Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences and Juvenile Court Outcomes: The Moderating Role of Race and Ethnicity

• Author: Michael T. Baglivio,Ashley Lockwood,Jennifer H. Peck,Kevin T. Wolff
• Date: 01 April 2022
• Published date: 01 April 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/15412040211063437
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice

2022, Vol. 20(2) 83–112

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/15412040211063437

journals.sagepub.com/home/yvj

Understanding Adverse

Childhood Experiences and

Juvenile Court Outcomes: The

Moderating Role of Race and

Ethnicity

Ashley Lockwood

1

, Jennifer H. Peck

1

, Kevin T. Wolff

2

, and

Michael T. Baglivio

3

Abstract

Youth involved in the juvenile justice system have enhanced traumatic exposure including abuse,

neglect, and household dysfunction compared to their non-involved counterparts. While prior

research has conceptualized the role of trauma in predicting juvenile recidivism, the interrelate d

role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and race/ethnicity in informing juvenile court

processing and outcomes is unaddressed. As such, we examine the moderating role of race/

ethnicity with ACEs across court outcomes (e.g., dismissal, diversion, probation, residential

placement) among juveniles after their f‌irst ever arrest (37.2% Black, 18.3% Hispanic). Higher

ACEs were associated with (1) decreased adjudication likelihood, (2) case dismissal for Black and

Hispanic youth, (3) deeper dispositions versus diversion for Hispanic youth, (4) residential

placement versus diversion for White youth, and (5) residential placement versus probation, with

no racial or ethnic differences. Policy implications and future research surrounding the treatment

of justice-involved youth with childhood traumatic exposure across race/ethnicity are discussed .

Keywords

adverse childhood experiences, race and ethnicity, court outcomes, diversion, residential

placement

Introduction

Youth involved in the juvenile justice system have a higher exposure to child maltreatment and

abuse compared to their non–justice-involved counterparts (Dierkhising et al., 2013;Graf et al.,

2021;Trulson et al., 2016), with many of these youth experiencing at least one or multiple forms of

1

Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

2

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, NY, USA

3

Youth Opportunity Investments, LLC, St. Petersburg, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jennifer H. Peck, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Florida, 12805 Pegasus Drive, Orlando, FL

32816, USA.

Email: Jennifer.Peck@ucf.edu

traumatic exposure prior to the age of 18 years old (Abram et al., 2004). Even though recent

literature has pointed to abuse as the beginning of a pipeline for girls into the dependency and

delinquency systems (Saar et al., 2015), little work has been done to generalize this f‌inding across

additional demographic characteristics (i.e., race/ethnicity) present in the juvenile justice system

(c.f., Baglivio & Epps, 2016;Zettler et al., 2018). Child maltreatment, household dysfunction, and

abuse are components of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), which is a summary measure

of traumatic experiences that have been linked to both short- and long-term negative health,

behavioral, and justice system outcomes in individuals (Anda et al., 2010;Dube et al., 2006;Felitti

et al., 1998).

While ACEs have been linked to juvenile recidivism (Baglivio et al., 2014a;Craig et al., 2020;

Wolffet al., 2015;Wolff& Baglivio, 2017), serious offending (homicide, sexual, serious property/

person) (Bonner et al., 2020) are common among serious, violent, and chronic (SVC) juveniles

involved in the justice system (Fox et al., 2015) and are related to youth receiving a disposition of

residential placement by age 18 (Zettler et al., 2018); far less research has holistically examined

juvenile court processing for other youth in relation to front-end court outcomes. Specif‌ically,

assessing if earlier court processing decisions (e.g., dismissal, diversion) along with other out-

comes (e.g., probation, commitment dispositions) differ based on a youth’s race and ethnicity is

essential in building a framework for fully understanding the pervasive role of trauma (i.e., ACEs)

within the juvenile justice system and juvenile courts.

Previous literature points to the presence of racial/ethnic disparities at various stages of the

juvenile justice system (Peck & Jennings, 2016;Voisin et al., 2017) and emphasizes unique

variation in trauma experiences of youth from different races and ethnicities (Maguire-Jack et al.,

2020). With this in mind, developing a strong conceptual framework for understanding trauma and

race/ethnicity in conjunction with one another is important in designing effective trauma-informed

treatment and services for those in the juvenile justice system. As such, the purpose of the current

study is to examine the relationship between traumatic exposure and multiple juvenile court

outcomes, and whether a juvenile’s race/ethnicity conditions this association.

It may be that a relationship between ACEs, race/ethnicity, and juvenile court outcomes exists,

as disparate experiences for youth belonging to a minority status occur at other points throughout

the juvenile justice system (e.g., detention, intake, see Fader et al., 2014;Peck & Jennings, 2016)

and as traumatic experiences for youth differ between races/ethnicities (Baglivio et al., 2017;

Maguire-Jack et al., 2020). However, we are not aware of a study that has considered the link

between trauma and early juvenile court processing outcomes, such as dismissal or diversion. If

this link is revealed, the f‌indings may encourage the inclusion of additional screening tools when

assessing youth risk levels, case processing, and treatment plans. If there is a connection between

ACEs, race/ethnicity, and juvenile court outcomes, the addition of ACE measures into more

screening tools could be of benef‌it when determining a youth’s risk for recidivism and reha-

bilitation options. Leveraging an 18-month statewide sample of 8416 youth in Florida for whom

juvenile justice involvement was their f‌irst arrest, the current study examines the extent to which

cumulative ACE exposures are related to adjudication, case dismissal, and disposition type (e.g.,

diversion, probation, residential placement), and whether race/ethnicity moderates any ACE-court

outcome relationships.

Literature Review

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Justice-Involved Youth

The last decade has brought about an increase in empirical inquiries surrounding ACEs and their

connection to both adolescent development, more generally, and involvement with antisocial

84 Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 20(2)