Arrested in Adolescence: Youth Perceptions of Relationships, School Experiences, and Justice System Involvement

• In Event: 54.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Annually, approximately 1,470,000 youth ages 10-17 years old are arrested—held in legal custody—in the United States (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). Regardless of whether an arrest results in spending time in jail, prosecution, incarceration, or no charges being filed at all, this formal contact with the juvenile/criminal justice systems (J/CJS) is a critical developmental turning point for adolescents, and has substantial implications along the life course. Scholars find that arrests before the age of 18 are associated with social isolation (Lemert, 1951), low educational attainment (Kirk & Sampson, 2013), and continued system-involvement in adolescence that often persists into adulthood (Liberman, Kirk, & Kim, 2014; Sampson & Laub, 1993, 2006).

Author

• Abena Subira Mackall, Harvard University