Crime During the Transition to Adulthood: How Youth Fare As They Leave Out-of-Home Care in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, 2002-2007

The study contains a total of 85 variables including indicator variables, demographic and background variables, delinquency and crime variables, out-of-home care experiences variables, and social bonds variables. Indicator variables include three variables that indicate whether the respondent participated in the Wave 1 survey, Wave 2 survey, and Wave 3 survey. Demographic variables include gender, age at Wave 1, Hispanic ethnicity, race (White, Black, mixed or other race), and state of residence at Wave 1. Background risk factors include indicator variables for behavioral or mental health disorders, teen parenthood, maltreatment histories, and alcohol or drug dependence diagnoses. Delinquency and crime variables measured at Wave 1, Wave 2, and Wave 3 indicate whether the offender deliberately damaged property, stole something worth less than $50, stole something worth more than $50, went into a house or building to steal something, sold drugs, hurt someone badly enough to need medical care, used or threatened to use a weapon to get something, participated in a group fight, pulled a knife or gun on someone, and shot or stabbed someone. Other variables include the number of total delinquency items at Wave 1, self-reported arrest at Wave 1, whether the offender had any violent offense or any nonviolent offense at each of the three waves, Wave 3 violent behavior scale, Wave 3 nonviolent behavior scale, whether the respondent was ever arrested at Wave 1 or Wave 2, whether the respondent was arrested since Wave 1 at Wave 2 interview, whether the respondent was arrested since Wave 2 at Wave 3 interview, whether the respondent has an official arrest record, time since Wave 1 interview to first arrest or end of observation period, and latent class analysis assignment. The out-of-home care experiences variables contain measures that track an individual's experience within the child welfare system. These include age at the time of first placement, the total number of foster care placements, type of placements at the Wave 1 survey (foster care, kinship care, group care, independent living or other care), and sum of any independent living services at Wave 1. Social bonds variables include measures of parent (both maternal and paternal) and foster caregiver attachment, and two variables indicating whether a respondent had no mother or father present in their life. Other variables include employment, educational aspirations, and school/college enrollment status. There are also two scale variables, one measuring perceived social support (based on the MOS Social Support Survey) and another measuring how likely an individual was to turn to the child welfare system for help.