Wesley G. Jennings

This brief uses California’s CURES (Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System) 2.0 data to analyze county-level opioid prescribing rates in California from 2012 to 2017 from multiple perspectives. The book summarizes California’s county-level opioid prescribing trends, examines potential correlates of opioid prescribing rates, and assesses the association of opioid prescribing on both criminal justice and public health outcomes. Finally, the authors discuss their principal findings and the implications for policy and practice, including the significant and lasting consequences of the opioid crisis on the criminal justice system and the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to effectively address the crisis.

This second edition book advances knowledge about criminal careers throughout life. It presents new results from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), which is a unique longitudinal study of the development of offending from age 10 to age 61. Previous results obtained in the CSDD are reviewed, and then new findings from official criminal records up to age 61 are presented: on offending at different ages, continuity in offending, ages of onset, and criminal career duration. The number of offenders and offenses between ages 50 and 61 is noteworthy. The book then presents results on self-reported offending in different age ranges up to 48: on prevalence, frequency, continuity, and comparisons with official records that suggest that official records only capture the tip of the iceberg of offending. It then analyzes different trajectories of official offending up to age 61 and shows to what extent they could be predicted by childhood risk factors. New results from the CSDD in the last 10 years are then presented, followed by a discussion of the relevance of all the findings for criminological theories and public policies such as early intervention. This book should be of great interest not only to academics but also to policy makers and practitioners who are concerned with crime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This concise text introduces students to the fundamental methodologies of research in criminology and criminal justice, with an emphasis on the application of research methods directly relevant to the real world of criminal justice. By using storytelling that draws on actual field experiences to engage students' interest, Criminological and Criminal Justice Research Methods, Second Edition takes a unique approach compared to other textbooks on the market. Regardless of students' career goals, this text engages their interest while imparting current information on and approaches to the most important and useful criminological and criminal justice research methods. New to the Second Edition: Explanation of mixed-methods researchPresentation of propensity score matchingDiscussion of the Philadelphia Birth Cohort StudiesIntroduction of the terms "legacy rape" and "revised rape"Updated discussion of computer-assisted personal (or programmed) interviewing (CAPI) and new discussion of Smart-PhoneBased Surveys or Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMAs)Revised discussion of informed consentUpdated scholarly references throughout (reflecting the latest studies)Greatly expanded presentation of types of qualitative studiesProfessors and students will benefit from: Text that engages students and makes material accessible through concise writing and structureA comprehensive, carefully sequenced approach to understanding, evaluating, and conducting criminological and criminal justice researchResearch methodology and skills that are made available and meaningful to those students intending to conduct their own research as well as to those seeking pragmatic, up-to-date knowledge of the developments in the fieldEmphasis on ethical methods and use of researchAn active exploration of the intersection of criminological theory and research methodsCoverage of methodological failures as well as successes to stimulate student discussion and understanding of the topic's importance and nuances

This Brief fills a gap in criminological literature, as there are few empirically-based studies on delinquency of adolescent girls. It provides results of a longitudinal study, The Pittsburgh Girls Study (PGS), which includes 2,451 girls, followed annually from age 10-19, the ages when criminal behavior tends to emerge. This study provides the most extensive and comprehensive investigation into the criminal offending and self-reported trajectories of offending of PGS participants, along with an in-depth examination of other criminal career dimensions. In five chapters, this short volume reviews the limited extent of girls' delinquency literature, presents data on girls' offending patterns (onset, persistence, specialization, and desistence), provides insights on gender differences by comparison with the Pittsburgh Youth Study, which focused on male offenders, and explores the theoretical and practical implications of the results. By understanding the origins and onset of criminal behavior in girls, researchers can begin to understand effective interventions and crime prevention. This Brief will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, as well as related fields such as sociology, public policy, and psychology.

This Brief examines criminal careers by providing the most extensive and comprehensive investigation to date on the official offending, self-reported offending, and trajectories of offending of the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS) participants. The PYS is a longitudinal study, which was initiated in 1987, and involves repeated follow-ups on several community cohorts (starting in grades 1, 4, and 7) of inner-city boys in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This Brief covers the Youngest and Oldest PYS cohorts (which had the most follow-up and most data available) from ages 10-30. It provides the most complete descriptive analyses of the criminal careers of these males to date. The three cohorts are commonly referred to as the Youngest, Middle, and Oldest cohorts, respectively. Consistent with several prior publications with the PYS data (Loeber et al., 2008), this book focuses only on data from the Youngest and Oldest cohorts as these cohorts were followedup the most frequently and have the longest time window of data available. It will be of interest to researchers in Criminology and Criminal Justice, as well as related fields like Sociology, Developmental Psychology, Social Policy, and Education.