Justice by Gender: Understanding the Role of Gender in Disposition Decisions Involving Out of Home Placement for Juvenile Offenders

Abstract

Although several studies have examined the differences in sentencing decisions by gender for adult offenders, a limited amount of research on the role of gender in the post-adjudication disposition determination exists for juvenile offenders. Specifically related to the role of gender and the rate of incarceration, previous research has developed a commonly accepted consensus that female juvenile offenders are often detained pre-adjudication for less serious offenses than their male counterparts. This article evaluates the results of previous studies regarding the role of gender in disposition decisions, and the process of bootstrapping juvenile offenders into incarceration. This study examines whether the role of gender and the process of bootstrapping results in similar gender bias decisions in post-adjudication dispositional decisions as has been demonstrated by previous literature for pre-adjudication detention decisions. The results of the study indicate that there is no empirical support to indicate that gender plays a role in the postadjudication decisions resulting in out of home placement or incarceration. In fact, the main effect of the study indicates that females are actually less likely to be removed from their home and placed in residential care as a condition of their postAm J Crim Just (adjudication disposition than their male counterparts. These findings suggest that the differences in the level of the adjudicated offense accounted for more of the variance in disposition decisions than that of gender. Thus, this study found little support for the increasing argument for the sex stratification of theories of delinquency.

Gendered social forces: A review of the impact of institutionalized factors on women and girls' criminal justice trajectories.

“…The authors interpret these findings as documentation of a type of organizational paternalism demonstrated by the courts selectively toward young girls. Despite valid critiques of feminist interpretations implicating the paternalism of the courts (e.g., Espinosa et al, 2008), the evidence reviewed here supports the notion that the institutionalized response of the system on status offenses disproportionately affects girls' justice system trajectories and may be the result of the instantiation of gendered social norms.…”

“…This pattern has been replicated in a study of over 1,000 youth, which found that girls are more likely than boys to be incarcerated even after controlling for several legal factors known to influence sentencing outcomes, such as offense severity and delinquency history (Gamble et al, 2002). In contrast, at least one study finds that girls who received probation postadjudication did not receive harsher treatment (but also did not receive more lenient treatment) as they navigated the juvenile justice system as compared to their male counterparts (Espinosa et al, 2008). This study suggests that receiving a relatively lenient sentence of probation may protect against some of the gender bias that occurs for girls, and the study underscores the need to better understand the effects of receiving probation postadjudication for girls.…”