A Critical Examination Of "Being Black" In The Juvenile Justice System

Keywords

juvenile court outcomes; propensity score matching; race; racial disparities

Abstract

The current study examined the role of race in juvenile court outcomes across 3 decision-making stages. This analysis was conducted with a random sample of all delinquent referrals in a Northeast state from January 2000 through December 2010 (N = 68,188). In addition to traditional logistic regression analysis, a propensity score matching (PSM) approach was utilized to create comparable samples of Black and White youth and provide a more rigorous methodological test of the relationship between race and juvenile court processing. Results indicated that even after the use of PSM techniques, race was still found to influence the likelihood of intake (OR = 1.54; 95% C.I. = 1.48-1.62, p <.001), adjudication (OR = 0.80; 95% C.I. = 0.76-0.84, p <.001), and disposition (OR = 1.64; 95% C.I. = 1.54-1.76, p <.001) outcomes. The findings show that Black youth received disadvantaged court outcomes at 2 of the 3 stages, even after balancing both groups on a number of confounders. Black youth were treated harsher at intake and judicial disposition, but received leniency at adjudication compared with similarly situated Whites. These relationships were the most evident at the stage of judicial disposition. The findings impact both researchers' and policymakers' strategies to more fully understand the complex relationship between race and social control. They also reaffirm the noticeable role that selection bias can play in the research surrounding race differences in juvenile court outcomes, and highlight the importance of utilizing a more stringent statistical model to control for selection bias.

Publication Date

6-1-2016

Publication Title

Law and Human Behavior

Volume

40

Issue

3

Number of Pages

219-232

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000180

Socpus ID

84956506641 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84956506641

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