The Crossroads Study follows 1,216 who were arrested for the first time between the ages of 13 and 17 years old. The youth recruited for Crossroads had no prior offenses and had different degrees of justice system involvement after their first arrest (i.e., some were formally processed and others were informally processed). After recruitment, youth were followed and interviewed regularly for 9 years.
Youths were sampled from three sites: Philadelphia, PA; Jefferson Parish, LA; and Orange County, CA. Three sites are necessary in order to reduce the possibility that findings would actually reflect (or be construed by the field as reflecting) idiosyncrasies of local practices or youth populations. In addition, the sites selected represent three culturally distinct regions of the country (East, South, and West) and contribute to demographic diversity in the study sample. Sample size differs by site, reflecting the rate of eligible youth in each region.
For more information about study methodology and sampling, see two of our recent publications: