Adult Outcomes of Justice Involved Indigenous Youth

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/2153368720973442
• Author: Kelley J. Sittner,Michelle L. Estes
• Date: 01 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Adult Outcomes of Justice

Involved Indigenous Youth

Kelley J. Sittner

1

and Michelle L. Estes

1

Abstract

Juvenile arrest serves as a critical turning point in the life-course that disrupts the

successful transition to adulthood and carries numerous consequences including

diminished socioeconomic status. Despite their disproportionately high rates of

contact with the criminal justice system (CJS), Indigenous people’s experiences remain

largely invisible in extant research. Further, colonization has left them in an extremely

marginalized position in terms of social, economic, and political power, which is

compounded by CJS involvement. In the current study, we apply propensity score

matching to investigate whether being arrested in adolescence impacts early adult

socioeconomic outcomes (i.e., education, employment, and income). Data come from

the Healing Pathways project, a longitudinal, community-based participatory study of

North American Indigenous young people that includes eight waves of data in ado-

lescence and three waves in early adulthood. We find that being arrested at least once

in adolescence is associated with higher rates of unemployment, not completing high

school, and low income, and lower rates of full-time employment and post-secondary

education in young adulthood (mean age ¼26.2 years). Criminal justice system

involvement widens existing socioeconomic disparities, and remedying these conse-

quences requires changes in how CJS policies are enacted as well as larger structural

changes to address significant inequities in income, education, and employment for

Indigenous people.

Keywords

race and juvenile justice, indigenous people, race/ethnicity, Native Americans, race/

ethnicity, life-course criminology, criminological theories, bias in the criminal justice

system, race and public opinion

1

Department of Sociology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kelley J. Sittner, Department of Sociology, Oklahoma State University, 431 Social Sciences and Humanities,

Stillwater, OK 74078, USA.

Email: kelley.sittner@okstate.edu

Race and Justice

ªThe Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/2153368720973442

journals.sagepub.com/home/raj

2023, Vol. 13(3) 279–\ 302

Involvement in the criminal justice system (CJS) impacts numerous parts of an

individual’s life. It results in diminished educational and employment opportunities,

lower socioeconomic status (SES) (Pettit & Western, 2004; Western, 2002), negative

mental and physical health outcomes (Massoglia & Pridemore, 2015; Schnittker et al.,

2012), family instability (Wakefield & Wildeman, 2014), and substance use/abuse

(Bath et al., 2018). Most research has focused on the harmful outcomes of CJS

involvement among adult populations; however, CJS involvement has large conse-

quences for youth as well. This is an important point as the United States continues to

incarcerate a larger proportion of its youth population in comparison to other devel-

oped countries (Barnert et al., 2016). Because adolescence is an important develop-

mental phase in the life-course, it is imperative to better understand the impact that

CJS involvement in adolescence has on subsequent outcomes in adulthood.

CJS involvement in the United States is not equally distributed. Large inequities

exist with racial and ethnic minorities having disproportionate contact and involve-

ment with the CJS in comparison to white individuals (Barnert et al., 2016; Hock-

enberry & Puzzanchera, 2018; Puzzanchera, 2019; Rodriguez, 2010; Wakefield &

Uggen, 2010). In 2001, Garland introduced the term “mass imprisonment” (often

interchanged with mass incarceration), and identified two distinct features about this

phenomenon. The first was the overall size of the imprisoned population, and the

second was the concentration of imprisonment among specific populations. For

example, he noted that “imprisonment becomes mass imprisonment when it ceases to

be the incarceration of individual offenders and becomes the systematic imprisonment

of whole groups of the population” (Garland, 2001, p. 6). Garland noted the over-

representation of Black and Latinx individuals within the CJS at the time of his

writing; however, North American Indigenous individuals also experience dis-

proportionately high rates of involvement with the CJS (Armstrong et al., 2009), and

should be situated within this era of mass imprisonment as well.

The structure of the CJS greatly contributes to inequalities seen throughout the era

of mass imprisonment. Existing research shows that inequality is present at all stages

of the criminal justice process such as policing and arrests (Daly & Tonry, 1997;

Jacobs et al., 2012), sentencing (Pettit & Western, 2004; Rios, 2006; Steffensmeier

et al., 1998), incarceration (Wakefield & Uggen, 2010; Western, 2006), and com-

munity reentry (Petersilia, 2003). Inequalities seen throughout the CJS are a direct

outcome of how policies and laws are written and implemented by criminal justice

officials. Particular groups, such as individuals who have lower levels of income and

members of minority groups, are often targeted and therefore, have an increased

presence within the CJS (Pettit & Western, 2004; Wacquant, 2009), leaving some

scholars to argue that mass imprisonment is rooted in classism and racism (Brewer &

Heitzeg, 2008). Overall, the disproportionality among low income minority groups

within the CJS is not a result of inherent criminality, but a reflection of a system that is

designed and functions in a discriminatory and biased manner.

The theme of disproportionality is consistent through each stage of the CJS and

within the juvenile justice process (Williams, 2009), and is especially true for Indi-

genous individuals. Existing studies have varied findings depending on the sample and

280

Race and Justice 13(3)