Peer Delinquency - Subject Release

This measure appears in the following time-points: Release.

Related Construct

Peer Delinquency and Gang Involvement

Description of Measure

The Peer Delinquent Behavior items are a subset of those used by the Rochester Youth Study (Thornberry et al., 1994) to assess the degree of lifetime antisocial activity among the adolescent's peers in the institution. There are two dimensions to this scale: Antisocial Behavior (e.g., "How many of your friends at X have ever sold drugs?") and Antisocial Influence (e.g., "How many of your friends at X have ever suggested that you should sell drugs?"). The scale contains 19 items to which participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "None of them" to "All of them".

A one-factor CFA model was fit to the Pathways baseline and follow-up data for each of these two subscales. In each case the fit of the model was acceptable. These values can be found in the subject baseline and subject follow-up codebook sections.

There are two computed scores for this measure:

Peer Delinquency-Antisocial behavior of peers within the institution [r0prbehv]; the mean rating of the prevalence of friends who engage in the 12 behaviors listed in this section. Data must be contained in 9 of the 12 items in order to compute a valid mean.
Peer Delinquency-Antisocial influence of peers within the institution [r0prinfl]; the mean rating of the prevalence of friends who encourage the youth to engage in the 7 items listed in this section. Data must be contained in 5 of the 7 items in order to compute a valid mean.

The following individual items are also available:

Any friends from the outside that are in placement with the subject (only asked if the release interview is not for a community based program) [R0Peer20]
Any friends from neighborhood/school/social groups in program with the subject (only asked if the release interview is for a community based program) [R0Peer21]
Presence of outside friends in the institution/program with the subject [R0Peer23]
Number of outside friends at the institution/program with the subject [R0Peer24]
Frequency of seeing outside friends [R0Peer25]
Made any friends at the institution/program that the subject can count on [R0Peer26]
Number of friends in the institution/program subject can count on [R0Peer27]
Any friends at the institution/program subject will keep in touch with upon release [R0Peer28]
Number of friends at the institution/program subject will keep in touch with [R0Peer29]

The two subscales in this measure ("antisocial behavior" and "antisocial influence") were used in the development of the eight dimensions of organizational functioning. For a full description of the dimensions can be found in the "Dimensions of Organizational Functioning" codebook section.

Data Issues

Items in this measure capture lifetime behavior and are not limited to behavior within the release institution/program. This differs from the subject baseline measure (where the items are limited to antisocial behavior within the past six months), the subject follow-up (which captures antisocial behavior within the recall period), and the collateral follow-up (which captures antisocial behavior within the past year).
Item R0Peer20 (have friends from the outside that are in X with you) is only asked if the release interview is not conducted on a community based program (see variable R0CommProg in the "Interview Information" measure).
Item R0Peer21 (have friends from your neighborhood in this program with you) is only asked if the release interview is conducted on a community based program.
Item R0Peer23 (presence of outside friends in the institution/program) is set to 1 (Yes) if either Peer20 or Peer21 are Yes, and this variable serves as a gate question into R0Peer24 (how many) and R0Peer25 (frequency of seeing them).

References

Thornberry, T.P., Lizotte, A.J., Krohn, M.D., Farnworth, M. & Jang, S.J. (1994). Delinquent peers, beliefs, and delinquent behavior: A longitudinal test of interactional theory. Criminology, 32: 47-83.
Menard, S. and Elliott, D. S. (1996). Prediction of adult success using stepwise logistic regression analysis. A report prepared for the MacArthur Foundation by the MacArthur Chicago-Denver Neighborhood Project.
Elliott, D.S., (1990). National Youth Survey. Institute of Behavioral Science. University of Colorado.