Research Activities: Carolyn A. Smith

Research accomplishments in the past 36 months

Carolyn Smith combines training in social welfare and criminology as the foundation for her research on the intersection of family processes and patterns of adolescent development, with a specific focus on family violence, disruption in adult role transitions, and antisocial behavior. Of particular relevance to demographic research is her emphasis on the impact of family violence on major life-course transitions, including marriage and parenting in a subsequent generation. Her work on the mechanisms by which child maltreatment influences young adult antisocial behaviors, such as teenage parenthood, drug abuse, and gang membership, expands demographic knowledge on the role of the family in child development and in the intergenerational transmission of family violence. She is interested in family structure transitions and their impact on adolescents and has contributed to a recent report to OJJDP on this topic.
Smith has been one of the central participants in the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) for many years, and she is a co-author of its book, Gangs and Delinquency in Developmental Perspective (2002), which won the 2003 Michael J. Hindelang Award from the American Society for Criminology. The Rochester study is a longitudinal study of poor youth begun 17 years ago. Its particular strength is that in contrast to many studies of gangs that sample gang members, the Rochester study sampled youth, so that the researchers have a demographically similar sample of one thousand, some of whom became gang members and some who did not. The research demonstrates that gang membership is important not only because gang members commit the most serious and violent delinquent acts, but also because gang membership facilitates teen pregnancy and school dropout. Gangs and Delinquency is one of the first books to take a population perspective to show the risk factors and antecedents of gang membership, as well as use a life-course perspective to show how gang membership is disruptive to normal adolescent development.
In 2005, Smith was awarded a 4-year NIDA grant to study the consequences of exposure to family violence using the Rochester data. She has several papers published or in press on this topic. A recent publication in Child Abuse and Neglect (2005) focuses on the often neglected topic of adolescent maltreatment and its impact. An article published in the premier French Canadian criminology journal Criminologie (2005) focuses on the impact of family violence on the life course of women.
Another significant accomplishment is Smith’s role in establishing and promoting the Child Welfare, Drug Abuse and Intergenerational Risk Center (CWDAIR) at the School of Social Welfare. The center’s goals are to encourage research on drug abuse in the child welfare population and its ramifications for child safety; and to provide research support through consultation, pilot projects, developmental infrastructure and proposal submission.

Externally funded research

The just described CWDAIR center, for which Smith serves as a Co-PI, has been funded for five years by NIDA starting in 2003. Smith is Co-PI on a proposal to NIDA, Drug Relapse Among Mothers, which has been resubmitted in October, 2006. Smith is also a PI on another NIDA-funded study initiated in 2005, Long Term Consequences of Exposure to Family Violence, which continues her work on family violence and its consequences within RYDS. Another project on which Smith is Co-PI (Life Course Continuity and Change in Antisocial Behavior) continues the basic RYDS research program, with data collection through to age 30 for a high-risk sample of urban males and females tracked since age 13. The research examines the impact of early risk factors and time-varying factors such as transitions along major life-course trajectories that include partner relationships and parenting.

Work in progress and pending/planned research projects.

Smith has one NIH application pending. Otherwise, she will focus her scholarship on her funded projects to examine family violence and its consequences across two generations.

Contribution to the population research program

Smith’s research extends demographic interest in the family, childbearing, and adolescent development to include delinquent behavior and family violence. It relates directly to the CSDA themes of vulnerable populations and life-course transitions and represents an important link among criminal justice, social welfare and population studies at Albany. She is interested in the impact of family violence on life transitions and the impact of multiple transitions in family structure on young adult outcomes.

Use of infrastructure cores and activities