RT Article
T1 Cohort Profile: the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study (CSYS)
JF Journal of developmental and life-course criminology
VO 9
IS 1
SP 149
OP 168
A1 Welsh, Brandon 1969-
A2 Zane, Steven N.
A2 Yohros, Alexis
A2 Paterson, Heather
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1839336390
AB Founded in 1935, the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study (CSYS) is a randomized controlled experiment of a delinquency prevention intervention, with an embedded prospective longitudinal survey, involving 506 underprivileged boys, ages 5 to 13 years (median = 10.5 years), from Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. The CSYS has two main objectives: to evaluate the effects of the delinquency prevention program and to investigate the development of delinquency and criminal offending over the life-course. It has been the subject of four follow-ups, with each carried out at key stages of the participants’ life-course and spanning more than 70 years: transition from adolescence to adulthood (in 1948); early adulthood (in 1956); middle age (1975–1979); and old age (2016 to present). As of the latest follow-up, 18 participants (3.6%) are missing. Data collection has been detailed and extensive, including records on the boys prior to intervention; case histories of the treatment group boys and their families during intervention; questionnaires and interviews of participants in middle age; records of delinquency, offending, and other life-course outcomes through middle age; and records of mortality through old age. The CSYS has advanced knowledge on risk factors for offending, with a particular focus on family, the complex interaction of these risk factors, the relationship between offending and mortality over the full-life course, the potential for social interventions to cause harm, and the role of deviancy training in group-directed programs. In addition, it has reinforced the need—for science and policy—for long-term follow-ups of developmental crime prevention programs.
K1 risk factors
K1 Iatrogenic effects
K1 Developmental crime prevention
K1 Premature mortality
K1 Criminal offending
K1 Juvenile Delinquency
K1 Prospective longitudinal survey
K1 Randomized controlled experiment
DO 10.1007/s40865-022-00210-1