Background
History
This study was started and led by Richard Clarke Cabot (1868-1939), who was a professor at Harvard University teaching clinical medicine and social ethics. They began planning it in 1935, and the official delinquency prevention program kicked off in June 1939. The CSYS is actually known as the first randomized controlled experiment in criminology, one of the earliest randomized social program studies, and probably the first long-term experimental study focusing on crime-related outcomes.
There have been three big follow-ups to this study: one in 1948 by Edwin Powers and Helen Witmer; another in 1956 by Joan and William Mc Cord; and a third from 1975 to 1979 led by Joan Mc Cord herself. Right now, there’s a fourth follow-up happening that tracks participants into their late years (mid-80s to early 90s).
Methods and Results
The core of the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study was a program meant to stop delinquency among “pre-delinquent,” disadvantaged boys. Called “directed friendship,” this intervention included personal counseling combined with lots of activities and visits to their homes. Counselors would chat with the boys, take them out on trips or recreational outings, help them with reading and math tutoring, support their involvement with YMCA programs or summer camps, and encourage church attendance. On average, boys in the treatment group were involved for about 5.5 years. Boys not getting any special services made up the control group. This program wrapped up in 1945.
The study initially had 650 boys (later narrowed down to 506) between ages 5 to 13 (with an average age around 10.5), all from Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. These boys were considered either “average” or “difficult” by local schools, welfare groups, churches, or police who referred them for participation. They were paired up into what they called “diagnostic twins,” matched pairs where one boy was randomly picked (like flipping a coin) to be part of the treatment group.
Follow-ups done in ’48 and ’56 showed no clear effect on official crime records from the program. Then in ’75-’76 when participants averaged age 45 years old, Joan Mc Cord tracked down records for about 480 guys (95%) plus interviewed or sent questionnaires to around 347 of them. By ’79 they found data on nearly everyone-494 out of total participants-which is like a stunningly high retention rate at almost 98%.
This long-term checkup after about thirty years found some surprising negative effects caused by the program itself-what’s called iatrogenic effects. When comparing treated versus control groups, those who got help didn’t do better on any key measures-and actually did worse on several important things such as:
- Committing multiple crimes (among those who committed at least one)
- Showing signs of alcoholism
- Displaying symptoms of mental illness
- Dying younger than age 35
- Suffering from stress-related conditions like high blood pressure or heart issues
- Feeling unsatisfied with their jobs
Joan Mc Cord came up with several ideas why these bad effects happened – probably most famously her peer deviancy hypothesis.
Current Research
Professor Brandon Welsh leads a research team made up of SCCJ faculty members, students, plus partners from other universities who are digging into four main questions:
- Intervention impacts: Do those negative effects seen back when participants were middle-aged still show up now that they’re older?
- Lifelong offending patterns: What do these people’s criminal histories look like over time? How did they stop offending if at all? How long did their criminal careers last?
- Affecting next generations: What happened with these men’s kids-the third generation? Did children whose dads received treatment also face tough outcomes compared to kids whose dads didn’t?
- The bigger picture: How should we understand CSYS historically? What impact did it have on preventing juvenile crime? And what lessons can we learn today?
If you want more info or have questions just reach out to Brandon Welsh at [email protected].
Joan Mc Cord
The reason this study is so famous among criminologists is largely thanks to Professor Joan Mc Cord (1930-2004). She worked on major follow-ups in ’56 as well as ’75-’79 plus wrote tons based on that research.
A lot also comes down to her running this project for over three decades-from ‘56-’59 then again ‘75 until she passed away-and carefully keeping track during breaks too along with locating participants thoroughly later on which kept everything solid enough for decades-long studies including current ones going strong today.
You can find more details about Joan Mc Cord and this youth study through resources like the American Society of Criminology’s Oral History Project and Freakonomics Radio.
Publications from Current Research
Journal Articles
Welsh, Brandon C. (2021). Standing on the shoulders of pioneers in experimental criminology: The Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study at 85 years (1935-2020) and beyond: The 2021 Joan Mc Cord Award Lecture. Journal of Experimental Criminology. DOI: 10.1007/s11292-021-09491-w.
Welsh, Brandon C., Steven N. Zane, and Jillian Reeves (2021). Impact of interventions for at-risk and criminally involved youths and adults on premature mortality over the life-course: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology. DOI: 10.1007/s40865-021-00185-5.
Welsh, B. C., Podolsky, S. H., & Zane, S. N. (2021). Richard Cabot, pair-matched random allocation, and the attempt to compare like with like in the social sciences and medicine. Part 1: the context of the social sciences. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 114(4), 212-217.
Podolsky, S. H., Welsh, B. C., & Zane, S. N. (2021). Richard Cabot, pair-matched random allocation , and the attempt to compare like with like in the social sciences and medicine. Part 2 : the context of medicine and public health. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine ,114(5),264-270.
Welsh , B. C.,& ; Tremblay , R. E.(2021). Early developmental crime prevention forged through knowledge translation : A window into a century o fprevention experiments. Journal o f Developmental an d Life -Course Criminology ,7 ,1 -16.
Welsh , B. C., Yohros , A.,& ; Zane, S. N.(2020 ). Understanding iatrogenic effects for evidence-based policy : A review o fcrime an dviolence prevention programs. Aggression an d Violent Behavior ,55 ,1 -7(e101511 ).
Welsh, B. C., Podolsky, S. H.,& ; Zane, S. N.(2020 ). Between medicine an dcriminology : Richard Cabot’ s contributions t othe design o fexperimental evaluations o fsocial interventions inthe late1930 s. James Lind Library Bulletin (https://www. jameslindlibrary. org/articles ).
Welsh, B. C., Zane, S. N., Zimmerman, G. M.,& ; Yohros, A.(2019 ). Association o fa crime prevention program fo rboys wit hmortality72 year safter th eintervention: A follow -upo fa randomized clinical trial. Journal o fthe American Medical Association Network Open ,2(3 ),1 -11(e190782 ).
Welsh, B. C., Dill, N. E.,& ; Zane, S. N.(2019 ). The first delinquency prevention experiment: A socio-historical reviewo ft he origins oft he Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study’ s research design. Journal o f Experimental Criminology ,15 ,441 -451.
Zane, S. N., Welsh, B. C.,& ; Zimmerman, G. M.(2019). Criminal offending an dmortalityover th efull life-course: A70-year follow-upofthe Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study. Journalof Quantitative Criminology ,35 ,691 -713.
Tremblay, R. E., Welsh, B. C.,& ; Sayre-Mc Cord, G.(2019). Crimean dlife-course,, prevention,, experiments, andtruth seeking: J oan Mc Cord’s pioneering contributionsto criminology. Annual Reviewof Criminology,,2,,1-20.
“Well,” Welsh said,. “This stuff’s been pretty interesting.”
“Yeah,” I replied.” It really has.”
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