Race and Ethnicity in the Juvenile and Criminal Justice Systems

Contemporary issues of offending behavior and judicial responses

Jennifer Peck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351332491
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Over the last few decades, the racial and ethnic composition of the United States has changed dramatically. This seismic transformation has important implications for theory, research, policy, and public opinion – perhaps most crucially around the topic of race/ethnicity and our justice systems. Recent national events – from Ferguson, to ferocious public debate about racism, to media depictions of police violence – have reawakened the tense question of race relations in the 21st century. This edited collection of research aims to highlight contemporary issues surrounding the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities throughout both the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems. Our contributors cover both formal sources of social control (e.g. police, courts, correction facilities) and perceptions and public opinions of the relationship between race/ethnicity and offending behaviors. As the intellectual sphere ignites with fresh debate, old questions redefined and new ones asked, this publication provides innovative insight into how race and ethnicity interconnect with all aspects of criminology and criminal justice. Furthermore it helps encourage directions for future research, practice, and public policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Crime and Justice.

The role of juvenile adjudications in the disproportional incarceration of African-American and Hispanic defendants

Jeffery T. Ulmer and Julia A. Laskorunsky

Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA

ABSTRACT

Prior research has demonstrated the mediating role of criminal history in incarceration decisions involving black and Hispanic men. Juvenility also plays a role in differential punishment. Our study examines juvenile adjudications as a component of criminal history, and the extent to which such adjudications are a potential source of disproportional incarceration of black and Hispanic men. Drawing from the focal concerns model of punishment decisions, we investigate juvenile adjudications in criminal history as they might mediate racial and ethnic differences in incarceration. We also examine whether judges give different weight to adjudications depending on how long ago they occurred, and whether juvenile adjudications heighten the incarceration chances of minority men more than others. We analyze Pennsylvania sentencing data from 2006 to 2010 that allow for the decomposition of criminal history into juvenile adjudications and adult convictions, and examine incarceration and guideline departure decisions.

Introduction

The disproportionate representation of black and Hispanic youth in the juvenile justice system is well documented, including in the adjudication process (Kempf-Leonard 2007). Prior research has also demonstrated the mediating role of criminal history in incarceration decisions involving black and Hispanic men (e.g., Ulmer, Painter-Davis and Tinik 2016), and juvenility also plays a role in differential adult punishment (Kurlychek and Johnson 2004, 2010). These patterns raise questions about the role of juvenile adjudications in the punishment of adult offenders, and their discretionary consideration as part of criminal history in adult sentencing decisions. Examining the lasting impact of a juvenile record on adult sentencing outcomes is potentially important for understanding the overrepresentation of African-Americans and Hispanics in imprisonment. However, scant research exists on this topic.

Pennsylvania and its sentencing guidelines system provide a propitious research setting for examining the role of prior juvenile adjudications in adult sentencing. Under Pennsylvania sentencing guidelines, juvenile adjudications can count toward adult offenders’ criminal history, and judges are allowed to consider juvenile adjudications in sentencing decisions. Our study examines juvenile adjudications as a component of criminal history, and the extent to which such adjudications are a potential source of disproportional incarceration of black and Hispanic men. That is, we examine the overall effect of juvenile adjudications, as well as whether juvenile adjudications affect the punishment outcomes of minority men more than others. In supplemental analyses, we also examine whether judges give different weight to adjudications depending on how long ago those adjudications occurred.

We use Pennsylvania sentencing data from 2006 to 2010 that allow for the decomposition of criminal history into juvenile adjudications and adult convictions. We examine fixed effects multinomial models that differentiate between non-incarceration, jail, and prison sentences. We also examine differences in sentencing guideline departures, where the court sentences an offender to a greater or lesser sentence than called for by the guidelines. Below, we first discuss racial and ethnic disproportionality, particularly for males, in juvenile adjudication and adult incarceration, and the potential role of criminal history in such disproportionality. Then, we explain our theoretical expectations derived from the focal concerns model of court decision-making, before detailing our data and methods.

Disproportionality in incarceration: the role of criminal history

Researchers have documented both the scale of mass incarceration and the fact that it has fallen disproportionately on black and Hispanic men (e.g., Bonczar 2003; Tonry and Melewski 2008; Alexander 2010; Rios 2011). Part of this disproportional incarceration of black and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic men may be due to the fact that they are disproportionately arrested for serious violent crimes (Harris et al. 2009). But it may also be the case that discretionary decisions by local criminal justice officials – charging, conviction, and sentencing – systematically produce black and Hispanic impr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction Contemporary issues of race/ethnicity, offending behavior, and justice responses
• 1. The role of juvenile adjudications in the disproportional incarceration of African-American and Hispanic defendants
• 2. Assessing the impact of deportable status on sentencing outcomes in a sample of state prisoners
• 3. Minority threat and criminal sentencing: examining juveniles in the adult criminal justice system
• 4. Court communities in local context: a multilevel analysis of felony sentencing in South Carolina
• 5. A jury of whose peers? The impact of selection procedures on racial composition and the prevalence of majority-white juries
• 6. Race, prior offending, and juvenile court outcomes
• 7. Weapon and drug offenses and juvenile disproportionate minority contact: an impact assessment and practical discussion
• 8. Does who appears before the juvenile court matter on adjudication and disposition outcomes? The interaction between client race and lawyer type
• 9. Racial disparities in referrals to mental health and substance abuse services from the juvenile justice system: a review of the literature
• 10. The effect of drug arrest on subsequent drug offending and social bonding
• 11. How well do the adolescent risk factors predict re-arrest frequency across race/ethnicity among serious adolescent offenders?
• 12. Perceptions of race, crime, and policing among Ferguson protesters
• 13. Public opinion on the affluenza defense, race, and sentencing decisions: results from a statewide poll
• Index