Recidivism of Young Offenders in New York State

The BJS Visiting Fellows Program supports the scholarly use of BJS data collections, expands the body of policy-relevant research that uses these data, and helps to inform BJS statistical programs while providing social science researchers with a unique opportunity outside of their normal work environment. The program facilitates collaboration between academic scholars and government researchers in the areas of survey methodology, statistics, economics, and social sciences.

Under this award, BJS Fellow Mr. KiDeuk Kim, of the Urban Institute, will analyze a BJS database containing the multi-state criminal history data of individuals arrested in New York in 1987, 1994, or 2001 who were 16 or 17 years old at the time of arrest to study historical changes in the adult criminal careers of juvenile offenders. The focus of his research will be to identify systematic patterns of persistent involvement in the criminal justice system among young offenders, identify risk factors in early criminal histories that are predictive of residual length of criminal careers, and examine how arrest cohorts who experienced different historical and social conditions in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s differ in their exposure to criminal recidivism. He will also investigate how analysts may compensate for incarceration times on criminal career patterns documented in rap sheets. CA/CF