This paper provides a summary of the Crossroads Study of delinquency and crime from adolescence through young adulthood.
This overview of the Crossroads Study, which aims to understand the factors related to recidivism and desistance across adolescence and early young adulthood, found that the Crossroads sample consisted of a stable low group, an escalating group, a short-term recidivist group, and a persistently high group. Youth who scored higher on risk factors, such as peer delinquency, callous-unemotional traits, physical aggression, and exposure to violence, were more likely to be in the persistently high group. Youth with more positive perceptions of the justice system were more likely to be in the stable low group. Youth who were informally processed were more likely to be in the stable low group than all other groups. However, the no-contact group also reported more anxiety, witnessed more violence, and was less likely to be on public assistance than youth who were arrested and formally processed or informally processed during adolescence. No-contact youth were also more likely to be enrolled in school, more likely to be employed, reported a greater monthly income, and were more likely to have obtained an associate degree or higher by the nine year follow up. It is important to keep in mind that findings may be due (at least in part) to the unprecedented historical context in which the study was conducted (the COVID-19 pandemic); it is critical to continue following all youth to determine the extent to which findings are sustained. The study, designed to overcome the limitations in prior work, is a multi-site, longitudinal study that has interviewed youth regularly for nine years after their first arrest. The study includes 1,216 justice-system-involved male youth who were arrested for the first time between ages 13 and 17 in California, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania.