Pre-dispositional juvenile detention: an analysis of race, gender and intersectionality

Abstract

The current study investigated the impact of race and gender on the likelihood of receiving pre-dispositional secure detention, release, or a detention alternative with data from one juvenile court in Virginia. Guided by intersectionality theory, the research also analyzed the joint impact of being nonwhite and female on the pre-dispositional detention outcome. Findings indicate that race was not a significant predictor of the detention decision, but females were treated with more leniency compared to males. The interaction of race and gender was not found to significantly predict the detention decision. Relevant policy implications are discussed as well as limitations and directions for future research.

Keywords:

• juvenile justice
• Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative
• racial disparities
• intersectionality theory

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the JDAI coordinator and CSU staff for their assistance during the research process. The authors also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This research was supported by a Summer Research Fellowship Program grant from the Office of Research at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA.

Notes

1. Foley (2009) also used an intersectionality framework to understand the correctional programming needs of minority females in juvenile correctional centers.

2. The Relative Risk Index (RRI), developed in 2003 by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), is the preferred standard of measurement for assessing DMC. The RRI calculates rates of overrepresentation ‘based on the activity in the preceding decision point’ (OJJDP 2009, p. 1). The RRI for pre-dispositional detention is found by dividing the rate of minority detention cases (which is the number of minority detention cases divided by the number of minority petitions) by the rate of white detention cases (found by dividing the number of white detention cases by the number of white petitions). An RRI of less than one indicates minority underrepresentation while a number higher than one indicates overrepresentation (OJJDP 2009).

3. Scoring is based on the results of seven categories of risk, including: most serious alleged offense, additional charges within the referral, prior adjudications of guilt, petitions pending adjudication, supervision status, history of failure to appear, and history of escape/runaway. For example, a juvenile receives more ‘points’ for committing a felony against a person than they would for committing a misdemeanor offense. We control for each of these variables in the multivariate analyses.

4. We checked the effect of overrides by including a dummy variable in the analyses and the results were not affected.

5. While disproportionality represents a quantitative difference between two populations (e.g., percent of minorities in intake compared to percent of minorities in detention), disparities refers to differences in treatment that may cause disproportionality (e.g., bias, overrepresentation in criminal offending, social ills that differentially affect minorities, disparate arrest patterns (Chapin Hall Center for Children 2008). According to Chapin Hall Center for Children, ‘disparities produce disproportionality’ (2008, p. 15).

6. In this particular CSU in Virginia, no DAI score is generated for cases that are initiated through judicial procedures in court as these cases are not processed through intake. For instance, a contempt of court or failure to appear that is the result of a judicial bench warrant does not receive a DAI. Cases that are diverted to informal procedures are also exempt from DAI evaluation (e.g., first-time offenders, status offenders).

7. Previous research suggests that DMC at the detention stage is more pronounced for African Americans than other minorities (Poe-Yamagata and Jones 2000, McCord et al. 2001), but we include all nonwhite youth in order to retain the integrity of the sample; 96.5% of the nonwhite sample is African American.

8. Moreover, including the total score along with the individual scores would cause multicollinearity.