Race and Juvenile Justice Processing in Court and Police Agencies

A multilevel analysis of juvenile court processes: The importance of community characteristics

“…Leiber and Mack (2003) found that Black juveniles received dispositions involving both harshness and leniency. Dannefer and Schutt (1982) proposed juvenile court officials may be compensating for pro-active arrest policies which disproportionately impact certain offenders. Most recently, Rodriguez (2007) found that the less severe treatment received by Blacks at detention may be due to the "self correct" process carried out by court officials in response to the high arrest rates among Black juveniles.…”

“…In an attempt to explain the varying effect of race across multiple decisions, Dannefer and Schutt (1982) propose that a correction of bias takes place whereby court officials attempted to counter the racial disparities produced by aggressive law enforcement strategies.…”

“…Studies that have included several racial and ethnic groups show that Hispanic/Latinos are treated more harshly than Whites and Blacks (Maupin & Bond-Maupin, 1999;Dannefer & Schutt, 1982;DeJong & Jackson, 1998) and American Indians receive more severe treatment than Blacks (Leiber, 1994).…”

“…Studies of criminal courts have addressed how attributions of criminal behavior are linked to racial/ethnic stereotypes (Albonetti, 1997;Bridges & Steen, 1998;Crawford, Chiricos, & Kleck, 1998;Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2000;Steffensmeier, Ulmer, & Kramer, 1998) and now a growing number of juvenile court studies are using this theoretical perspective to explain race/ethnicity disparities in juvenile court outcomes (Bortner, 1982;Bridges & Steen, 1998;Dannefer & Schutt, 1982;Leiber, 1994). Not surprisingly, the majority of studies have focused on the role of Black stereotypes in court processes and outcomes.…”

“…As previously shown, attributions can be linked to specific racial/ethnic groups and can affect offenders in different ways. For example, stereotypes unique to Blacks (Bridges & Steen, 1998;Leiber & Stairs, 1999;Sampson & Laub, 1993), Hispanic/Latinos (Leiber, 1995;Mata & Herrerías, 2002;Portes, 1990), and American Indians (Bynum & Paternoster, 1984;Leiber, 1994;Young, 1990;Zatz, Lujan, & Snyder-Joy, 1991 (Maupin & BondMaupin, 1999;Dannefer & Schutt, 1982), while American Indians are treated less severely than Blacks (Leiber, 1994 While a few studies have examined how juvenile court processing impacts juvenile offending, none have systematically taken into account how various juvenile court outcomes influence adult offending. In order to examine how particular juvenile court outcomes (e.g., diversion, detention, and disposition) affect reoffending, this study will integrate statewide adult criminal history information to juvenile court data and examine how various juvenile court outcomes affect recidivism of juveniles post age 17.…”