Risk Assessment and Juvenile Justice

• Author: Jordan Papp,Ashlee Barnes,Eyitayo Onifade,Christina Campbell,Valerie Anderson
• Published date: 01 August 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12377
• Date: 01 August 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

RISK ASSESSMENT AND JUVENILE

JUSTICE

Risk Assessment and Juvenile Justice

An Interaction Between Risk, Race, and Gender

Christina Campbell

Jordan Papp

University of Cincinnati

Ashlee Barnes

Virginia Commonwealth University

Eyitayo Onifade

Clark Atlanta University

Valerie Anderson

University of Cincinnati

Research Summary

In this study,we examine the interaction between race, gender, and risk assessment score

on risk for recidivism. Weused the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory

(YLS/CMI) to measure criminogenic risk among a sample of delinquent youth. The

results of multivariate Cox regression revealed a significant interaction between race,

gender, and risk score when predicting recidivism. The findings indicated that the

slope of the relationship between risk score and recidivism differed significantly for

Black youth as compared with White youth and that this interaction was even more

pronounced for the subsample of males. These findings suggest that there may be social

or other policy/enforcement-related factors that increase risk for recidivism for Black

youth.

Policy Implications

We found that although therewere no differences in overall risk score across White and

Black youth, Black males were at increased risk for future recidivism. These findings

Direct correspondence to Christina Campbell, School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, 660 MC TDC,

P.O. Box 210389, Cincinnati, OH 45221 (e-mail: christina.campbell@uc.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12377 C2018 American Society of Criminology 525

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 3

Research Article Risk Assessment and Juvenile Justice

should inform practice and policies in four primary ways. First, court practitioners,

like juvenile court officers and judges, should pay special attention to responsivity

factors that may minimize barriers to treatment and success. Second, court officers and

service providers should implement policies that require tracking how risk assessment

information is used in the decision-making process. Third, the use of reassessments

to monitor changes in dynamic criminogenic risk is necessary. Finally, future research

should be aimed at investigating the extent to which policies, practices, and enforcement

moderate the validity of risk assessment tools across race and gender.

Keywords

risk assessment, racial disparities, juvenile offenders, survival analysis, disproportionate

minority contact

Juvenile risk assessment helps courts gain a comprehensive perspective on the experi-

ences and social environments of youth offenders. Risk assessments have served many

purposes through the years. Currently, court practitioners, like juvenile court officers

and judges, use these tools to estimate risk for recidivism, plan and manage cases, and

help guide adjudication decisions (Schwalbe, 2008). Although the adoption of a juvenile

offender risk assessment tool has been one strategy to address gender and race disparities

observed at all stages of the court process, the degree to which risk for recidivism varies

by specific demographic groups is still unclear (McCafferty, 2016; Onifade, Davidson,and

Campbell, 2009; Schwalbe, Fraser, Day, and Cooley, 2006). The goal of the present study

is to examine the interaction of criminogenic risk, race, and gender on juvenile recidivism.

The issue of disproportionality has been a major concern among juvenile courts and

the U.S. Department of Justice, especially across gender and race. According to the Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), disproportionate minority contact

(DMC; i.e., the extent to which specific racial groups are overrepresented at any stage of the

juvenile justice system) has been an ongoing concern (OJJDP, 2014). Given the complex

nature of disproportionate minority contact, it is critical to understand the mechanisms

that influence disparate outcomes for racial and ethnic minority groups. Research findings

on DMC provide several explanations for why the overrepresentation of minority offenders

exist in justice system (Bishop and Leiber, 2011; Kempf-Leonard, 2007; Piquero, 2008;

Pope and Snyder, 2003). One explanation suggests that there are differential patterns of

offending across racial groups, which lead to disproportionate arrests (see Piquero, 2008,

for a description). Pope and Snyder (2003) attributed the overrepresentation of minorities

within the justice system to disproportionate involvement in specific types of illegal behav-

iors or subcultures of violence. Another explanation of DMC is that differential treatment is

a result of race-related selection bias (Piquero, 2008). This hypothesis suggests that explicit

and implicit discriminatory practices and negative stereotypes influence the experiences and

treatment of ethnic minority youth involved in the justice system (Graham and Lowery,

526 Criminology & Public Policy