Juvenile Justice Contact Research Articles

Assessing the feasibility and performance of risk assessment instruments for early intervention and prevention services in Juvenile Justice

Juvenile justice systems routinely utilize risk assessment instruments (RAIs) to guide the provision of services and custody decisions to optimize youth treatment and system resources. While research has evaluated the validity of RAIs in predicting recidivism risk for justice-involved youth, it has yet to assess the feasibility of using RAIs in a prevention context. The early age and lack of formal delinquency history among this population pose considerable challenges to RAI effectiveness. Drawing data from the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, analyses explored a sample of 11,472 Prevention Assessment Tool (PAT) assessments administered to youth aged 10 to 16 who had no prior system contact. Off-the-shelf scoring and optimized scoring developed through multivariate and machine learning techniques were employed to validate a prevention risk assessment instrument that predicts the risk of juvenile justice contact until age 18. The results indicate exemplary RAI performance among all optimized statistical techniques across various validation metrics. While performance was consistent across demographic subgroups, there were indications that predictive validity varied across age groups. These findings support the use of RAIs in early intervention and prevention services.

Sexual Abuse, Commercial Sexual Exploitation, and Cumulative Adversity Among Sexually Diverse and Non-Sexually Diverse Girls in the Juvenile Justice System

ABSTRACT Despite awareness about high rates of sexual abuse among girls in the juvenile justice system, little is known about the additional risk conferred upon sexually diverse (SD) youths, as well as the combined vulnerability of sexual abuse and commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) – frequently a survival behavior amplifying disproportionate juvenile justice contact among SD and non-SD juvenile justice-involved (JJI) girls. In a sample of JJI-girls, we compared SD (n = 52) with non-SD (n = 46) JJI-girls on sexual victimization (e.g. sexual abuse occurring within different relationship-types, CSEC), and broader developmental adversity burden disadvantage (cumulative trauma/loss exposure-types) and distress (posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]; cumulative stressor-reactivity, grief-specific, and adversity-related symptoms), health distress/impairment, and sexual and physical health-risk indicators. While comparable on childhood sexual abuse frequency, SD JJI-girls reported greater cumulative sexual abuse severity across relationship-types, higher sexual abuse within non-familial contexts, and more CSEC involvement. They also reported more social determinants of health (e.g. trauma/loss exposure-types) and showed elevations on all health-risk indicators, and most cumulative adversity burden indicators, despite comparable PTSD severity. Our findings emphasize the need to consider multiple sexual victimization facets, including the combined vulnerability of sexual abuse and CSEC, and utilize cumulative developmental assessment approaches among youths vulnerable to maltreatment and exploitation.

Violence, Juvenile Justice Contact, and Victimization in Roma Versus Non-Roma Adolescents: A Research Note

Violence, Juvenile Justice Contact, and Victimization in Roma Versus Non-Roma Adolescents: A Research Note

The Past and Present of Crime Research inSocial Forces: How the Sociology of Crime Lost its Roots—And Found Them Again

AbstractThe centennial of Social Forces provides an opportunity to examine change and stability in crime research in one of sociology’s oldest journals. Since the first issue of Social Forces in 1922, crime and punishment have transitioned from marginal topics subsumed under the umbrella of deviance studies to a central research area. This essay traces the intellectual development of crime research as captured in Social Forces’ pages and contrasts it with the growing independence of criminology as an academic field. To do so, I employ two analyses. First, I examine the topical classifications provided by Moody, Edelmann and Light (2022). Second, I expand upon these classifications by using structural topic models (STM) to detect clusters of crime research activity in Social Forces’ abstracts and group them into “eras” of crime research. The analysis reveals a circular development of crime research in Social Forces that reflects broader trends in the sociology of crime. 1 Themes of power, stratification, and punishment oriented early studies on crime. Research attention focused on inequality within the justice system, the effects of juvenile justice contact on criminal labeling and recidivism, and inequalities resulting from justice system contact. However, as crime rates rose throughout the Western world, Social Forces articles sought to explain the causes of crime and evaluate policies designed to cull the crime wave. In recent decades, persistent crime declines combined with growing concern with an oversized prison system have refocused attention on incarceration and its collateral consequences, especially for adolescent well-being and racial and class inequalities. In this way, crime research in Social Forces has returned to core themes of power and stratification that motivated early work in the sociology of crime. It has also distanced itself from individual etiology and policy studies that once dominated the journal’s pages and that continue to appear in specialist outlets.

Does Contact with the Justice System Influence Situational Action Theory's Causes of Crime? A Study of English and German Juveniles

To explore why system contact often has no crime-preventative effect, the current study examined the effects of juvenile justice contact on Situational Action Theory's (SAT) causes of crime, including personal morals, deviant peer associations, and detection risk perceptions. The analysis is based on a sample of English (Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study) and German (Crime in the modern City study) juveniles. Propensity score matching was applied to estimate whether the lenient system contacts influenced the causes of crime in the year after the contact. The treatment effect estimates are mostly insignificant and relatively small. The few significant estimates in the English sample suggest that official contact slightly increased deviant peer associations and decreased feelings of moral guilt. Overall, the findings suggest that system contact may often have no crime-preventative effect as it does not (Germany), or only slightly (England) affect SAT's causes of crime. Previous studies, primarily based on the U.S. data, often reported more substantial effects that mostly operated in a crime-amplifying direction. It is speculated whether the less substantial impact in the current study can be attributed to the overall more lenient, diversion-oriented handling of the examined English and German offenders.

1.4 UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMIC RACISM AND RACIAL INEQUITY JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM INVOLVEMENT

Black, Latinx, and Native American (BLNA) youth are disproportionately overrepresented and have been for several decades. Barriers to free and appropriate educational resources and community-based mental health and substance use disorder treatment are among the drivers that potentiate disproportionate contact and confinement. This presentation includes a review of literature on juvenile justice and racial disproportionality, with particular focus on relevant legislative trends to address this problem and risk factors for justice involvement that are amplified by systemic racism. Application of the Sequential Intercept Model, which was developed to describe 5 points of justice interception, will be explored to see how this trajectory of juvenile justice contact maps onto the Juvenile Justice Behavioral Health Services Cascade, a framework for measuring gaps between treatment need and receipt. Findings from research conducted by the presenter and colleagues investigating promising practices that apply antiracist praxis in working with justice-involved youth will be presented. BLNA youth are more likely than White youth to have contact with the juvenile justice system and are also less likely to receive treatment for substance use and mental health disorders, which has implications for initial justice contact as well as sustained entrenchment in this system. Numerous studies highlight the long-term adverse health effects of incarceration on justice-involved youth. There are negative effects of justice systems having contact on youth and family well-being. Legislative policies that target race inequity have promise in reducing racial disparities. Given the disruption that justice contact at any stage poses to the healthy psychosocial development of youth, child and adolescent psychiatrists should be at the forefront of advocacy efforts that apply structural competency, antiracist, and trauma-informed frameworks for justice-involved populations. These include primary prevention, school-based and integrated substance use and mental health services, as well as community-based partnership approaches with justice-involved youth, their families, and organizations that serve them to identify and operationalize best practices for engagement.

From Child Welfare to Jail: Mediating Effects of Juvenile Justice Placement and Other System Involvement.

This study examines the effects of child welfare, mental health, and drug/alcohol system experiences on jail involvement, as mediated by juvenile justice placement, for Black and White youth/young adults. The sample was comprised of individuals born between 1985 and 1994 with child welfare involvement in an urban Pennsylvania county (N = 37,079) and an out-of-home placement (OOHP) subsample (n = 8,317). Four path models were estimated (two full samples, two subsamples; separate models for Black and White youth). For all models, juvenile justice placement was positively related to jail involvement. For the full samples, out-of-home child welfare placement was associated with an increase in juvenile justice placement. Within the Black placement sample, child welfare placement experiences had complex relationships with juvenile justice placement. Providing drug/alcohol services may be a protective factor for Black youth prior to juvenile justice contact. Articulating these relationships helps identify youth most at risk of justice system involvement and better targets services, especially mental health and drug/alcohol services.

Race, Gender, and Disability and the Risk for Juvenile Justice Contact

Exclusionary school discipline has received national attention due to its association with juvenile justice contact. Research has demonstrated support for links between exclusionary discipline and negative outcomes such as school dropout and juvenile justice involvement. The purpose of this study was to examine the intersections of race, gender, and disability in explaining the risk for juvenile justice contact using a state database, representing a sample of adolescent students. Controlling for individual, school, and community characteristics that are associated with juvenile justice contact such as, race/ethnicity, previous years’ discipline rate, student retention from previous year, primary disability, whether the campus is a Title I school, as well as student body size and diversity, results suggest that disproportionality is prevalent when examining juvenile justice contacts, but the relationship among race, gender, disability, and discipline is a complicated one. Implications for understanding juvenile justice contact outcomes and future research for advancing the field are discussed.

Upward Departures from Structured Recommendations in Juvenile Court Dispositions: The Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

Much prior research has examined racial and ethnic disparities in juvenile court interventions, and the evidence suggests that minority youth are sanctioned more harshly than similarly situated White youth. Additionally, scholars have explored the potential negative consequences of juvenile justice contact, and some research indicates that more intensive juvenile court dispositions are associated with increased reoffending, particularly among minority youth. What is unknown, however, is the relevance of race, ethnicity, and gender for these outcomes under a structured disposition guidelines system, which is intended to aid judges’ decision-making and reduce recidivism following justice system intervention. Analysis of youth sanctioned under Florida’s disposition matrix (N = 56,913) shows that Black youth are more likely to receive upward departures from the guideline-recommended sanctions and that the increased likelihood of recidivism resulting from receiving an upward departure is particularly pronounced among minority males. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Neighborhood Disproportion in Juvenile Justice Contact

Neighborhood Disproportion in Juvenile Justice Contact

Too Strict or Too Lenient?: Examining The Role of School Strictness With Educational and Juvenile Justice Outcomes

Although there is research exploring how school punishment practices are influencing academic and juvenile justice outcomes, how strict or lenient school punishment practices are related to aspects of education such as grade retention and dropping out, as well as juvenile justice contact, remains unknown. This study draws from the Texas Education Agency’s Public Education Information Management System to investigate the relationship between strict and lenient school punishment practices, academic progress or failure, and juvenile justice contact. Results indicate that schools with more strict punishment practices can contribute to higher grade retention and juvenile justice referral rates; however, it also appears that lenient punishment practices also exacerbate these same outcomes as well as higher referral rates. The importance of fair, just, and balanced school punishment practices is discussed.

School Strictness and Disproportionate Minority Contact

There are racial and ethnic disparities associated with school discipline practices and juvenile justice contact. In addition, research suggests that stricter school discipline practices and disproportionate minority contact for minority youth are relatively more prevalent in urban areas. What remains unknown, however, is the relationship between race and ethnicity, school discipline practices, and juvenile justice referrals across urban, rural, and suburban schools. Therefore, this study draws from the Texas Education Agency’s Public Education Information Management System to investigate the relationship between school discipline practices and juvenile justice contact with a focus on racial and ethnic disparities in urban, rural, and suburban schools. Findings indicate that both stringent and lenient school discipline practices have effects on juvenile justice referrals as well as racial and ethnic disparities across distinct school locations; however, there are important and distinctive nuances that are presented and examined.

Examining the Influence of Risk Factors Across Rural and Urban Communities

AbstractObjective: Juvenile offending persists as a problem across geographic contexts, yet policymakers and social work practitioners have traditionally relied solely on urban research due to the lack of literature on rural delinquency. The purpose of this study is to examine the differential influence of demographic, behavioral, and school-related factors on juvenile offending in rural and urban settings. Method: The sample included kindergarten through 12th grade students (N = 615,297) who attended Louisiana public schools between 1996 and 2012. Data were obtained from state-wide administrative databases. Contact with the juvenile justice system, offense severity, and offending trajectory comparisons between youth in rural and urban environments were examined using multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression models and average adjusted predictive margins. Results: Factors that significantly increased the odds of juvenile justice contact in all models were African American race, male gender, grade rete...

Correlates of educational success: Predictors of school dropout and graduation for urban students in the Deep South

This study examined a sample of primary and secondary school students with alternate school outcomes of high school graduation and school dropout. Using secondary administrative data from a state department of education and a state department of juvenile justice, two models are examined in the current study. Utilizing hierarchical mixed-effects logistic regression models, the relative impacts of demographic characteristics (race, gender, birth year), school-related factors (grade failure, free lunch status, average number of days missed per year, expulsions) and juvenile justice involvement were examined on graduation and dropout outcomes. Across models, juvenile justice contact and school expulsion were the best predictors of negative school outcomes; The findings also demonstrate that race was not as predictive of dropout as were other factors. Findings suggest that interventions, practices, and policies in schools that may prevent negative behavior and subsequent consequences (expulsion and/or juvenile justice contact) may impact the more distal outcomes of high school graduation and dropout.

Trauma‐Informed Approaches to Juvenile Justice: A Critical Race Perspective

AbstractYouth of color experience disproportionate juvenile justice contact and recidivism. Trauma‐informed approaches may provide important support to these youth and improve their future outcomes. This paper describes dynamics of the various levels of the juvenile justice system (i.e., police contact, courts, correctional placement, aftercare) that perpetuate psychological trauma among adjudicated youth of color. This paper explores trauma‐informed approaches from a critical race theory perspective to address issues of systemic racial injustice in the juvenile justice system. Current and emerging models for trauma‐informed juvenile justice and implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed.

More Than a Metaphor: The Contribution of Exclusionary Discipline to a School-to-Prison Pipeline

The term and construct “school-to-prison” pipeline has been widely used by advocates, researchers, and policymakers to describe the relationship between school disciplinary practices and increased risk of juvenile justice contact. It has been unclear whether the construct is a useful heuristic or a descriptor of empirically validated relationships that establish school disciplinary practices as a risk factor for negative developmental outcomes, including juvenile justice involvement. In this article, we examine the literature surrounding one facet of the pipeline, school exclusion as a disciplinary option, and propose a model for tracing possible pathways of effect from school suspension and expulsion to the ultimate contact point of juvenile justice involvement. Available multivariate analyses suggest that regardless of demographic, achievement, or system status, out-of-school suspension and expulsion are in and of themselves risk factors for a range of negative developmental outcomes. Recommendations are offered to assist schools in replacing disciplinary exclusion with a range of alternatives whose goal is to preserve both school order and provide all students with educational opportunities.

Family structure and stability as a factor for juvenile justice contact among nigerian adolescents

Family structure and stability as a factor for juvenile justice contact among nigerian adolescents

Juvenile Justice Contact of Youth in Systems of Care

Youth with serious emotional disturbance involved in juvenile justice systems have complex needs that often are best addressed through collaborative systems that coordinate the efforts of individual agencies. This study examines the effectiveness of a system-of-care-grant-funded community in Birmingham, AL compared to a matched comparison community in Montgomery, AL in reducing youth contact with the juvenile justice system. Logistic regression results demonstrate greater reductions in the likelihood of juvenile justice involvement among youth served in systems of care over time compared to those served in a services-as-usual environment. These findings show the benefits of the incorporation of system-of-care principles for youth with a multitude of needs.

Effects of Capitated Mental Health Services on Youth Contact With the Juvenile Justice System

To evaluate the association between Medicaid mental health capitation and youth's involvement with the juvenile justice system. A longitudinal, quasi-experimental pre/post design was used. Using administrative databases, juvenile justice contact, defined as any detention or commitment, was assessed for 13,365 Medicaid-eligible youths, aged 10-17 years, who received public mental health services over a 3-year period (1994-1997) in the state of Colorado. There was no significant effect of financing when secular time was controlled for (interaction financing x time: hazard rate = 0.92, p =.62). The main effects model demonstrates a significant secular trend with juvenile justice contacts decreasing over time for both types of financing (hazard rate = 0.80, p =.002) and a significant effect of financing with eventually capitated sites having higher rates of juvenile justice contact compared with sites that remained fee-for-service (hazard rate = 1.24, p =. 009). Multivariate analyses controlled for demographics, mental health and substance use diagnoses, and other risk factors for juvenile justice contact. After adjustment for secular trends, capitation was not associated with a reduction in juvenile justice contact. Nonetheless, these findings provide evidence that capitation did not increase the risk of juvenile justice contact.

Alcohol and juvenile justice contacts: a comparison of fee-for-service and capitated medicaid mental health services.

This study examines whether youth with alcohol problems are especially vulnerable to juvenile justice contact when receiving public mental health services in fee-for-service versus capitated managed-care agencies. Capitation is a payment method often accompanying managed care; a fixed fee is paid per person enrolled, for a specific time period and range of services. Youth services were studied in a statewide, quasi-experimental design from July 1994 to June 1997; subjects were 13,365 Medicaid-eligible youth (52% female) aged 10-17. Alcohol problems were measured using a clinician-generated psychiatric diagnosis and a subjective indicator of alcohol symptoms obtained from a psychometrically tested mental health treatment intake form. Analysis methods were hazard/survival rates, log-rank tests and Cox proportional hazards models. As measured by the presence of symptoms, alcohol-involved youth in capitated managed care were significantly less likely to have contact with the juvenile justice system, in uncontrolled analysis. In controlled analysis, they were also less likely; however, only at the level of a trend. Concerns regarding capitated managed mental health care (e.g., substitution of care or "cost-shifting") found no support. There was no evidence of a shifting of alcohol-involved youth receiving mental health services under capitated managed care to the juvenile justice system. If anything, such youth saw their likelihood of juvenile justice involvement decrease.