NCJ Number
220698
Date Published
2007
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This chapter provides an overview of the Offending Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS) which examines the extent of offending, antisocial behavior, and drug use.
Abstract
The OCJS is the first nationally representative, longitudinal, self-report offending survey of the general household population in England and Wales; key results were obtained relating to the prevalence of offending, risk factors for offending, victimization of young people, victim-offender relationships, antisocial behavior, the volume and concentration of offenses, and co-offending and motivations. The OCJS has provided a wide range of evidence about offending as well as other problem behaviors and associated risk factors, victimization of young people, victim-offender relationships, drug use among vulnerable groups of young people, offending by different minority ethnic groups, and delinquent youth groups. Its design collects data on such things as: the prevalence of offending and the number of offences committed by people in the general household populations; trends among young people and caparisons for different ethnic minority groups; information on youths’ experiences and antisocial behaviors; links between offending, problem behaviors, and victimizations; number of offenders in the criminal justice system; attitudes toward the criminal justice system; motivations for and nature of individual offenses; and pathways into and out of delinquency. Findings indicated that the OCJS needed question wording suitable for use with young children as well as parental permissions, inclusion of sensitive topics within household environments, and monitored trends to provide longitudinal information. Data were collected by Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) and via Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing (CASI) whereby respondents were able to listen to questions and possible answers via headphones thereby assisting with literacy problems. Tables, figures, references