Do Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Mandate Reforms Change Decision-Making? Decomposing Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System

Abstract

To reduce disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in their juvenile justice systems, policy makers must alter decision-making processes through policy interventions. Effective DMC reforms should ideally diminish the influence of race on processing outcomes and give more weight to objective differences in cases such as charge severity or a youth’s prior adjudications. This study evaluates the impacts of DMC interventions on secure detention and placement decisions. It introduces the Gelbach decomposition approach to estimate unexplained racial differences in processing outcomes. The method also illuminates the relative importance of case factors in reducing or aggravating explainable group differences over time. Findings suggest DMC reforms can moderate the effect of race on processing outcomes. When detailed, decomposition estimates show a greater emphasis on prior contact for detention and legal factors and prior history for placement following reform. DMC interventions may then help diminish unwarranted processing distinctions, and decomposition methods can inform these policy debates.