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Another Way Out 377 Table 1. Continued Means for Means for Arrested Youthsa Nonarrested Youthsa Total Sample All Year 1 Year 2 Males Variable Arrestees Arrestees Arrestees All Only Valid N Mean SD Property offense (0/1) 0.25 0.26 0.17** NA NA 382 0.22 — Drug offense (0/1) 0.40 0.39 0.41 NA NA 382 0.40 — Contextual Factors School dropout rate 21.94 22.10 20.90 18.04 18.05 4.754 18.32 9.41 Log of crime rate (per 1,000) 5.06 5.09 5.11 4.85 4.83 4,763 4.87 0.55 Concentrated disadvantage 1.24 1.28 1.34 0.94 0.90 4,723 0.97 0.91 Neighborhood dropout rate 20.29 20.75 20.47 21.22 21.26 4,715 21.17 13.08 Neighborhood poverty rate 44.56 45.81 47.67 38.68 38.01 4,726 39.31 21.93 Valid Sample Size Rangeb 314–355 188–229 139–153 4,069–4,422 1,726–1,910 a The “all-arrestee” means are for the mid-dropout sample; Year 1 and Year 2 arrestees make up the early dropout sample. All differences between nonarrestees (total and males only) and all arrestees (across samples) are significant at p < .001 (Pearson chi-square tests and two-tailed t-tests) except for age (p < .05), the lag between survey and event (p < .05 for males only), the number of repeated grades, and neighborhood dropout rate. b Prior station adjustments are completely known for 178 9th-grade, 126 10th-grade, and 2,264 nonarrested cases, and remaining values were imputed. Absences are presented for mid- and final dropout samples combined. Valid samples sizes (across columns) are 88, 133, 2,080, and 874. The 36 spring Year 2 arrestees averaged 18.45 absences in the fall of Year 1 (p > .10). *p < .10, **p < .05, ***p < .01.
378 Hirschfield range from 1 (leave high school early) to 4 (finish college). Finally, the average number of absences (per class) in the semester prior to the reference date is the most proximate time-varying selection factor and among the strongest joint covariates of arrest and dropout. Unfortunately, 61 percent of Year 1 arrestees and nonarrestees lacked data on prior absences, which are available only during high school. Still, including this measure imposed tighter selection controls on estimates of the effects of arrests on dropout. Behavioral Factors Several other behavioral risk factors for arrest and dropout were measured. Self-reported acting out (Cook et al. 2000) was computed as the mean of 11 survey items measuring the frequency of delinquency (e.g., shoplifting, auto theft, gang fight, hitting someone, damaging property), school misconduct (e.g., skipping school, disciplinary referral), and other conduct that may invite police scrutiny (e.g., doing something dangerous for fun) in the past year. Responses ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (10 or more). The average reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) of this index across waves of the survey is .87. Substance use was measured as the mean frequency of drinks of alcohol and episodes of marijuana use in the past 30 days. Responses ranged from “none” (1) to “more than 20” (7 for alcohol and 6 for marijuana). To help preclude that offending predilections account for differences in outcomes among arrested youths, I used arrest-charge categories in the first quasi-experiment. Drug, violenceweapons, and property offenses constituted nearly all first offenses, but only a violenceweapons dummy variable was included in the regressions. Drug and property charges were unrelated to the arrest grade and early dropout, respectively. The final measure of delinquency, prior station adjustments, is generally incorporated into self-reported measures of arrest (Kirk 2006). A separate measure of station adjustments is theoretically warranted because these sanctions, during the study period, typically entailed no more than a brief visit to the police station, a referral to a social service agency, and/or a stern warning (Illinois General Assembly, 1998). Station adjustments for minor offenses are the formal “warning stage” en route to juvenile court referrals and thus a systematic selection mechanism for formal arrest. 10 Controlling for the number of station adjustments helps ensure parity between arrested and nonarrested youths in their adjusted risk of more formal processing (Cook et al. 2008). Station adjustments were reliably measured in police records only until February 15, 1997, necessitating the extensive imputation of missing values (discussed later). Three other behavioral risk factors were included. The share of delinquent friends was the mean of three items (· = .81) asking about the portion of the respondents’ friends who damaged property, stole, and encouraged lawbreaking in the past year. Values ranged from 1 (none) to 5 (all). Next, a single item queried how much time the respondents spent “hanging out with a bunch of friends” on a typical school day. Values ranged from 1 (none) to 6 (8 or more), with a mode of 3 (2–3 hours). Finally, anger control is a key dimension of self-control that may forge a spurious link between arrest and dropout (Sweeten 2006), perhaps by aggravating the risk of arrest from police encounters (Hirschfield et al. 2006). Anger control is the mean of four Likert scales that gauge how often youths lose their temper or feel really mad at others, are so upset that they want to hurt someone, or are angry enough to break something (· = .81). Values range from 1 (“everyday”) to 5 (“never”). Contextual Factors Unlike prior studies in this area, this study took into account neighborhood- and school-level selection factors. The first contextual control was derived from a construct of concentrated disadvantage developed for Chicago’s neighborhoods (Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls 1997). For each census tract, I standardized the construct’s six dimensions of disadvantage (rate per 100 persons living below the poverty line, on public assistance, in female-headed families, unemployed, younger than age 18, and black) and averaged them, weighting each variable by its factor loading (oblique rotation) reported in Sampson et al. (1997). Second, crime rates, which correlate positively with dropout, were the yearly totals of index crimes per 1,000 residents for the census tract in which youths resided prior to their refer-
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SOCIOLOGY EDUCATION - American Sociological Association

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