Bernburg conducted research into a group of children in both seventh and eighth grade. They recorded individual delinquency as well as the delinquency of their peers. They wanted to find out whether or not there was an actual connection between formal justice system intervention and consequent delinquency (Bernburg, 2006). He collected data through private interviews at different times throughout the study. He established different variables like race, gender, initial levels of delinquency, family impoverishment and substance abuse, and concluded “juvenile justice intervention is significantly associated with serious delinquency in a subsequent period” (Bernberg,
