International Collaborative Research on Youthful Misbehavior

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Since the early seventies there has been growing interest in using the self-report method as a means of obtaining measures of juvenile misbehavior. The self-report method has now gained widespread use among researchers, both in the United States and abroad. During a 1988 Nato Workshop on Self-Report Methodology in Criminological Research, the idea of developing a large-scale International Self- Report Delinquency Project (ISRDP) was proposed. Leading researchers from fifteen countries examined how to develop a suitable cross-national instrument to measure delinquency. After some pilot tests, full studies are now being launched in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, North Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. This project is the United States part of the International Self- Report Delinquency Project. The objectives of the ISRDP are (1) to examine cross-national variability in patterns of correlates of self-reported misbehavior among youth and (2) to obtain measures of cross-national variability in the relative rank ordering of the prevalence of different types of youthful misbehavior. Data will be collected from a midwestern, urban community using a probability sample of 1,000 youth between the ages of 14 and 21. The researchers will collaborate with other participants in the ISRDP on the analysis of the findings. International collaboration on the design, data collection, and data analysis of self-reported delinquency will provide a much needed stimulus to the advancement of our understanding of the true nature and extent of youthful crime in modern industrial societies. Participation in this unique research endeavor will allow further exploration of the feasibility of collecting cross-nationally comparable self-report data using a standardized questionnaire and will permit testing of the generalizability of theoretical propositions regarding the correlates of delinquency across different cultures.