Project On Human Development In Chicago Neighborhoods Research Articles

LABELING EFFECTS OF FIRST JUVENILE ARRESTS: SECONDARY DEVIANCE AND SECONDARY SANCTIONING

A growing literature suggests that juvenile arrests perpetuate offending and increase the likelihood of future arrests. The effect on subsequent arrests is generally regarded as a product of the perpetuation of criminal offending. However, increased rearrest also may reflect differential law enforcement behavior. Using longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) together with official arrest records, the current study estimates the effects of first arrests on both reoffending and rearrest. Propensity score methods were used to control differences between arrestees and nonarrestees and to minimize selection bias. Among 1,249 PHDCN youths, 58 individuals were first arrested during the study period; 43 of these arrestees were successfully matched to 126 control cases that were equivalent on a broad set of individual, family, peer, and neighborhood factors. We find that first arrests increased the likelihood of both subsequent offending and subsequent arrest, through separate processes. The effects on rearrest are substantially greater and are largely independent of the effects on reoffending, which suggests that labels trigger “secondary sanctioning” processes distinct from secondary deviance processes. Attempts to ameliorate deleterious labeling effects should include efforts to dampen their escalating punitive effects on societal responses.

The Moderating Effects of Peer and Parental Support on the Relationship Between Vicarious Victimization and Substance Use

General strain theory (GST) hypothesizes that youth are more likely to engage in delinquency when they experience vicarious victimization, defined as knowing about or witnessing violence perpetrated against others, but that this relationship may be attenuated for those who receive social support from significant others. Based on prospective data from youth aged 8 to 17 participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), this article found mixed support for these hypotheses. Controlling for prior involvement in delinquency, as well as other risk and protective factors, adolescents who reported more vicarious victimization had an increased likelihood of alcohol use in the short term, but not the long term, and victimization was not related to tobacco or marijuana use. Peer support did not moderate the relationship between vicarious victimization and substance use, but family support did. In contrast to strain theory's predictions, the relationship between vicarious victimization and substance use was stronger for those who had higher compared with lower levels of family support. Implications of these findings for strain theory and future research are discussed.

Victimization Experiences and Adolescent Substance Use

Evidence indicates an association between victimization and adolescent substance use, but the exact nature of this relationship remains unclear. Some research focuses solely on the consequences of experiencing indirect victimization (e.g., witnessing violence), others examine direct victimization (e.g., being personally victimized), and still others combine both forms of victimization without assessing the relative impact of each on substance use. Furthermore, many of these studies only assess these relationships in the short-term using cross-sectional data. This study uses data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to explore the impact of experiencing only indirect victimization, only direct victimization, both forms of victimization, and no victimization on substance use at two time points during adolescence. We find that of those adolescents who are victimized, the majority experience indirect victimization only, followed by experiencing both forms of victimization, and experiencing direct victimization only. Each of the victimization experiences were associated with increased contemporaneous substance use, with the strongest effects for those experiencing multiple forms of violence. For all victims, however, the impact on substance use declined over time.

Does Violence toward Others Affect Violence toward Oneself? Examining the Direct and Moderating Effects of Violence on Suicidal Behavior

Although interpersonal violence and suicide are two of the leading causes of death among young Americans, analyses focusing simultaneously on violence and suicide in sociological inquiry are sparse. Analyses also tend to be limited by their focus on either the individual-level predictors of suicidal behaviors or the aggregate-level predictors of suicide rates, despite the recognition that psychological and sociological forces contribute independently as well as interactively to facilitate suicide. To address these issues, I use data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to examine the direct and moderating effects of individual- and neighborhood-level violence on attempted suicide. Estimates from hierarchical logistic regression models indicate that individual acts of violent aggression, but not neighborhood levels of violence, increase the likelihood of attempting suicide. Furthermore, the well-established relationship between depression and attempted suicide is conditioned by individual- and neighborhood-level violence, such that the effect of depression is (1) amplified for individuals living in neighborhoods characterized by violence and (2) attenuated for individuals engaging in violent behavior. Finally, the combined effect of neighborhood violence and individual violent aggression on the depression/suicide relationship is greater than the partial moderating effects of these variables.

Individual, Social, and Neighborhood Influences on the Launch of Adolescent Antisocial Behavior

This study attempts to develop further insight into the initiation and continuance of antisocial behavior during adolescence using a “launch” perspective in conjunction with several risk/protective factor measures from prior research on substance use and delinquency. Data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) were analyzed using multilevel latent growth curve models across three waves for three age cohorts ( n = 2,130 youth; 78 neighborhoods). After considering typical trends and their variation, the relationships between covariates and different characteristics of the growth curves were analyzed. Implications of the findings for understanding developmental trends and prevention strategy are considered.

The effects of exposure to violence and victimization across life domains on adolescent substance use

This study uses longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to examine the effects of exposure to school violence, community violence, child abuse, and parental intimate partner violence (IPV) on youths’ subsequent alcohol and marijuana use. We also examine the cumulative effects of being exposed to violence across these domains. Longitudinal data were obtained from 1,655 adolescents and their primary caregivers participating in the PHDCN. The effects of adolescents’ exposure to various forms of violence across different life domains were examined relative to adolescents’ frequency of alcohol and marijuana use three years later. Multivariate statistical models were employed to control for a range of child, parent, and family risk factors. Exposure to violence in a one-year period increased the frequency of substance use three years later, though the specific relationships between victimization and use varied for alcohol and marijuana use. Community violence and child abuse, but not school violence or exposure to IPV, were predictive of future marijuana use. None of the independent measures of exposure to violence significantly predicted future alcohol use. Finally, the accumulation of exposure to violence across life domains was detrimental to both future alcohol and marijuana use. The findings support prior research indicating that exposure to multiple forms of violence, across multiple domains of life, negatively impacts adolescent outcomes, including substance use. The findings also suggest that the context in which exposure to violence occurs should be considered in future research, since the more domains in which youth are exposed to violence, the fewer “safe havens” they have available. Finally, a better understanding of the types of violence youth encounter and the contexts in which these experiences occur can help inform intervention efforts aimed at reducing victimization and its negative consequences.

THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE IN CONTEXT: EXPLORING THE MODERATING ROLES OF NEIGHBORHOOD DISADVANTAGE AND CULTURAL NORMS.

Although the cycle of violence theory has received empirical support (Widom, 1989a, 1989b), in reality, not all victims of child physical abuse become involved in violence. Therefore, little is known regarding factors that may moderate the relationship between abuse and subsequent violence, particularly contextual circumstances. The current investigation used longitudinal data from 1,372 youth living in 79 neighborhoods who participated in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), and it employed a multivariate, multilevel Rasch model to explore the degree to which neighborhood disadvantage and cultural norms attenuate or strengthen the abuse-violence relationship. The results indicate that the effect of child physical abuse on violence was weaker in more disadvantaged communities. Neighborhood cultural norms regarding tolerance for youth delinquency and fighting among family and friends did not moderate the child abuse-violence relationship, but each had a direct effect on violence, such that residence in neighborhoods more tolerant of delinquency and fighting increased the propensity for violence. These results suggest that the cycle of violence may be contextualized by neighborhood structural and cultural conditions.

Great American Sociology

Let me begin with my conclusion: Rob Sampson has written a great book. It is a mustread for almost all sociologists and demographers, and especially important for urbanists. Though I have written numerous book reviews and read countless others, this essay is by far the hardest one I’ve been asked to do. It is hard for two reasons: first, there is so much excellent material in Great American City to write about that it is hard to know where to begin; and second, the book is so good it is difficult to keep from being overly effusive in praising it. When you first pick up Great American City, you expect to begin reading a book about a city. But you very quickly learn that this book is much, much more than that. Early on, Sampson says that his book is “ . . . about everything, or at least everything social about the city” (p. 22). And that is indeed the case. It is a review of much of urban sociology, in fact, of sociology in general, while it is also an in-depth analysis of several important and contentious contemporary issues, namely, neighborhood effects and selectivity. Theoretically driven and methodologically sophisticated, Great American City challenges the reader in every chapter. Put another way, many will find it impossible to understand everything he’s doing in a single reading. In this, it reminds me especially of Stanley Lieberson’s classic A Piece of the Pie. Different data, different methods, different topics in every single chapter, yet all seamlessly linked by an overarching theory of context developed in the penultimate chapter. The book has 17 chapters, organized into five sections. Part I sets the stage: topics, location, and thesis. In Part II the reader learns Sampson’s analytic approach and gets an overview of the Chicago Project. In the third part community-level processes are explained and investigated, preparing the reader for Part IV, which lays out interlocking structures as they relate to place. The final section is a synthesis and revisits the themes in the early chapters. Throughout, he rejects the specialization (read narrowness) of much social science research and especially rejects the individualism that has dominated so much sociological research in the late 20th century. It is hard to imagine any reader of this essay who has not already read some of Rob Sampson’s work. At the same time, I imagine that many, like myself, will be surprised by the scope of the research reported in this book. Given that academic specialization encourages reading along subdisciplinary lines, it is doubtful anyone would have found all these pieces unless they were reading Sampson’s C.V. What Sampson calls “the Chicago Project” is really multiple parts of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), as well as the Chicago Collective Civic Participation Project

Gender Differences in the Effects of Exposure to Violence on Adolescent Substance Use

To date, research exploring gender differences in the relationship between exposure to community violence and substance use has been limited. This study employs longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to assess the exposure to violence-substance use relationship and explore whether this relationship varies by gender. We find that the two forms of exposure to violence-direct (primary) and indirect (secondary)-independently increase the frequency of subsequent alcohol use, binge drinking, and marijuana use among males and females. One gender difference emerged, as females who had been directly victimized engaged in more frequent binge drinking than males who had been directly victimized. Across both sexes, the effect of each form of violence weakened when other predictors of substance use were included in the models. Future directions for this research are discussed, including policy recommendations to help adolescents cope with victimization experiences.

Cognitive ability and the division of labor in urban ghettos: Evidence from gang activity in U.S. data

Hernstein and Murray (1994) famously argued that the division of labor in modern society is determined by individual differences in cognitive ability. This paper shows that differences in cognitive ability can also determine the division of labor in poor urban areas. We estimate the effect of IQ on time-to-first gang participation with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) and Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Results from both the NLSY97 and PHDCN indicate that low-IQ is a robust predictor of gang participation. There are two plausible explanations of this main finding: (1) low-IQ individuals may have comparative advantage in violence as their opportunity costs of engaging in legal activities are low and (2) gangs may prefer low-IQ individuals as a way to reduce agency costs. We find strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that persons with lower IQs have comparative advantage in criminal activity in the PHDCN dataset.

Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Relationship Between Neighborhood Disadvantage and Adolescent Substance Use.

Although social disorganization theory hypothesizes that neighborhood characteristics influence youth delinquency, the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on adolescent substance use and racial/ethnic differences in this relationship have not been widely investigated. The present study examines these issues using longitudinal data from 1,856 African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian adolescents participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). The results indicated that neighborhood disadvantage did not significantly increase the likelihood of substance use for the full sample. When relationships were analyzed by race/ethnicity, one significant (p ≤ .10) effect was found; disadvantage increased alcohol use among African Americans only. The size of this effect differed significantly between African American and Hispanic youth. In no other cases did race/ethnicity moderate the impact of disadvantage on substance use. These results suggest that disadvantage is not a strong predictor of adolescent substance use, although other features of the neighborhood may affect such behaviors.

The Link Between Mental Health Problems and Youth Violence in Adolescence

The early identification of mental illness in youngsters is an important goal for youth, their families, and society. This study utilized continuous indicators of DSM-oriented psychopathology to explore the link between adolescent mental health and physical violence. Relying on data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) and controlling for various community, friend, family, and individual risk factors of violence, the role of various mental health problems on self-reported violence is examined. Both violence prevalence and frequency outcomes were studied. Results indicated that oppositional defiant problems was a weak predictor of violence prevalence but stronger predictor of violence frequency, controlling for other indicators. Other individual-level predictors of violence included prior violence, deviant peers, family criminality and mental health problems, and poor family relations. Community-level predictors were neighborhood ties, neighborhood decline, neighborhood organizations, and anomie, though the latter variable reduced offending.

DIFFERENTIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY? IMMIGRANT YOUTH AND PEER INFLUENCE*

There is reason to suspect that lower levels of exposure to criminogenic peer‐based risks help explain why immigrant youth are less involved in crime and violence. However, it also is possible that if and when they do encounter these risks, immigrant youth are more vulnerable to them than are native‐born youth. Drawing from literature on the adaptation experiences of immigrant adolescents, we hypothesize that immigrant youth will be relatively more susceptible to the effects of both 1) exposure to deviant peers and 2) unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers when compared with their nonimmigrant counterparts. Using a sample of approximately 1,800 adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) study, we find support for our first hypothesis but not the second. Specifically, in both cross‐sectional and longitudinal models, we find that exposure to deviant peers has a greater impact on violence among immigrant youth than it does for native‐born youth. Furthermore, this pattern of results is supported with supplemental, sensitivity analysis using the AddHealth data. In contrast, there are no statistically significant differences across immigrant generation status with regard to the effect of informal socializing with peers on violence.

Neighborhood Influences on Perceived Social Support Among Parents: Findings from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods

BackgroundSocial support is frequently linked to positive parenting behavior. Similarly, studies increasingly show a link between neighborhood residential environment and positive parenting behavior. However, less is known about how the residential environment influences parental social support. To address this gap, we examine the relationship between neighborhood concentrated disadvantage and collective efficacy and the level and change in parental caregiver perceptions of non-familial social support.Methodology/Principal FindingsThe data for this study came from three data sources, the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) Study's Longitudinal Cohort Survey of caregivers and their offspring, a Community Survey of adult residents in these same neighborhoods and the 1990 Census. Social support is measured at Wave 1 and Wave 3 and neighborhood characteristics are measured at Wave 1. Multilevel linear regression models are fit. The results show that neighborhood collective efficacy is a significant (ß = .04; SE = .02; p = .03), predictor of the positive change in perceived social support over a 7 year period, however, not of the level of social support, adjusting for key compositional variables and neighborhood concentrated disadvantage. In contrast concentrated neighborhood disadvantage is not a significant predictor of either the level or change in social support.ConclusionOur finding suggests that neighborhood collective efficacy may be important for inducing the perception of support from friends in parental caregivers over time.

Protective Factors for Youth Exposed to Violence

There is compelling evidence that many youth exposed to community violence manage to adapt successfully over time. Developmental assets have been deemed salient for positive youth development, though limited longitudinal studies have examined their relevance for high-risk youth. Using the Developmental Assets framework, the authors test whether supportive relationships, high expectations, and opportunities build emotional resilience directly or indirectly via interaction with risk. Further, the authors examine the effect of neighborhood collective efficacy on resilience. The authors use multiwave data from 1,166 youth aged 11–16 years and data about their neighborhoods from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to examine whether baseline protective factors in subjects’ home, peer, and neighborhood environments predicted log odds of emotional resilience at Waves 2 and 3 among youth ETV. Over 7 years, 60–85% were emotionally resilient. Positive peers and supportive relationships with parents and other adults had significant main effects. Positive peers and family support were particularly protective for witnesses and victims. Structured activities and collective efficacy influenced change in resilience differentially among ETV groups. Strengths-based policies and systems should focus on building developmental assets within the family, peer, and community environments for high-risk youth who have been exposed to violence (ETV).

Anger and Children’s Socioemotional Development: Can Parenting Elicit a Positive Side to a Negative Emotion?

This study examined the role of anger in infancy and its interaction with maternal warmth in predicting children’s socioemotional development. Participants included a demographically diverse sample of 316 mothers and children from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) study. Infants were followed across 3 waves of data collection from birth through 5 years of age. Mothers reported on infant anger when children were approximately 4 months of age. Maternal warmth was assessed via observation at both 4 months and 2 years. Children’s socioemotional outcomes were assessed at age 5, and included a direct assessment of delay of gratification and maternal reports of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Anger in infancy significantly predicted higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors at age 5. A main effect of anger on delay of gratification was not supported. However, anger in infancy moderated the association between maternal warmth and delay of gratification, such that only high-anger infants benefited from high maternal warmth. Similar interactive effects were not supported for problem behaviors. These results provide modest support for the differential susceptibility hypothesis, which proposes that highly reactive children are more susceptible to environmental risks and assets than other children. Specifically, findings suggest that although anger can increase children’s vulnerability to problem behaviors, it can also be a motivating factor for self-regulation in the presence of supportive parenting.

DECOMPOSING THE PEER EFFECT ON ADOLESCENT SUBSTANCE USE: MEDIATION, NONLINEARITY, AND DIFFERENTIAL NONLINEARITY*

Although the correlation between peer delinquency and delinquency is one of the most consistently demonstrated findings in delinquency research, researchers have focused primarily on the direct, linear, and additive effects of peers in statistical models, rather than on empirically modeling mediating, nonlinear, and moderating processes that are specified by theory. To address these issues, we measure respondent delinquency and peer delinquency with illegal substance use and then decompose the effect of peer substance use on self-reported substance use. Logistic hierarchical models on a sample of adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) indicate that the effect of peer substance use on self-reported substance use is partially mediated by perceptions of the health risks of substance use. In addition, the direct statistical effect of peers is nonlinear: On average, the peer effect decreases at higher values of peer substance use, which is consistent with a “saturation” effect. We also find that the functional form of the peer substance use/substance use relationship is dependent on the neighborhood context. In neighborhoods with more opportunities for crime, the peer effect is initially strong but decreases as peer substance use increases, which is consistent with a saturation effect. Conversely, in neighborhoods with fewer opportunities for crime, the effect of peers is initially small, but as delinquent peer associations increase, the peer effect increases multiplicatively.

Ethnicity, Acculturation, and Offending: Findings from a Sample of Hispanic Adolescents

This study examines the relationship between ethnicity, acculturation, and crime among a sample of Hispanic adolescents drawn from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) dataset. Prior research has shown that Hispanics who are more acculturated are more likely to engage in crime, but there is a lack of empirical evidence to explain why this is, and little research that has explored Hispanics relative to one another. In an effort to address these shortcomings, this study explores the impact of ethnicity on criminal offending among Hispanic adolescents. This study also examines whether acculturation, net of ethnicity, predicts criminal offending among this group. Using longitudinal data from the PHDCN, we assess the independent effects of ethnicity and generational status, as well as additional criminological variables on adolescent criminal offending. Findings indicated that, on average, Mexican adolescents were less likely than other Hispanics to report violent offending while Puerto Ricans were significantly more likely to report violent offending. No differences were observed between Hispanic subgroups with respect to property offending. Results from negative binomial regression revealed that ethnicity is rendered insignificant in multivariate analyses. Consistent with prior research, first generation immigrants were significantly less likely to engage in delinquent behavior, even after controlling for relevant criminological variables.

NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND NONLINEAR PEER EFFECTS ON ADOLESCENT VIOLENT CRIME*

Although evidence of the strong correlation between deviant behavior and exposure to deviant peers is overwhelming, researchers have yet to investigate whether a nonlinear functional form better captures this relationship than does a linear form. Researchers also have yet to examine the extent to which peer effects vary as a function of the neighborhood context. To address these issues, we use data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to examine 1) the functional form of the relationship between peer violence exposure and self-reported violent crime and 2) the extent to which the effect of exposure to violent peers on violence is ecologically structured. Estimates from logistic hierarchical models indicate that the effect of peer violence exposure on violent crime decreases at higher values of peer violence, as reflected in a nonlinear relationship (expressed in terms of log-odds). Furthermore, exposure to violent peers increases along with neighborhood disadvantage, and the effect of peer violence exposure on violent crime is attenuated as neighborhood disadvantage increases, which is reflected in a cross-level peer violence/disadvantage interaction.

Gender differences in the effects of exposure to intimate partner violence on adolescent violence and drug use

Objective This study investigated the long-term effects of exposure to intimate partner violence in the home on adolescent violence and drug use and gender differences in these relationships. Although the general relationship between exposure to IPV and negative outcomes for youth has been demonstrated in past research, gender differences in the effects of IPV on adolescents have been rarely assessed using longitudinal data. Methods Longitudinal data was obtained from 1,315 adolescents and their primary caregivers participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). The sample was 51% female and ethnically diverse (45% Hispanic, 37% African-American, and 14% Caucasian). Two waves of data were assessed to examine the effects of exposure to IPV, reported by caregivers when their children were aged 12 and 15, on violence and drug use, reported by adolescents 3 years later. Multivariate statistical models were employed to control for a range of child, parent, family, and neighborhood risk factors. Results Exposure to IPV did not significantly predict subsequent violence among males or females in multivariate analyses. IPV exposure was significantly related to the frequency of drug use for females but did not predict drug use among males. This gender difference was not statistically significant, however, which suggests more similarities than differences in the relationship between exposure to IPV and subsequent violence and drug use. Conclusions This study supports prior research indicating that exposure to IPV can negatively impact adolescent development, but it suggests that these effects may be more likely to influence some outcomes (e.g., drug use) than others (e.g., interpersonal violence). The findings also emphasize the need for additional research examining the overall impact of IPV on adolescent problem behaviors and gender differences in these relationships, including longitudinal studies and investigations that control for a range of other important predictors. A better understanding of these relationships can help inform intervention efforts aimed at ensuring that adolescents living in violent households receive timely and appropriate services to help prevent the occurrence of future problem behaviors.