Examining the Relationship Between Race and Juvenile Court Decision-Making: A Counterfactual Approach

DOI10.1177/1541204018806976
Date01 July 2019
Published date01 July 2019
Subject MatterArticles
Article
Examining the Relationship
Between Race and Juvenile
Court Decision-Making:
A Counterfactual Approach
Shaun M. Gann
1
Abstract
Prior research has found that disproportionate minority contact (DMC) is a problem at various
decision-making points in the juvenile justice system. This study addresses two limitations often
found in prior DMC research: (1) a focus on a single court and/or a single stage of the juvenile court
process and (2) methodological problems in comparing youth of different races who are otherwise
similarly situated. Nearest neighbor matching is used to examine the relationship between race and
five juvenile court outcomes—pre-adjudication detention, case dismissal, adjudication, secure
confinement, and waiver to criminal court—in a sample of over 50,000 youth referred to seven
juvenile courts. After matching youth on multiple legal and extralegal variables, results indicate that
non-White youth were significantly more likely than White youth to be detained prior to adjudi-
cation, placed in a secure confinement facility postadjudication, and waived to criminal court.
Keywords
race, juvenile court decision-making, counterfactual methods, disproportionate minority contact
One of the most often documented aspects of the juvenile justice system over the past 100 years has
been the pronounced disproportionality in the processing of White and non-White juveniles (Bishop,
2005). Research consistently finds that minority youth—primarily African Americans and Hispa-
nics—are overrepresented at every stage in the juvenile court process. Specifically, minority youth
tend to be disproportionately petitioned to juvenile court (Leiber, Bishop, & Chamlin, 2011; Leiber
& Stairs, 1999; Thomas & Sieverdes, 1975), held in pre-adjudication detention (Guevara, Herz, &
Spohn, 2006; Kurtz, Linnemann, & Spohn, 2008), adjudicated delinquent (Leiber, 2015), committed
to secure out-of-home correctional facilities after adjudication (Barton, 1976; Bishop, 2005; Bishop
& Leiber, 2011; Davis & Sorensen, 2013), and waived to criminal court (Bishop, 2005; Brown &
Sorensen, 2013; Males & Macallair, 2000). This knowledge is so ingrained that the U.S. govern-
ment, via the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
1
Department of Criminal Justice, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA
Corresponding Author:
Shaun M. Gann, Department of Criminal Justice, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Mail Stop 1955 Boise, ID
83725, USA.
Email: shaungann@boisestate.edu
Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice
2019, Vol. 17(3) 269-287
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1541204018806976
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(OJJDP, 2009), has termed the phenomenon disproportionate minority contact (DMC), a designa-
tion that refers to the disproportionate number of minority youth who come into contact with the
juvenile justice system relative to their representation in the general population.
Since the early 1990s, there has been a sizable increase in the amount of res earch that has
examined DMC in the juvenile justice system (Bishop, Leiber, & Johnson, 2010; Davis & Sorensen,
2013; Guevara et al., 2006; Kempf-Leonard, 2007; Leiber, 2002; Leiber et al., 2011; McCoy,
Walker, & Rodney, 2012; OJJDP, 2009; Piquero, 2008). The results of this research, however, have
been mixed at best (Engen, Steen, & Bridges, 2002; McCoy et al., 2012). Both practitioners and
researchers have discovered that identifying and addressing DMC is not as straightforward an
endeavor as they initially believed it would be (Kempf-Leonard, 2007). In part, this is the result
of two general limitations often found in prior DMC research: (1) a focus on a single juvenile court
and/or a single stage of the juvenile court process and (2) methodological problems in comparing
youth of different races who are otherwise similarly situated.
Limitations of Single-Stage Studies
Most prior studies have focused on the effect of youths’ race at only one or two stages of the juvenile
court process (e.g., detention, disposition, or adjudication; Barton, 1976; Engen et al., 2002; Kempf-
Leonard, 2007) or in a single juvenile court (Cauffman et al., 2007). This narrow focus is a
significant limitation for a few reasons. First, juvenile justice decision-making must be viewed as
a process that includes all stages from intake to disposition (Leiber, 2013). Studies that examine the
effect of race on only one stage cannot posit that there is (or is not) DMC in the juvenile justice
system as a whole since research shows that there is an interdependence among the decisions made at
various stages (e.g., see Rodriguez, 2010). For example, Caudill, Morris, El Sayed, Yun, and DeLisi
(2013) found that the number of days a youth spent in detention had a significant effect on formal
case dispositions. Further, prior referral outcomes (i.e., informal or formal disposition) had a sig-
nificant, positive effect on any subsequent case dispositions. Similarly, findings based on the
examination of a single-juvenile court cannot be generalized to courts in other regions of the
country—nor possibly even other regions of the same state (Bray, Sample, & Kempf-Leonard,
2005). Kempf-Leonard (2007) and Pope and Feyerherm (1995) argued that interpretations of
research findings based on examination of a single court or a single stage of the juvenile court
process that have been generalized to the system as a whole must be considered suspect or, at the
very least, incomplete.
Based on these limitations, the most promising avenue to gaining a complete understanding of
racial influences on juvenile court decision-making is research that examines multiple decision
points in the court process across multiple courts (Bishop, 2005; Guevara et al., 2006; Kempf-
Leonard, 2007; Leiber, 2013; Peck, Leiber, & Brubaker, 2014; Pope & Feyerherm, 1995; Rodriguez,
2010). Doing so will allow researchers to identify the relative prevalence of DMC at different stages,
as well as how it fluctuates as one moves throughout the juvenile court process. Unfortunately, few
studies have conducted systematic examinations of the effects of juveniles’ race on decision-making
across multiple decision points and in multiple juvenile court jurisdictions (Cauffman et al., 2007;
Rodriguez, 2010). This study addresses this shortcoming by examining the relationship between race
and five juvenile court outcomes—pre-adjudication detention, dismissal, adjudication, secure con-
finement, and waiver to criminal court—in seven juvenile courts in a Midwestern state.
Methodological Limitations of Addressing Similarly Situated Youth
The second limitation common to DMC research involves a potential methodol ogical flaw. To
identify potential causes of DMC, researchers must examine White and non-White youth who are
270 Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 17(3)

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