Different educational profiles between early starters and late starters of conviction

ABSTRACT

This study sought to differentiate the educational profiles for both early and late starters of conviction. This longitudinal study utilized a merged state-level administrative dataset containing educational, juvenile justice, and adult correctional information and targeted a 10-year birth cohort. Using hierarchical logistic regression, this study explored the associations between two criminal pathways and educational variables. Odds ratios indicated that males were nearly three times as likely as females to have a juvenile record, and nearly five times as likely to have an adult record. Students who were expelled were over 100 times as likely to be early starters as those who were not, and were 22 times as likely be late starters as students who were never expelled. Results also suggested minimizing school expulsion, which would strongly push at-risk students to become young offenders.

KEYWORDS:

• Justice involved youth
• early starters
• late starters
• educational achievement
• suspensions
• expulsions

Disclosure statement

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