Contact with Police

Police Contact is a 41-item tool used to interview middle and high school students about their encounters with the police and the justice system during the previous year. This measure (Huizinga, 1991) was adapted from the Youth Interview Schedule used in the Denver Youth Survey, The University of Colorado, Institute of Behavior Sciences, Boulder, Colorado.

Abstract: Police Contact is a 41-item tool used to interview middle and high school students about their encounters with the police and the justice system during the previous year. Police contact was adapted from the Youth Interview Schedule used in the Denver Youth Survey (Huizinga, 1991). This measure asks a student how many times he or she was arrested during the year, what the charges were for each arrest, and whether the student actually committed the offense. Detailed information is then solicited for the first three arrests. A student who had a first arrest was asked if his/her friends found out about the arrest. The student was also asked if he or she developed different friends after the arrest, and if so, were the new friends more delinquent than the old friends, less delinquent, or about the same. A final question inquires whether, except for the arrest(s), the student had been questioned by the police at any other time during the past year, and if so, how many times. Response choices for all items are "yes (1)" and "no (0)," except for the total number of arrests, arrest charges, and number of times questioned. This measure contains no subscales. Analysts should note that a second dataset had to be created, using the original data, in order to accurately reflect the concern with the missingness of the follow-up items for each arrest. Depending on the construct under investigation, information about encounters with the police and the court system collected with this measure should be useful to analysts.

Who Completed this Measure?: select one

Cohort 1 - Administrative History

  • Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
  • Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17

Cohort 2 - Administrative History

  • Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
  • Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17

Cohort 3 - Administrative History

  • Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
  • Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
  • Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
  • Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17

Technical Reports:

Raw Dataset Name: CyAH

Scored Dataset Name: POLySCc

Keywords:
Arrest, Correctional Center, Delinquent, Illegal Activity, Justice System, Offense, Police

Is this Measure Available for Public Use?: No

Obtain Measure:

Police Contact
David H. Huizinga
Behavioral Science Institute-Admin
University of Colorado at Boulder
483 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
Email: huizinga@colorado.edu