Youth delinquency and adult crime are major public health problems in the U.S. For several decades, the most common public policy response to these problems has been punishment, and the U.S. now has the highest incarceration rates in the world. Continued increases in incarceration may result in state governments being unable to adequately support other public services, such as higher education and social services. A complement to incarceration is the prevention of development of delinquency and crime. Universal prevention programs applied to the population of children and families have particular appeal, especially when they can be delivered as part of the regular activities of the public elementary schools. We propose to assess outcomes during young adulthood (age 21 to 26) for participants (N = 578) from a randomized, universal school-based preventive intervention trial. The trial contrasts a multi modal condition called the Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers (LIFT) with a control condition. The LIFT comprises psychosocial interventions that target for change adult and child behaviors in the home, school, and peer group settings that are related to future youth antisocial behavior. The trial includes two samples, a younger sample (n = 268, boys and girls), whose participants entered the trial when in first grade, and an older sample (n = 312, boys and girls), whose participants entered the trial when in fifth grade. To date, participants in both the younger and the older sample intervention groups have been less likely than controls to display antisocial behaviors and related problem, behaviors during middle and high school. Assessments of participants have been conducted on a yearly basis since the beginning of the trial, and rates of missing data are low. Data will be analyzed using a variety of cutting edge statistical techniques, including longitudinal growth modeling and event history analysis. Primary questions of interest are the impact of LIFT on developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior, depression, and substance use into young adulthood; prosocial adjustment and functioning during young adulthood; the mediational impact of family and peer processes on trajectories and functioning; and variation in impact by child sex and baseline levels of antisocial behavior.
