State-Level Data on Juvenile Delinquency and Violence, Mental-Health and Psychotropic-Medication Related Issues, and School Accountability, United States, 1990-2014

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The research project has tested a possible explanation for the Great American Crime Decline of the 1990s and especially 2000s: the increasing rates at which psychotropic drugs are prescribed, especially to children and adolescents. Psychotropic drugs are often prescribed to youth for mental health conditions that involve disruptive and impulsive behaviors and learning difficulties. The effects of these drugs are thus expected to lead to the decrease in the juveniles' involvement in delinquency and violence.
The effects of two legislative changes are hypothesized to have contributed to the increased prescribing of psychotropic drugs to children growing up in families in poverty: 1) changes in eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) that made it possible for poor children to qualify for additional financial assistance due to mental health conditions (1990 and 1996), and 2) changes in school accountability rules following the passage of No Child Left Behind Act (2002) that put pressure on schools in some low-income areas to qualify academically challenged students as having ADHD or other learning disabilities.

The objectives of the project are: 1) to assemble a data set, using state-level data from various publicly available sources, containing information about trends in juvenile delinquency and violence, trends in psychotropic drug prescribing to children and adolescents, and various control variables associated with these two sets of trends; 2) to test the proposed hypotheses about the effect of increasing psychotropic medication prescribing to children and adolescents on juvenile delinquency and violence, using the assembled data set; and 3) to disseminate the scientific knowledge gained through this study among criminal justice researchers, psychiatric and public health scientists, as well as among a wider audience of practitioners and the general public.
This collection includes one SPSS file (Dataset_NIJ_GRANT_2014-R2-CX-0003_DV-IV_3-29-17.sav; n=1,275, 113 variables) and one Word syntax file (doc36775-0001_syntax.docx).

这些数据是NACJD快速通道发布版的一部分，按从数据提交者处接收的原样分发。文件已由NACJD压缩以便发布，但除移除直接标识符外，未经过检查或处理。用户应参考随附的自述文件以了解本数据集包含的文件的简要描述，如需进一步信息，请咨询研究者。

该研究项目验证了对20世纪90年代（尤其是21世纪初）美国犯罪率大幅下降的一种可能解释：精神药物（psychotropic drugs）的处方率上升，尤其是开给儿童和青少年的比例。精神药物常被用于治疗青少年中涉及破坏性行为、冲动行为及学习困难的心理健康问题。因此，这些药物的效果被认为降低了青少年参与犯罪和暴力行为的程度。

两项立法变更的影响被假设为促成了贫困家庭儿童精神药物处方率的上升：1）补充保障收入（Supplemental Security Income，SSI）的资格变更（1990年和1996年），使得贫困儿童因心理健康问题有资格获得额外经济援助；2）《不让一个孩子掉队法案》（No Child Left Behind Act，2002）通过后，学校问责规则发生变更，对部分低收入地区的学校施加压力，要求将学业困难学生认定为患有注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）或其他学习障碍。

本项目的目标包括：1）利用来自多个公开来源的州级数据构建数据集，包含青少年犯罪和暴力趋势、儿童和青少年精神药物处方趋势，以及与这两类趋势相关的各种控制变量；2）使用所构建的数据集验证关于儿童和青少年精神药物处方率上升对其犯罪和暴力行为影响的假设；3）向刑事司法研究者、精神病学与公共卫生科学家，以及更广泛的从业者和普通公众传播本研究获得的科学知识。

本数据集包含一个SPSS文件（Dataset_NIJ_GRANT_2014-R2-CX-0003_DV-IV_3-29-17.sav；样本量n=1275，变量数113）和一个Word语法文件（doc36775-0001_syntax.docx）。