The Implications of Early Justice System Involvement for the Transition to Adulthood: Expansion and Analysis of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

The applicants are proposing an expansion of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), which is a large-scale longitudinal study, involving children born in 20 large US cities between 1998 and 2000. When weighted, the data are representative of all births in U.S. cities with populations of 200,000 or more. The FFCWS incorporates a broad range of measures on risk and protective factors at the individual, family, peer, and community levels. Measurement has also focused on child/adolescent behavior including: self-reported delinquency, substance use, and school disciplinary infractions. The purpose of this project is to expand the FFCWS data collection to include neighborhood systems-level data matched according to young adult respondent’s residential locations. Expanded data collection will include: • 5-year American Community Surveys (ACS) data for demographic makeup and socioeconomic conditions, • community violence variables retrieved from the Gun Violence Archive, and • police violence measures obtained from the Fatal Encounters Database.