Doctoral Dissertation Research: Under the radar or under arrest: How does contact with the juvenile justice system impact delinquency and academic achievement?

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

With over two million youth arrested annually, it is critical to understand how contact with the juvenile justice system impacts development. Though prior studies have found that contact with the system - typically measured as an arrest or a court appearance - might be related to undesirable outcomes (e.g., high school dropout, adult unemployment, adult crime), methodological limitations (e.g., biased sampling, the use of existing retrospective panel and cross-sectional datasets) in prior studies render the interpretations of these findings tentative. Furthermore, prior studies have yet to demonstrate how or why this contact precedes undesirable outcomes and whether the impact of contact varies developmentally. Although youth who violate the law are typically processed by the juvenile justice system, many youth who engage in the same illegal behaviors go undetected by law enforcement. As such, this study builds on the limitations in prior studies by recruiting and comparing two groups of similarly delinquent youth: (1) youth who are processed by the juvenile justice system; and (2) youth who evade law enforcement. In particular, this study follows these youth for 6 months and investigates: (1) whether contact is, in fact, related to subsequent delinquency and academic achievement; (2) whether contact is more detrimental for younger youth compared with older youth; and (3) how this contact is related to subsequent delinquency and academic outcomes. Data from this study can be used to target two potential loci for change: the juvenile offenders and the justice systems that serve them. In so doing, these data have the potential to inform public policies that might deflect at-risk youth from the revolving door of the juvenile justice system.