and why most stop 2.To explain gender differences in offending 3.To understand the influence of social and neighbourhood context

Aims contd. 4.To describe relationships between delinquency and other risk behaviours (drugs, smoking, sex) 5.To monitor effects of Children’s Hearings, social work, police contact 6.To monitor effects of other interventions?

Study design Focus on adolescence and early adulthood Large scale Single cohort longitudinal, prospective Integrates data sources Includes study of social geography Analyses interactions between people and neighbourhoods

The cohort Target group: children in Edinburgh aged 12 in autumn 1998 Mainstream, special, and independent schools Cohort size, 4,380 Response rate in participating schools up to sweep 4, 95%

Participating organizations City of Edinburgh Council Department of Social Work Children’s Hearings (SCRA) Lothian and Borders Police State and independent schools

Graduate students funded by ESRC CASE awards Ali Brown, in collaboration with the Scottish Executive: study of collective efficacy and crime in Edinburgh neighbourhoods Mark Penman, in collaboration with the Children’s Hearings: study of referral to Children’s Hearings, and effects of referral on subsequent criminal careers

Graduate students contd. Elizabeth Aston, in collaboration with Lothian and Borders Police: links between alcohol, drugs, and crime

Funding Core funding was from ESRC The Nuffield Foundation funded the survey of parents (autumn 2001) Core funding is from the Scottish Executive and the Nuffield Foundation The Scottish Executive funded the 2002 survey of Edinburgh residents

Informed consent Detailed letter of explanation to parents, with opportunity to withdraw at outset: 3.5% opted out Two newsletters to parents, with opportunity to withdraw from parents’ survey Absolute guarantee of confidentiality (qualification on child abuse)

Advisory Group Chair: Sir Michael Rutter FRS Department of Education Department of Social Work Lothian and Borders Police SCRA Head Teachers’ Association Edinburgh School Boards

Advisory Group contd. Independent Head Teachers Director of Research and Statistics, Home Office Head of Children and Young Person’s section, Scottish Executive Voluntary sector (APEX Scotland) Four academic specialists

Data sources (individual cohort members) 1.Young people’s questionnaires (annual to year 6) 2.Teacher’s assessments of behaviour (second year) 3.School records: attendance (annual), attainment, exams 4.Exclusion from school (annual) 5.Personal interviews (years 2 & 6)

Data sources (individual cohort members) contd. 6.Social work files (annual) 7.Children’s Hearing files (annual) 8.Survey of parents (autumn 2001) 9.Police juvenile liaison officers (2002) 10.SCRO (from age 18, 2004/5)

Social geography and neighbourhoods 1991 census data used to map Edinburgh’s social geography Edinburgh divided into 91 natural homogeneous neighbourhoods Police-recorded crime mapped onto these neighbourhoods

Social geography and neighbourhoods contd. Cohort members geo-coded Neighbourhood dynamics described (survey of residents, cohort members) Effect of neighbourhood composition and dynamics analysed

Examples of topics covered 1.Smoking, alcohol, drugs, early sex (retrospectively after age 16) 2.18 kinds of delinquency e.g. shoplifting, theft from home, robbery, assault, carrying a weapon, fire-setting, harming animals 3.Spare time activities, hanging around 4.Personality (impulsivity, risk- taking, self-esteem, alienation)

More topics 5.Friends’ delinquency, who are your friends? 6.Parental monitoring, punishment, consistency 7.Family circumstances, income, structure 8.Depression, anxiety, self-harm

More topics 9.Bullying, being bullied, exclusion from school, truancy 10.Own and parents’ involvement with school 11.Referral to Children’s Hearings, for what reason, by whom 12.Experience as a victim of crime, bullying, adult harassment

Forward plan Annual data collection from all cohort members up to sweep 6 (2003/4) From sweep 6, response rates drop, costs rise Next fieldwork planned in 2005/6, then every three years Aim to cover a span of about 20 years (age 12 to 31)

Study website Address: Information at different levels, for cohort members, parents, policy makers, academics Report of key findings on sweeps 1 and 2 Information about methods and instruments Papers and presentations

Five reports to be published in April Parenting and delinquency at ages Truancy, school exclusion and substance misuse 3.Gender and youth offending 4.The links between victimization and offending 5.Relationship and inter-dependence between use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs

Academic publications 1.Theory and method in the Edinburgh Study 2.Gender differences in adolescent development and violence 3.How different are girls? Testing the need for a gendered theory of youth offending* 4.The usual suspects? Street life, young people and the police*

Academic publications contd. 5.Parenting and crime in the neighbourhood context* 6.Victimization and offending: Two sides of the same coin?* 7.Youth, crime and social context [book]*

Newsletters Annually Different newsletters for schools, parents, social workers, and other groups if required Contain findings and news about progress of the study