The Conditioning Effects of Race and Gender on the Juvenile Court Outcomes of Delinquent and “Neglected” Types of Offenders

Abstract

Drawing upon concepts from prior research that emphasize race and gender stereotyping, the present research compares how delinquent and “neglected” types of offenses (i.e. status offenses, probation violations, youth charged with contempt) are treated across three juvenile court outcomes. Beyond how offense type may directly impact case outcomes, we also investigated whether race and gender influenced juvenile justice processing within each offense type. Using data from two Mid-Atlantic States, results indicated that type of offense, race, and gender resulted in both severe and lenient case outcomes depending on the stage examined. By including different types of offenses that represent a significant percentage of youth that have been relatively neglected in prior research, the current study provides greater insight into the contexts of race and gender disparities in juvenile justice decision-making. The implications of the findings and directions for future research are also discussed.

Keywords:

• race
• gender
• status offending
• probation violation
• contempt

Acknowledgement

We thank our colleagues Dr. John Cochran, Dr. Joshua Cochran, and Dr. Wesley Jennings for providing insight and expertise with earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ A third explanation that is not necessarily in competition with the differential offending and differential treatment perspectives is a contextual approach argued by Feld (1991). According to Feld (1991), youth in urban settings are likely to receive greater social control because such areas have high rates of poverty and inequality. Since Blacks are likely to reside in urban areas, they have an increased likelihood of having contact with the juvenile court.

² Status offenses are noncriminal misbehaviors, such as “incorrigibility”, “immorality”, truancy, running away, and “indecent and lascivious conduct” that would not be crimes if committed by an adult (Feld, 2009). A probation violation is a commitment of a new crime or a technical violation (e.g. failure to attend a probation meeting, failure to pass an urinalysis test, failure to abide curfew conditions) while under probation (Leiber, 2013). Contempt of court within the juvenile justice system is typically defined by rude and disrespectful behavior on the part of the youth (as determined by a judge), and/or the failure to abide by an order of the court (Bishop & Frazier, 1992).

³ Some prior research finds that female status offenders may be “relabeled” or “bootstrapped” as person offenders (i.e. simple assault) (Feld, 2009). The increase in young females’ arrests for simple assault may be a product of relabeling “incorrigibility” as assault or other delinquent behaviors (Bishop & Frazier, 1992). This finding may particularly impact the presence of minority girls in the juvenile justice system (Chesney-Lind, 1997). A similar process of bootstrapping has been cited involving youth charged with a probation violation or contempt of court (Logan & Rausch, 1985). Since the current results revealed that status offense, probation violation, and contempt are significant predictors of court outcomes, the concern of “bootstrapping” obscuring effects is lessened.

⁴ Minority youth (e.g. Blacks) have been and continue to be overrepresented in the juvenile justice system relative to their representation in society (Kempf-Leonard, 2007). Before the passage of the JJDP Act, females charged and placed in training schools for status offenses significantly outnumbered their male counterparts (Chesney-Lind, 1977; Schwartz, Steketee, & Schneider, 1990). For a detailed historical account of the treatment of girls and minorities within the juvenile court see Schwartz et al. (1990) and Ward (2012).

⁵ The counties included in State A are also the six counties with the largest Black population. The jurisdictions included in both State A and State B was determined by county-level racial composition data that was provided from the 2000 US census. Since the primary focus of the research is to examine the effects of race, gender and type of behavior for involvement with the juvenile court, it is not advantageous to separate the analyses to test for year and/or jurisdictional effects. Preliminary tests for year differences indicated no significant differences across time.

⁶ Supplemental analyses were conducted that disaggregated the sample between cases with no prior referrals and those with one prior referral. The results remained substantively similar to those reported in Table 3 and in the text. These findings (and that we controlled for prior referrals in each regression equation) lessens our concerns that a small group of repeat offenders impacted the overall findings.

⁷ We were unable to differentiate across different types of status offenses (e.g. runaway, truancy, breaking curfew) and type of probation violation (new crime vs. technical violation).

⁸ Hispanic youth were not included in the White category. The original sample included various racial/ethnic groups: Hispanic (6.8%); Native American/American Indian (.1%); Asian (1.5%); Pacific Islander (.4%); and “Other” youth (2.5%).

⁹ Supplemental analyses were conducted that did not include detention status when predicting intake outcomes. Even with the exclusion of detention status, the inverse effect of race on decision-making at intake remained statistically significant. Models were also estimated that disaggregated between non-detained referrals and cases that were held in secure detention. For cases that were detained, there was no evidence of a positive statistically significant effect of race on intake outcomes.

¹⁰ An examination of descriptive statistics for the nine offense types at each decision-making stage showed variation across each type of offense to demonstrate that not one type of offense impacted the results based on sample size.

¹¹ Supplemental analyses (not presented) revealed that 8% of the sample in State B at intake was Black, while 74% of the sample in State B at adjudication were Black and subsequently adjudicated delinquent. The increase in the proportion of Black referrals form intake to adjudication may reveal additional information (although bivariate in nature) for the positive effect of race at the adjudication stage.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer H. Peck

Jennifer H. Peck is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Central Florida. Her recent research has been accepted for publication in Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, and Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice. Her research interests include the role of race and ethnicity in the juvenile justice system and criminological theory.

Michael J. Leiber

Michael J. Leiber is Chair and professor in Criminology at the University of South Florida. He earned his doctorate in criminal justice from the State University of New York at Albany. His main research interests and publications lie in juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, and race/ethnicity. Currently, he serves as the editor of the Midwestern Criminal Justice Association journal, the Journal of Crime & Justice.

Maude Beaudry-Cyr

Maude Beaudry-Cyr is a doctoral student at the University of South Florida and completed her MA in Criminology from the University of South Florida in 2013. Her research interests include racial/ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system, racial/ethnic disparities, drug use, and mental illness in the criminal justice system, and predictors and theoretical explanations for continued criminality. Her research has been accepted for publication in Justice Quarterly.

Elisa L. Toman

Elisa L. Toman, MS, is a doctoral student at the University of South Florida’s Department of Criminology. Her research interests include theories of crime and formal social control, incarceration, prison experiences, and court sentencing.