The Peterborough Adolescent Development Study (PADS)
Principal Investigator: Professor Per-Olof Wikström
Institution: University of Cambridge 
Overview
The Peterborough Adolescent Development Study (PADS) represents the first phase (2002-2007) of an ongoing ESRC-funded longitudinal study, the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+) (2007-2012). Its main objective is to identify the key individual and environmental factors which foster or deter offending during adolescence. PADS is especially interested in understanding the causal processes which link these factors to crime, and the interaction between individual and environmental factors which leads individuals to perceive crime as an conceivable alternative for action and induces them to choose to commit acts of crime rather than other alternatives.
Please visit the PADS+ website for the latest information on this exciting study!
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Study Design
The study has collected longitudinal data annually from over 700 young people in Peterborough who were randomly selected from the cohort which entered year 7 in 2002, starting in 2004, when participants were 12-13 years old, and continuing until 2007, when they were 15-16.
The data collected in the Peterborough longitudinal study covers three main topics:
- the individual (his/her individual and social characteristics and experiences)
- the environment (social characteristics of different small-area environments of Peterborough)
- individuals’ exposure to different environments (hours spent in different kinds of social settings)
This data allows PADS researchers to study the interaction between participants’ individual characteristics and experiences and their exposure to different kinds of environments (both cross-sectionally and longitudinally) in a way no other existing study can. As a consequence, PADS is internationally unique in its ability to address
- differences in crime involvement in relation to the interaction between participants’ individual characteristics and experiences and their exposure to different kinds of environments and settings
- differences in pathways in crime (e.g., onset, duration and desistence) in relation to changes in participants’ exposure to social environments and how this interacts with their individual development during adolescence
PADS has developed specific methodologies to collect data on individuals, environments and individuals’ exposure to different environments in such a way that these data may be linked in a cohesive dataset, which can then be used to answer the question ‘what kinds of individuals in what kinds of settings commit acts of crime?’ These methodologies include:
- a retrospective parents’ questionnaire
- an annual or bi-annual young persons’ questionnaire
- psychometric exercises
- space-time budgets
- the Peterborough Community Survey (PCS)
Data on individuals was collected through
- the parents’ questionnaire (administered in a single one-to-one interview in 2003) which covered topics such as family life, childhood events, peer relationships and school experience
- psychometric tests (conducted during one-to-one interviews with PADS participants) which assessed various cognitive capacities including memory, emotion, reasoning, intuition, reward-sensitivity, moral reasoning, information processing, habituation, attention, multitasking and concentration
- the young person’s questionnaire (interviewer-led in small groups) which covered topics such as the young person’s family life, school experience, peer relations, moral values and emotions, generalized self-control, perception of risk and consequences, temptations, offending and use of drugs and alcohol. The young person’s questionnaire also included scenarios which evaluated young people’s situational decision making in the face of varying degrees of provocation and temptation.
PADS methodologies were carefully designed to ensure data quality and accuracy. One-to-one parents’ interviews were carried out in caregivers’ homes using response cards to ensure that parents’ answers were clear. Answers were immediately entered into a computer, minimizing inputting errors. Psychometric tests were carefully chosen for their robust theoretical groundwork and their empirically evidenced relevance to adolescent decision making. These were designed or adapted to appeal to adolescent participants and work in a non-clinical research setting.
The young person’s questionnaire was administered in small groups. Participants were led through each section of the questionnaire by a trained researcher who provided definitions and instructions, answered questions and ensured questionnaires were fully and accurately completed. This reduced nonresponse, increased reliability by immediately resolving participants’ queries, and increased validity by ensuring participants perceived key concepts, and consequently answeedr related questions, as intended.
Data on environments (including information on socio-demographics and neighbourhood characteristics) was also collected through
- one-to-one parents’ interviews
- interviewer-led, small group young persons’ questionnaires
However, the bulk of environmental data was collected through
- the Peterborough Community Survey (PCS)
This postal survey collected detailed data on small, geographically identifiable areas of Peterborough, including environmental and social environmental data. Over-sampling techniques were used to ensure an even distribution of responses, even from disadvantaged neighbourhoods. These data have been validated through comparison with other data sources, including police data, and information reported by PADS participants in the space-time budget (see further below). PCS data includes information on formal and informal social control, social cohesion, general disorder, youth presence, youth problems, fear of crime, intergenerational closure, etc.
Data on individuals’ exposure to different environments was measured through
- an innovative space-time budget during one-to-one young person’s interviews
This technique gathers data about participants’ hourly activities over four days during the week prior to the interview: the last Friday and Saturday and two other most recent school days. For each hour, participants provided data on the setting (e.g., home, school, shopping centre), their companions (e.g., peers, parents, siblings) and their main activity (e.g., socialising, studying, playing football). Their geographic location was then identified using geo-coded maps. For each hour participants were also asked if they were involved in risky situations, were victimized, committed an offence, used drugs or alcohol, or carried a weapon. Geo-coded data from the space-time budget could then be linked to detailed, geo-coded data from the PCS, providing information about the kinds of settings and situations in which young people reported committing acts of crime. The space-time budget technique is unique to PADS and, when combined with the PCS, provides data on individuals’ exposure to different settings unlike that of any other longitudinal study in its breadth and detail.
Combined with developments in ecometrics in the study of social environments (see, e.g., Raudenbush & Sampson, 1999), the space-time budget constitutes a powerful instrument which has greatly enhanced our potential to measure the influences of the exposure to different social environments on consequent behaviour. This technique was developed to resolve the problematic tradition of using the neighbourhood (the social environment surrounding a participants’ residence) to represent a participants’ social environment. Individuals spend a considerable portion of their time in environments other than their neighbourhoods (a trend which changes with age, with older participants spending more time away from home) and commit a significant proportion of their offences outside their neighbourhoods. Consequently, their neighbourhoods do not encompass all, and perhaps not even most of, the environmental influences on their behavioural development. The space-time budget was designed to resolve this issue by introducing a geographical component to a detailed time diary, enabling PADS researchers to track a participant’s geographic movements, as well as where he/she offends.
Combining this method with the small area data collected from the PCS, PADS researchers are able to measure the amount of time (in hours) which participants spend in particular types of social environments (for example, those with poor collective efficacy or weak informal social controls). Moreover, researchers are able to identify the social settings in which participants takes part (e.g., unsupervised socialising with peers) and measure the amount of time (in hours) they spend in particular social environments and specific social settings. This provides a measure of exposure to environments and settings that can be used in statistical analyses, for example, of individual-environment interactions and changes in exposure to different kinds of environments over time for different kinds of individuals, and to explore the link between changes in exposure and participants’ crime involvement. The method also allows PADS researchers to conduct geographical analyses of young peoples’ offending patterns and the relationship between these patterns and specific environmental features in a way which has not previously been possible.
PADS is the only existing longitudinal study into crime and its development which combines an in-depth treatment of individual characteristics and experiences with an in-depth treatment of the social environments in which young people develop and act. Although several existing longitudinal studies collect data about the neighbourhoods in which individuals live, there is no comparable criminological longitudinal study which has collected such detailed data about individuals’ exposure to different social environments (within and outside of their neighbourhoods), or about the particular social settings within those environments in which those individuals actually take part.
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Study Objectives
PADS main objective is to study the interaction between individual and environmental factors which lead to crime. It has designed to tests hypotheses that
- Social mechanisms which influence age-related offending will vary with community context
- Differences in individuals’ routines, processes of decision-making, and perception of alternatives will play a significant role in accounting for that variation
Specifically, it will investigate the causal role of the following in offending.
- Certain individual characteristics (moral values and the ability to exercise self-control)
- Certain environmental characteristics (temptations, provocations and deterrence)
- Their interaction through two situational mechanisms: the perception of alternatives and the process of choice
PADS is particularly interested in exploring and explaining how the changing social environment during adolescent and the period of transition into young adulthood influences the development of different young people’s crime involvement.
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Select Findings
PADS completed its final data collection sweep in August, 2007, and analyses are ongoing. This extensive, multifaceted data set presents innumerable analytical opportunities and it will be some time before these are fully realized, especially as data collection continues during phase II (PADS+). Key findings suggest the importance of the interaction between individual characteristics, especially moral values, and environmental factors such as monitoring and supervision, as well as the importance of separating causes of crime (such as poor moral values) from more distant causes of the causes (such as disadvantage).
PADS researchers have begun their analyses by investigating participants’ criminal career patterns, including characteristics of their offending such as onset, persistence, severity, versatility, escalation and desistance. They have then considered these patterns in lieu of participants’ individual characteristics and the characteristics of the environments in which they spend their time and, specifically, in which they offend.
 Individual variables: Morality and self-control
PADS researchers found that weak morality and low self-control both predicted participants’ offending. They also observed an interaction between morality and self-control, such that low self-control was only related to offending for participants who also had weak morality. This is an important finding as self-control is a key factor in many prominent theories of offending, and in many intervention programmes. PADS findings suggest that morality warrants at least as much criminological attention, as it plays a more fundamental role in offending, which has implications for policy and practice.
 PADS researchers found that participants’ exposure to criminogenic environments (e.g., those with weak social cohesion and poor informal social control) was also related to their offending. Neighbourhood disadvantage is linked to the presence of criminogenic environments, however, PADS research found that it is not the fact that one lives in a disadvantaged area which leads to offending, but rather that one is exposed to criminogenic environments (within in and outside of one’s neighbourhood). Thus it is the time one spends in disadvantaged environments which is important to one’s offending, and not necessarily the fact that one’s area of residence is disadvantaged. This has important implications for how criminologists study the role of neighbourhoods and other environments on offending. To date, many studies use participants’ neighbourhoods as a measure of their social environments; PADS findings suggest this may not be sufficient and argues that PADS methodology is more effective in capturing the effect of the social environment on young people’s offending.
Having identified the morality and self-control as key individual factors in offending, PADS researchers delved in differential developmental influences to try to understand why some participants developed weak morality and low self-control, which leads to offending. They found that family variables (e.g., family structure, family climate and family social position) and school variables (e.g., school bonds) were significantly related to levels of morality and self-control; participants who experienced greater parental care/nurturing, regardless of family structure or social position, and stronger school bonds exhibited greater levels of morality and self-control. In fact, morality and self-control mediated the relationship between family and school variables and offending, suggesting that family and school variables influence offending only through their role in determining young people’s levels of morality and self-control.
- Individual x environment interactions
 PADS main analytical aim has been to study interaction effects between individual and environmental factors which lead to offending. Preliminary analyses show that these effects can reveal important dynamics about crime causation which may lead to a better understanding of how to predict offending and target interventions more effectively. For example, PADS data suggests that exposure to criminogenic contexts (environmental factors) leads to offending specifically for participants with weaker morality and lower self-control (i.e., greater individual propensity). This suggests that participants’ with greater individual propensity may be more susceptible to environmental inducements to offend. This has implications for intervention practices.
Interestingly, PADS researchers have also found that deterrence is only effective for participants who consider committing an offence. Fear of the consequences of offending was only important in explaining the offending (or non-offending) of participants who reported being regularly tempted to offend.
As PADS analyses delve deeper into these interactions, they may help to clarify many existing questions and controversies concerning the role of various individual and environmental factors in young people’s offending. This has the potential to better inform policy and practice, leading to more effective crime prevention.
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Implications for Policy and Prevention
PADS has superb potential to inform policy and practice as it is constructed around a strong theoretical framework and utilizes robust methodologies which have ensured the quality of its data. It provides a unique perspective on young people in a recent and therefore highly relevant cohort, their offending behaviour and the environments in which those behaviours occur which will advance our understanding of the direct causes of crime, as well as the causes of the causes, which can provide us will a clearer foundation for developing prevention and intervention strategies.
More detail about PADS+ can be found at the PADS+ website, www.pads.ac.uk.
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