This is a study of successful youth development in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods in Denver and Chicago - a study of how children living in the worst neighborhoods develop or fail to develop the values, competencies and commitments that lead to a productive, healthy responsible adult life. While there is a strong focus on neighborhood effects, the study employs a multicontextual model examining both the direct effects of the neighborhood ecology, social organization and contexts embedded in the neighborhood. The unique and combined influence of the neighborhood, family, school, peer group and individual attributes on developmental success is estimated. The view that growing up in a poor, disadvantaged neighborhood condemns one to a life of repeated failure and personal pathology is revealed as a myth, as most youth in these neighborhoods are completing the developmental tasks of adolescence successfully.

Multiple Problem Youth addresses the complex connections among drug abuse, delinquency, and mental health problems as they apply to adolescents and young adults. Interrelationships in this area exist in a vast variety of ways, further complicated by extraneous factors such as demographics, sex, and time. The authors incorporate these factors and analyze the correlations among substance use, delinquency, and mental health problems, as well as discussing developmental patterns and reviewing theories of deviant behavior.

This is a study of successful youth development in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods in Denver and Chicago - a study of how children living in the worst neighborhoods develop or fail to develop the values, competencies and commitments that lead to a productive, healthy responsible adult life. While there is a strong focus on neighborhood effects, the study employs a multicontextual model examining both the direct effects of the neighborhood ecology, social organization and contexts embedded in the neighborhood. The unique and combined influence of the neighborhood, family, school, peer group and individual attributes on developmental success is estimated. The view that growing up in a poor, disadvantaged neighborhood condemns one to a life of repeated failure and personal pathology is revealed as a myth, as most youth in these neighborhoods are completing the developmental tasks of adolescence successfully.

Results from the Denver Neighborhood Study (DNS) indicated no significant interaction of neighborhood and family structure on the likelihood of youth violent victimization or youth violent offending. However, findings among the high-risk sample contained in the Denver Youth Survey (DYS) revealed that living in single-parent families in disadvantaged neighborhoods was a significant risk factor for violent victimization among youth. It is important to note, however, that the highest rates of youth violent victimization and offending were not found in the most disorganized neighborhoods but rather in the moderately disorganized neighborhoods with moderate to high arrest rates. The findings specific to youth violent offending indicated that living in a single-parent family had a greater negative effect in "good" neighborhoods than it did in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The study was an attempt to replicate the findings from a previous study (Lauritsen 2003) that drew on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey; this study found that children in single-parent families were at higher risk for violent victimization and that this risk was magnified in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Data for the current analysis were drawn from two data sources: the DNS, a cross-sectional study of the entire city of Denver, and the DYS, a long-term longitudinal study of Denver's high-risk neighborhoods. The findings of the current study failed to replicate the Lauritsen study, although the author notes that the different data sources used for each study could be a main reason for the divergent findings. The many gender differences that emerged in this analysis deserve future research attention.