Laurence Steinberg, Principal Investigator
Michelle Harmon, Project Coordinator

One of the areas of research expertise in the Department of Psychology is adolescent development, with several faculty and research groups investigating the changes in cognition, brain, and behavior that occur over the teenage years. Dr. Laurence Steinberg is an internationally renowned expert in this area of research who has applied his extensive expertise in developmental psychology to questions related to juvenile justice. For the last decade, Dr. Steinberg and his lab group, led by researcher Michelle Harmon, has been involved in the Crossroads Study, which is examining the consequences of how youth are processed within the criminal justice system. 

Many youth who violate the law are processed informally (i.e., diverted from the juvenile justice system). Others arrested for identical crimes, and with similar histories, are processed formally (i.e., put on supervised probation or sent to institutional placement). In many jurisdictions, processing decisions are made in the absence of empirically developed guidelines. The Crossroads Study seeks to identify the short and long-term ramifications of formal versus informal processing in order to inform the justice system's response to juvenile delinquency.

The Crossroads Study is a multi-site, collaborative research project that follows 1,216 first-time offenders ages 13 to 17 in three locales: Philadelphia, PA; Orange County, CA; and Jefferson Parish, LA. The original study, funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, was a 36-month study, in which participants were interviewed at 6-month intervals about their views, experiences, characteristics, and behaviors (including ongoing offending). With additional funding from the William T. Grant Foundation and the National Institute of Justice, the Crossroads Study is now in its 9th year, which has allowed us to follow the sample further into adulthood. Studying the transition to adulthood will allow us to distinguish individuals whose offending desists during adolescence from those whose criminal activity persists into adulthood. In order to understand whether, and through what mechanisms, formal and informal processing may differentially affect youths' desistance from crime as they make the transition out of adolescence. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic closed down the university in March 2020, the study pivoted from in person interviews to phone interviews. Supplying our interviewers with study laptops, we added an auxiliary study to survey how the COVID-19 outbreak impacted the lives of our participants, specifically relating to their behaviors, emotions, and their work and/or school.

Over the past 9 years, the Crossroads Study has trained over 70 undergraduate students to become research assistants through the psychology department's collaborative research program. Researchers in our lab learn all aspects of conducting research from the consenting process to conducting the 2-3 hour long standardized interview with participants. A great catalyst for careers in psychology, social work, law, and criminal justice, over 60% of our undergraduate student researchers have gone on to higher education degree programs.

While the study continues data collection, early analyses have revealed some interesting differences between formally and informally processed youth. Specifically, formally processed youth are more likely to report reoffending, get rearrested, and be incarcerated during the study period. Formally processed youth also report more binge drinking, marijuana use, violence and physical aggression than informally processed youth. They also evince lower suppression of aggression, are less optimistic about future opportunities, and affiliate with a greater proportion of delinquent peers than informally processed youth.