“…Previous studies are useful for understanding juvenile offending and justice system efforts to control it. Often researched is the relationship between offending behavior and demographic characteristics such as age (Morse, 1997;O'Mahoney, 2000;Steinberg & Cauffman, 1999), gender (Federle, 2000;MacDonald & Chesney, 2001;Mazerolle, Brame, Paternoster, Piquero, & Dean, 2000;Sarri, 1983), and ethnicity (Bishop & Frazier, 1996;Feld, 1999;Kurtz, Giddings, & Sutphen, 1993;Markowitz & Jones-Brown, 2000;Pinderhughes, 1997 (Bazemore & Dicker, 1996;Levitt, 1998;Rossner, 1988), and others (Eddy, Reid, & Fetrow, 2000;Schwartz, Jackson-Beeck, & Anderson, 1984;Terry-McElrath, McBride, Vanderwaal, & Ruel, 2002). Additionally, many theoretical explanations for offending are noted such as environmental, social, and mental health causes (Agnew, Brezina, Wright, & Cullen, 2002;Bazemore, 2001;Gibson, Wright, & Tibbetts, 2000;Lexcen & Redding, 2000;Redding, 2000;Shelton, 2002;Van-Voorhis, Mathers, & Garner, 1988;Wright, Cullen, & Miller, 2001).…”