Black Juveniles Research Articles

Exploring the Impact of Adult‐use Cannabis Legalization on Legal System Referrals to Treatment for Cannabis Use: Do Age and Race Have a Moderating Effect?

PurposeDespite the progression of recreational cannabis legalization, the legal system remains the largest source of referral to treatment for cannabis use. The legal system's continued practice of requiring participation in cannabis treatment programs raises questions regarding the extent to which individuals who interact with the legal system are monitored for cannabis use post-legalization. This article presents trends in justice-system referrals to treatment for cannabis use in legal and nonlegal states for 2007–2019. The relationship between legalization and justice system treatment referrals for black, Hispanic/Latino, and white adults and juveniles was explored. Given that minority and youth populations are subject to disproportionate levels of cannabis enforcement, legalization is expected to have a weaker relationship with justice-system referral rates in white juveniles and black and Hispanic/Latino adults and juveniles compared to white adults. MethodsUsing 2007–2019 data from the Treatment Episode Data Set—Admissions (TEDS-A), variables were created for state-level rates of legal system–referred treatment admissions for cannabis use in black, Hispanic/Latino, and white adults and juveniles. Rate trends were compared across populations and staggered difference-in-difference and event analyses were conducted to determine whether legalization is associated with a decline in justice-system referrals to treatment for cannabis use . FindingsFor the study period, the mean rate of legal system–referred admissions in the total population was 2.75 per 10,000 residents. Black juveniles had the highest mean rate (20.16), followed by Hispanic/Latino juveniles (12.35), black adults (9.18), white juveniles (7.58), Hispanic/Latino adults (3.42), and white adults (1.66). Legalization did not have a significant impact on treatment-referral rates in any population of study. Events analyses indicated significant rate increases in black juveniles in legalized states compared to controls at 2 and 6 years after policy change, and in black and Hispanic/Latino adults at 6 years after policy change (all, P < 0.05). While racial/ethnic disparities in referral rates declined in absolute terms, the relative size of these disparities increased in legalized states. ImplicationsTEDS-A captures only publicly funded treatment admissions and relies on the quality of individual-state reporting. Individual-level factors that may impact decisions regarding treatment referrals for cannabis use could not be controlled for. Despite limitations, the present findings suggest that for individuals who interact with the criminal legal system, cannabis use may still result in legal monitoring after reform. The upward trend in legal system referrals for black (but not white) adults and juveniles several years after states legalize cannabis warrants further examination and may reflect continued disparate treatment of these populations at multiple points along the legal-system continuum.

“Stop Talking and Act”: The Battle between Tough on Crime Policing and Guardianship of Black Juvenile Gangs in Philadelphia, 1958-1969

The 1958 robbery and murder of international student, In-Ho Oh, by eleven black teenagers in West Philadelphia created public outcry on the issue of black gangs in desegregating neighborhoods. The interracial homicide unofficially sparked a full-fledged tough on crime program by police and city officials. From 1958 to 1969, police and city officials became more concerned about black gangs because they feared white flight and white middle-class disinvestment from inner-city businesses and institutions that fed Philadelphia’s tax base. However, black community activists believed the “gang problem” could be solved with education, recreation, social welfare, and job training. Nevertheless, Philadelphia’s police department and City Council handled black gang activity with tough on crime policing and mass incarceration while black community activists provided “guardianship” to black youth to keep them out of the prison system and promote a positive reputation of black citizens.

The Mechanisms of Fur Development and Color Formation in American Mink Revealed Using Comparative Transcriptomics.

American mink fur is an important economic product, but the molecular mechanisms underlying its color formation and fur development remain unclear. We used RNA-seq to analyze the skin transcriptomes of young and adult mink with two different hair colors. The mink comprised black adults (AB), white adults (AW), black juveniles (TB), and white juveniles (TW) (three each). Through pair comparison and cross-screening among different subgroups, we found that 13 KRTAP genes and five signaling pathways (the JAK-STAT signaling pathway (cfa04630), signaling pathways regulating pluripotency of stem cells (cfa04550), ECM-receptor interaction (cfa04512), focal adhesion (cfa04510), and the Ras signaling pathway (cfa04014)) were related to mink fur development. We also found that members of a tyrosinase family (TYR, TYRP1, and TYRP2) are involved in mink hair color formation. The expression levels of TYR were higher in young black mink than in young white mink, but this phenomenon was not observed in adult mink. Our study found significant differences in adult and juvenile mink skin transcriptomes, which may shed light on the mechanisms of mink fur development. At the same time, the skin transcriptomes of black and white mink also showed differences, with the results varying by age, suggesting that the genes regulating hair color are active in early development rather than in adulthood. The results of this study provide molecular support in breeding for mink coat color and improving fur quality.

Exploring How Interactions between Race and Social Bonds Influence Substance Use: Findings from a Predominately Black Juvenile Sample

ABSTRACT This study uses a social bonds framework to explore the main effects of race and five social bonds (attachment to peers, attachment to parents, school commitment, activity involvement) on adolescent substance use. We also explore whether social bonds have the capacity to enhance or mitigate the effects of race on substance use. We test this question using longitudinal data from a predominately Black sample of at-risk high school students (n = 783). Findings indicate that race exerts a strong main effect on substance where Black students experienced decreases in substance use over time relative to White students. The findings also suggest that race and social bonds do not interact to influence late-adolescent substance use.

Chants of Indictment

Chants of Indictment David M. Katz (bio) Felon Reginald Dwayne Betts W. W. Norton & Company https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393652147 112pages; Cloth, $26.95 The fourth line of “Ghazal,” the opening poem in Felon, Reginald Dwayne Betts’s powerful yet nuanced new volume, contains an ars poetica in miniature for the book: “redaction is a dialect after prison.” In the four “redaction poems,” which represent a major advance for both the poet himself and for the use of public documents in contemporary American poetry overall, Betts crosses out lengthy chunks of legal filings with thick black lines — lines, it has been said, that appropriately resemble prison bars. Along with the visual impact of the redactions, the remaining words and phrases deliver a rhythmically charged case against the criminal justice system for the onerous bail it often demands from poor people. Unlike the redactions in the Mueller report, for example, Betts’s redactions don’t use his omissions to hide telling facts. Instead, they seek to reveal “the tragedy, drama, and injustice of a system that makes people simply a reflection of their bank accounts,” he writes in an explanatory note. Carving these poems out of legal documents filed by the Civil Rights Corps, a criminal-justice advocacy group, Betts follows in the tradition of Testimony (1965) and Holocaust (1975), Charles Reznikoff’s sweeping poetic investigations of the dark side of twentieth-century history. Although the work of both poets reveals injustice, their approaches to the use of documents differ sharply. Working from nineteenth-century legal cases and records of the Nuremburg trials, Reznikoff strips out the turgid rhetoric to yield a spare, Objectivist poetry that lays bare social ills without commenting on them. For his part, Betts excerpts and reshapes the legal phrases, turning them into chants of indictment against what he observes to be injustices of the prison system. While these poems don’t refer to Betts’s own experience, their impetus is clearly personal. In 1996, at the age of sixteen, Betts, a high school honors student, took the fatal step that continues to resound through all his writings. In a parking lot in Fairfax, Virginia, he tapped the window of a car with a pistol, awakening the sleeping driver and, along with a fifteen-year-old friend, stole the vehicle. Tried as an adult — as was often the case in those years, when black juveniles tended to be regarded as “super predators” by prosecutors — he ended up serving eight years and four months in various prisons, including two six-month-long stretches in solitary. While in prison, Betts intensively read and wrote poetry and began studying law from books available to him. Incredibly, he was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 2017, two decades after serving his last day in prison. Much of his experience behind bars through the age of twenty-four is recounted in his trenchant 2009 memoir, A Question of Freedom, while Bastards of the Reagan Era (2015), a previous volume of verse, riffs on the historical roots of the increase in crimes like his and of the rise in mass imprisonment. How that experience and history will play out after prison is the territory Felon explores. In the masterly “Ghazal,” Betts supplies a map for navigating what will follow. “Name a song that tells a man what to expect after prison,” he writes, adding “you’re still a suspect after prison.” The “song” named is the ode-like form of the ghazal itself. Typically expressive of longing, ghazals proceed in self-contained couplets that can sometimes be considered poems in themselves. Like prisoners in adjoining cells, Betts’s couplets call out to each other in a “dialect” they share that’s suggested by the word “prison,” the word he has chosen to end every other line. Fittingly, the form replicates the speaker’s endlessly returning obsession with all that the word means to him. By the final, richly allusive couplet, however, he discovers and invokes the means of his liberation: “You have come so far, Beloved, & for what, another song? / Then sing. Shahid you’re loved, not shipwrecked, after prison.” Like the Arabic and Persian poets who originated the form, Betts addresses...

Feeding habits of the fishes Euthynnus lineatus and Scomberomorus sierra (Perciformes: Scombridae) in the Eastern Tropical Pacific

ABSTRACT. Introduction: Black skipjack, Euthynnus lineatus, and Pacific sierra, Scomberomorus sierra, are of great economic importance in the small-scale fishery of the Tropical Eastern Pacific and in particular in the study area. Objectives: The objectives of the present study were to assess the diet components of E. lineatus and S. sierra, as well as to evaluate the niche width, trophic level, and trophic overlap between the two species, by size and season. Methods: Biological samples were obtained weekly from small-scale fishery catches in Bahía de Acapulco, Mexico. The E. lineatus sampling period occurred from October 2016 to October 2017, whereas S. sierra was sampled from October 2016 to June 2018. The Prey-specific Index of Relative Importance (% PSIRI) was used to evaluate the importance of each prey item in the diet of the predator. Levin´s index (Bi) was used as a measure of niche width. The Morisita-Horn index was used to evaluate diet overlap by size (juveniles or adults), by season (dry or wet), and between the two species. The trophic level (TL) of predators was calculated using the Cortés´ method. Results: A total of 262 E. lineatus stomachs were analyzed (42 % were empty and 58 % contained food) and a total of 209 S. sierra stomachs were analyzed (74.6 % were empty and 25.3 % contained food). Of the total E. lineatus specimens sampled, 107 were juveniles and 155 were adults. Black skipjack juveniles fed on five food items and adults fed on 13 food items. Of the total S. sierra specimens sampled, 75 were juveniles and 134 were adults. Pacific sierra juveniles and adults fed on five food items. The diet of the two species comprised fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. The two species showed narrow niche width. The diet of juvenile and adult E. lineatus presented differences with growth, contrary to what was observed for juveniles and adults of S. sierra. There were no significant differences in diet by season for both species. The trophic overlap obtained between the two species was low. The trophic level calculated for both species indicated that are tertiary consumers. Conclusions: Black skipjack and Pacific sierra are tertiary predators and present a specialist behavior, feeding mainly on fish from the families Engraulidae and Clupeidae. Although a degree of similarity in the dietary food components of these species was observed, there was not a high degree of interspecific competition for food.

The caldera-forming eruption of the quaternary Payún Matrú volcano, Andean back-arc of the southern volcanic zone

The Payún Matrú caldera is a Quaternary Andean back-arc caldera (36° 25′ S, 69° 12′ 30” W), and represents the main volcanic edifice of the homonym Payún Matrú volcanic field, located within the Payenia Basaltic province. The Payún Matrú volcanic field is also characterized by the Payún Liso volcano, and 220 monogenetic basaltic cones and associated lava flows. The Pleistocene – Holocene Payún Matrú caldera presents a long lived pre-caldera stage, which built a multi-vent and shield-like volcanic edifice, mainly trachytic in composition. The syn-caldera stage is represented by the trachytic Portezuelo Ignimbrite (the caldera-forming eruption deposits) constrained between 148 and 82 ka, and the resulting caldera depression of 8.5 km in diameter. Afterwards the caldera event, volcanism continued mostly along the caldera rim.Stratigraphic sections of the Portezuelo Ignimbrite and its correlations are presented, in addition to mineral compositions and previous whole-rock chemical analyses. Only the extra-caldera deposits can be observed, while the intra-caldera ignimbrite is hidden by post-caldera volcanic products and unconsolidated modern sediments. Different facies within the ignimbrite were recognized, being most of them massive or eutaxitic and massive lapilli tuff facies, deposited by dense pyroclastic density currents. Fall deposits are found only proximally and restrained to the caldera margin. The absence of a widespread fall deposit suggests the lack of a sustained eruptive column at the onset of eruption. Massive tuff facies at the topmost deposits indicates the development of a co-ignimbritic plume as the pyroclastic density currents wanned.On the basis of color, size and shape, vesicularity and crystallinity, four distinct juvenile clasts types were defined: gray fiamme, black juvenile, dark gray and light gray pumice. Available chemical analysis of gray fiamme and black juvenile clasts indicate a similar trachytic composition, although their mineralogical composition presents some differences.Several eruptive units for the northern and southern outer slopes of the caldera were defined, on the basis of the juvenile types present and discontinuity surfaces. The onset of caldera collapse is not marked by the presence of a lithic breccia, but it is suggested by the appearance of dark gray and light gray pumice along with black juveniles in the topmost eruptive units, together with an increase in lithic content relative to previous units. The sequential appearance of different juvenile clasts types suggests a zoned magma chamber, in terms of crystal content and composition.

Sentencing other people’s children: the intersection of race, gender, and juvenility in the adult criminal court

ABSTRACTIn light of the punitive transformation of the juvenile justice system in recent years, several scholars have explored disparities in criminal punishments between adult offenders and juveniles who have been transferred to the adult criminal court, and these findings have been somewhat mixed. While juvenility in itself might influence sentencing outcomes, it is theoretically possible that Black and Hispanic male transferred youth may be sentenced particularly harshly relative to other juvenile and adult offenders. Indeed, previous research suggests that the issue of youth crime as well as the practice of transfer to adult court are conceptually associated with Black and Hispanic males. However, no prior work on the influence of extralegal offender characteristics in sentencing has assessed potential joint effects among race, gender, and juvenility. Analysis of data on felony offenders in Florida circuit courts (n = 1,107,233) reveals that Black male juveniles are sentenced more harshly than many other juvenile and adult defendant subgroups and, for two of the four sentencing outcomes considered, receive the most severe punishments of all offenders.

Contested Commitment: Policing Black Female Juvenile Delinquency at Efland Home, 1919–1939

The North Carolina Industrial School for Negro Girls was established in 1925 by the local branch of the National Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. Also known as Efland Home, this institution, like others across the South, was designed to rehabilitate young black women “destined for pregnancy, prostitution, or prison.” The quasi-private reformatory negotiated its relationship with the state, receiving inconsistent and nominal funding for roughly a decade. By the mid-to-late 1930s, Efland Home functioned as a penal institution as the ideals of its clubwomen founders crumbled under financial and logistical pressures. State-sanctioned investigations and inquiries wrought mixed messages concerning the utility of the reformatory. During the last five years of its existence, Efland Home became a contested site of policing as matrons, superintendents, and others replaced rehabilitative ideologies with violence and (corporeal) punishment. To express their discontent, young women sentenced to the institution ran away in larger numbers and with greater frequency during these years, encountering local authorities in the process. The young women’s experiences thus reveal complex negotiations regarding the power of black clubwomen and the state to regulate black female adolescents’ behaviors.

Judges, Juveniles, and In-Group Bias

We investigate the existence of in-group bias (preferential treatment of one’s own group) in court decisions. Using the universe of juvenile-court cases in a US state between 1996 and 2012 and exploiting random assignment of juvenile defendants to judges, we find evidence for negative racial in-group bias in judicial decisions. All else being equal, black (white) juveniles who are randomly assigned to black (white) judges are more likely to be placed in custody, as opposed to being placed on probation, and they receive longer sentences. Although observed in experimental settings, this is the first empirical evidence of negative in-group bias based on a randomization design outside the lab. We provide explanations for this finding.

Decomposing disproportionate minority contact in juvenile justice

ABSTRACTThe objective of this study was to decompose racial disparity in juvenile justice decision-making into a part explained by differing characteristics of racial groups, and an unexplained part often attributed to discrimination. Individual case-level data from Alabama and logistic regression were used to model detention, petition, and disposition decisions in the juvenile justice system. Decomposition of racial disparity between white and black juveniles using the nonlinear Blinder-Oaxaca methodology suggested that about a half to three fourths of the racial gaps in the three juvenile justice decision points were caused either by discrimination or unobserved predictors. Decomposition of racial disparity in juvenile justice can help devise effective public policy by quantifying the extent to which specific policies can reduce disproportionate minority contact.

Race and SES Interact to Influence Blame Judgments

Both black juveniles and low-socioeconomic status (SES) juveniles are disproportionately represented in the U.S. legal system, yet minimal experimental work has addressed how race and SES might interact when predicting potential jurors’ judgments about juvenile guilt, blame, and punishment. Across two vignette experiments (N = 799) that varied a juvenile defendant’s race (black or white) and SES (low or high), we found that race and SES interacted such that low-SES black and high-SES white juveniles tended to be judged as more guilty, more blameworthy, and more deserving of punishment than their high-SES black and low-SES white counterparts. Moreover, perceptions of the juveniles’ likelihood of recidivism, past criminality, and character may mediate these effects. These perhaps surprising results add to a growing body of literature suggesting that stereotypes or other irrelevant factors may influence blame judgments and have important implications for the justice system.

Book Review: Geoff K. Ward, The Black Child-Savers: Racial Democracy and Juvenile Justice

Book Review: Geoff K. Ward, The Black Child-Savers: Racial Democracy and Juvenile Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. ISBN: 978-0226873183 (Paperback). 336 Pages. $32.00.[Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www. transiormativestudies, ors O2014 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]Detroit is the most economically depressed large city in the United States. This reality is directly related to the dire economic circumstances of African Americans, who comprise approximately 80% of the current population. Detroit's official unemployment rate is 25%, but considering jobless Detroiters left out of the official count, academics and Detroit city officials estimated the real unemployment rate is as high as 50% (State of the Detroit Child 2010, Skillman Foundation, 10-11). Concurrently, the poverty rate is one of the highest in the nation, and the high school dropout rate is abysmal. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) dropout rate devastating, and he told the Detroit Free Press, DPS is arguably the worst urban school district in the country now (MLive.com, November 18, 2010).Consequently, Detroit has one of highest crime rates, which is likewise reflected in the juvenile delinquency rate. The 2012 Statewide Juvenile Arrest Analysis Report, which was prepared for the Michigan Department of Human Services, Child Welfare Funding and Juvenile Programs and the Michigan Committee on Juvenile Justice, compiled statistics that identified Detroit's Wayne County with 5,485 juvenile arrests, the highest in the state. Of a total 10 juvenile arrests for homicide in the state, 5 were in Wayne County. Wayne County also had the highest arrest rate for narcotics and weapons violations.In order to acquire some understanding of how and why these dismal statistics exist, especially as it relates to black juveniles, Geoff Ward's award-winning The Black Child Savers: Racial Democracy and Juvenile Justice supplies insight into racialized historical circumstances, discriminatory practices and systemic inadequacies that affected the treatment of black youths in the past and that contribute to similar institutional deficits in the present. Recipient of the Hindelang Book Award from American Society of Criminology and the outstanding book prize from the History of Education Society, the author of The Black Child Savers articulates a meticulous argument that examines how socio-economic forces and dysfunctional juvenile justice systems maintained a racially stratified society by refusing to address the needs and dire circumstances of black youths. Ward not only examines the inadequacies of American juvenile justice systems, he also provides contextual information that reveals oppressive racial practices that have ignored and violated the rights of black juveniles while facilitating white juveniles with institutional and programmatic resources to rehabilitate and prepare them to become full, participatory citizens. Ward relays:Contemporary research and policy have sought to explain the dramatic and disproportionate quantitative increase of black and other nonwhite youths in juvenile and adult detention, jails, and prisons in the post-civil rights period, especially since 1980. I became consumed with the background to these developments, including the relative absence of black youths from early juvenile institutions as well as the question of how black adults experienced and shaped the development of American juvenile justice (Ward, 5).Ward's study begins with the mistreatment of enslaved black youths in the antebellum South and the North. He traces historical developments during the Reconstruction Era, the Great Migration, and during Jim Crow segregation when juvenile delinquency institutions and policies are developed. …

Determining Optimal Release Habitat for Black Rockfish, Sebastes schlegelii: Examining Growth Rate, Feeding Condition, and Return Rate

The effects of release habitat on the effectiveness of stocking were evaluated in Miyako Bay, Iwate, Japan. Hatchery-reared black rockfish juveniles were released at four different stations characterized by different habitat conditions from 2002–2007, and a survey was conducted of landed fish at Miyako Fish Market. Growth rate and feeding condition of wild and released juveniles sampled from two known wild nursery areas (Stn. 1 and Stn. 2) were also examined to elucidate the conditions that form optimal habitat. Comparisons of growth and feeding condition of juveniles between Stn. 1 and Stn. 2 indicated that Stn. 1, with its brackish waters, seagrass beds, abundant mysids, and large gammarids, supported better growth and survival of released fish, which in turn led to a higher market return rate. The highest market return rate was estimated as 8.3% (for 45-mm total length juveniles released at Stn. 1 in 2007), corresponding to a maximum economic return rate (value of recaptured fish divided by hatchery and release costs) of 1.32.

Juvenile and Adult Offenders Arrested for Sexual Homicide: An Analysis of Victim–Offender Relationship and Weapon Used by Race*

Limited information is available on racial offending patterns of sexual homicide offenders (SHOs). This study used a 30-year U.S. Supplementary Homicide Reports sample of SHOs arrested in single-victim situations (N = 3745). The analysis strength was used to determine whether the findings yielded meaningful patterns for offender profiling. Several important findings emerged for the juvenile offenders. Juvenile White SHOs were likely to target victims with whom they shared a mutual relationship. In contrast, Black juveniles were equally likely to murder strangers and those with whom they had prior and familial relationships. Notably, no juvenile Black SHOs were arrested for murdering intimate partners. Juvenile White SHOs were twice as likely to use edged weapons as their Black counterparts. Black juveniles, conversely, were more likely than White juveniles to use personal weapons. Beyond these findings, known victim-offender relationships and weapon used may not have significant utility for investigators in identifying the SHO race, even after controlling for offender age. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Adjudication Decisions of Black, White, Hispanic, and Native American Youth in Juvenile Court

The current study examines the likelihood of adjudication for White, Black, Hispanic, and Native American juveniles in an urban county in Arizona. The study utilized the focal concerns perspective as the theoretical framework to explain racial and ethnical differences. The findings indicate that Hispanic and Native American youths had greater odds of adjudication than White youths. When examining race or ethnic and gender relationships, White girls were found to be the least likely of all the groups to be adjudicated. Girls in the other groups (Black, Hispanic, and Native American) did not have significantly different odds of adjudication than their male counterparts. Split models also revealed that legal variables and committing a drug offense had a significantly different effect for Hispanic and Native American youths than for White youths. The results and implications are further discussed.

Male Juveniles with Sexual Behavior Problems: Are There Differences Among Racial Groups?

This study used archival data on a sample of 186,492 referrals from a southwestern state Juvenile Probation Commission to compare the characteristics of 5,439 male Black, Hispanic, and White juveniles with sexual behavior problems on the five most common sexual offenses in the data set. The characteristics of 181,053 juveniles of the three races without sexual behavior problems were also compared on the basis of the seven most common nonsexual offenses. The bases of comparison were the seven variables: reported incidence of sexual offenses, the primary caregivers or living arrangements, age, suspected sexual abuse, suspected emotional abuse, suspected physical abuse, and special education status, on which racial differences were found. Prevention and treatment implications of findings are discussed.

The Psycho-educational Application of Hip-Hop Music to Bridge the Cultural-Competence Gap: Young Black Males and Juvenile Delinquency

The Psycho-educational Application of Hip-Hop Music to Bridge the Cultural-Competence Gap: Young Black Males and Juvenile Delinquency

The Representation of Juvenile Offenders by Race on Los Angeles Area Television News

The authors conducted a content analysis of a random sample of local television news programming aired in the Los Angeles area to assess representations of Black, Latino and White juvenile law-breakers. Results revealed that Black and Latino juveniles were significantly more likely than White juveniles to be portrayed as perpetrators on television news. Black juveniles were overrepresented as lawbreakers, whereas Latino juveniles were underrepresented as lawbreakers on television news. White juveniles were neither over- nor underrepresented as perpetrators. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Perceived Need for Substance Abuse Treatment Among White, Hispanic, and Black Juvenile Arrestees

The primary purpose of this study was to examine racial/ethnic differences with regard to perceived need for treatment among a sample of White, Hispanic, and Black drug-using male juvenile arrestees (N = 9618). Racial/ethnic differences among several predictors (frequent use of drugs, polysubstance use, self-reported dependency, past treatment utilization) were also examined. Our results indicate that while racial/ethnic differences with regard to perceived need for treatment do exist, those within all racial/ethnic groups who admit dependency and/or have had prior treatment experience are more likely to perceive that they need treatment than those who do not. However, significant differences exist between Whites and the other two racial/ethnic groups with regard to self-reported dependency and past treatment utilization. Implications for the study and recommendations for future researchers are presented.