Does Context Matter in Youth Sentencing? Examining Minority-Threat and Structural Disadvantage

• In Event: Evaluating the State of Juvenile Justice

Abstract

Research concerning juvenile justice processing is quite extensive. Most research, however, focuses on the impact of legal and extra-legal factors such as offense seriousness, prior record, age, race, and gender. There is significantly less research that examines the impact of macro-level contextual factors. This research addresses this limitation. The objective of the research is to examine the impact of concentrated disadvantage and minority, or racial/ethnic, threat on juvenile court outcomes. Juvenile court data from three states and contextual data from the U.S. Census are analyzed using hierarchical-generalized linear modeling. Implications are also discussed.

Authors

• Rimonda Maroun, Endicott College

• Danielle Marie Carkin Lacorazza, Stonehill College