The effects of age, race, and offense type on receiving a ‘youth discount’ in juvenile court

ABSTRACT

Previous research has suggested that younger justice-involved youth are generally viewed as less blameworthy, less cognitively developed, and more likely to respond to treatment or services by the juvenile justice system than their older youth counterparts. As a result, younger juveniles may be more likely to receive lenient treatment at several juvenile court stages compared to older youth (i.e., ‘youth discount’). However, less research has investigated if the ‘youth discount’ is equally applied across racial groups and youth charged with different offenses (i.e., status versus delinquent). Using all individual referrals in a Southern state from 2010–2016, the current study investigates the individual and joint effects of a juvenile’s age, race, and the handling of status offenders across petition and dispositional case outcomes. Results indicate that the youth discount applied at the petition stage but not disposition. The findings also suggest that race and offense type are more predictive of decision-making than the age of the juvenile. We discuss these findings and their implications for understanding the complexities of juvenile justice decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Age
• race
• offense type

Acknowledgments

The data utilized in this publication were housed and made available by the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, which is maintained by the National Center for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and supported by a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. The National Center for Juvenile Justice bears no responsibility for the analyses and interpretations presented therein. We would also like to thank Dr. Justin Pickett and Dr. James Ray for their insightful feedback, which greatly improved the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Juvenile courts in this specific state also process dependency, parentage, and special proceedings (e.g., foster care review, custody) cases. These cases were removed from the data as they were beyond the scope of the study.

2. In the Southern state, the juvenile court process begins when a complaint is filed by law enforcement, parents, or another individual. At the intake stage, the officer will perform a detention screening if the complainant requests that a juvenile should be held in secure detention versus awaiting future court proceeding at home (which can occur for both a status and delinquent offense). The intake officer then decides if the complaint/referral should be: (1) dismissed, (2) informally adjusted, or (3) petitioned. For those referrals where a petition was filed, the judge or magistrate then decides whether the petition will be: (1) adjudicated or (2) dismissed at the adjudication hearing. For adjudicated cases, the judge will decide at the disposition hearing the appropriate sanction/outcome for the case.

3. We used a minimum age of 5 to have enough variation in the age categories when predicting both dependent variables.

4. Native American, Asian, and Mixed-race youth comprised 2% of the original sample. However, there was not enough power to include them as a separate racial group in the multivariate models. For example, only 656 combined Native American, Asian, and Mixed-race youth were between the ages of 5 and 12 (Pre-teen age category). We would not be able to confidently estimate two and three-way interactions with both dependent variables with the size of this group.

5. For example, only 726 Hispanics would be included in the Pre-teen age category when predicting the first dependent variable. This number would be even smaller when predicting the second dependent variable, and when disaggregating Hispanic Pre-teens between being charged with a status or delinquent offense.

6. Due to data limitations, prior referrals can only be calculated beginning in the year 2010.

7. Two-way and three-way interaction terms between age and race and age and status offending were also constructed and included in the main models. These results appear in Appendix A and Appendix B.

8. Due to data limitations, there could be additional explanations for why status offenders had a greater likelihood of residential placement compared to youth charged with a delinquent offense. First, we could not include a measure of the seriousness of the delinquent offense (misdemeanor or felony) in the models, as status offense cases would have missing values for this variable. Second, status offenders can be held in pre-adjudication detention in this state based on the complainants request and score on a detention screening instrument. As prior research has shown that being held in secure detention can result in a cumulative disadvantage with later court outcomes (see Rodriguez 2010), there may be an indirect effect of status offending on commitment through being held in secure detention. Unfortunately, the data only include information on post-adjudication detention. Third, status offenders can also be committed to a residential facility if they were on probation for a status offense and recidivated. We are limited in that the data do not provide detailed information on the previous disposition for each case.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara L. Bryson

Sara L. Bryson, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at East Carolina University. Her research interests include the juvenile justice system, juvenile delinquency, bullying, and race/ethnicity. Her most recent research appears in Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, School Psychology Review, and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

Jennifer H. Peck

Jennifer H. Peck, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Central Florida. Her most recent research appears in Justice Quarterly, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and the Journal of Criminal Justice. Her research interests include the role of race and ethnicity in the juvenile justice system and the treatment of vulnerable populations in criminal justice settings.