Understanding and Preventing Youth Crime: A Comparative Study in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US

青少年犯罪、酗酒和吸毒以及受害问题仍然是全世界的紧迫问题。 针对这些青年问题的各种政策和方案为数众多，研究表明，如果这些方案有良好的理论基础，效果最好。 虽然有许多理论关注青年问题， 最近的想法表明，需要采取综合办法，将个人、情景和宏观层面的理论结合起来。 本研究的第一个目标是收集美国4个城市3,600名7、8和9年级学生的调查数据，以发展和检验这种综合理论。同时，青少年犯罪和受害是许多国家面临的问题。研究国家和地方的青年政策和方案有助于了解为什么有些国家的青年问题不如其他国家严重。 因此，本研究的第二个目标是比较美国青少年与英国、法国、德国和荷兰青少年的经历，以确定相同的理论是否适用于各国，并对与青少年有关的犯罪政策进行比较分析。 主要重点是美国，英国，德国，法国和荷兰之间的比较，但分析也将包括其他25个国家，这些国家是更大的国际自我报告犯罪（ISRD）研究的一部分，该研究收集了7年级，8年级和9年级学生的随机样本中的自我管理调查。所有国家都使用相同的研究设计，使结果具有可比性。将通过与专家的访谈和公开来源文件收集关于青年政策的信息。国家数据将被合并到一个国际数据库，用于联合分析，并用于在美国和国外编写学术和政策文件。在更广泛的影响方面，五个“了解和预防青年犯罪”国家将收集关于国家一级青年司法组织的全面信息，以便对青年司法政策和结构进行比较分析，与UPYC的调查结果进行对比。这项研究将有助于发展一个综合理论的青年犯罪，并将跟踪这对青年司法政策的影响。该项目将产生更广泛的影响，可能会改善青年政策，从而改善青少年的总体福祉。

Criminal offending, alcohol and drug use and victimization among teenagers remain pressing problems worldwide. A large number of different policies and programs targeting these youth problems exist and research supports the idea that such programs work best if they have a sound theoretical basis. While there are numerous theories focused on youth problems, recent thinking suggests there is a need for an integrated approach, combining individual, situational and macro-level theories. The first goal of the current study is to collect survey data on 3,600 7th, 8th and 9th graders in 4 US cities in order to develop and test such integrated theory.At the same time, youth crime and victimization is a problem for many countries. Studying national and local youth policies and programs sheds light on why some countries have less serious youth-related problems than others. Therefore, the second goal of the study is to compare the experiences of American adolescents with those in the UK, France, Germany and The Netherlands to determine whether the same theories apply across countries, and to provide a comparative analysis of youth-related crime policies. Primary focus is on comparison between US, UK, Germany, France and The Netherlands, but analyses will also include 25 other countries which are part of the larger International Self-Report Delinquency (ISRD) study which collects self-administered surveys among random samples of 7th, 8th and 9th graders. All countries use the same research design, making results comparable. Information on youth policies will be collected through interviews with experts and open source documents. National data will be merged into an international data base for joint analysis and for the preparation of academic and policy papers, in the US and abroad.In terms of broader impacts, the five "Understanding and Preventing Youth Crime" countries will assemble comprehensive information on the organisation of youth justice at the country-level in order to provide a comparative analysis of youth justice policies and structures, to set against the findings from the UPYC survey. The study will contribute to the development of an integrated theory of youth offending, and will trace the implications of this for youth justice policy. The project will have a broader impact by potentially improving youth policies which better the well-being of teenagers in general.