Poster #170 - Adolescent Girls’ Pathways to Legal System Involvement: A Mixed-Methods Analysis

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Integrative Statement

The proposed poster employs a mixed-methods approach to explore how and why girls become involved in the legal system, with particular consideration given to context, traumatic experiences, and mental health. Despite a decline in the overall number of legal-system-involved youth, the proportion of system-involved girls continues to grow (Puzzanchera & Ehrmann, 2018). Girls have unique legal system pathways, such as experiencing family chaos (Sherman, 2014) and sexual abuse (Cauffman, 1998), having poor social support (Garcia & Lane, 2004), and running away (Hockenberry & Puzzanchera, 2014) that remain under-researched. Thus, girls’ pathways require further attention and investigation. Leveraging mixed methods for the purpose of complementarity, which aims to elucidate results from one method with the those of another (Greene, Caracelli, & Graham, 1989), we analyze previously collected data from 52 legal-system-involved girls age 13-18 (M = 15.2, SD = 1.4), and draw on scholarship that emphasizes the role of trauma in girls’ pathways to incarceration (e.g., Thompson, Maccio, Desselle, & Zittel-Palamara, 2007; Zahn, 2009). The present study addresses the following research questions: (1) among legal-system-involved adolescent girls, are those who report engaging in high levels of risky behavior characteristically distinct from those who report engaging in low levels, across measures addressing demographics, mental health, and past traumatic experiences; and (2) incorporating a consideration of context, how and why do these girls become legal-system-involved? Phase I of the analysis entails a latent class analysis (LCA) based on girls’ reports of offending behavior (McCutcheon, 1987). Preliminary analyses indicate two distinct classes: Girls in class 1 were more likely to report engaging in delinquent behaviors such as belonging to a gang, robbery, and assault with intent to hurt, compared to girls in class 2. Girls in class 2 were more likely than girls in class 1 to report charges of suspicion violation and incorrigibility. Girls in classes 1 and 2 were equally likely to report running away from home, school suspension, and charges related to technical violations. In order to address the first research question, additional analyses will furnish comparisons of class mean scores on measures of traumatic experiences, such as childhood abuse (Milner, Robertson, & Rogers, 1990) and mental health-related outcomes (Derogatis, 1993; Spielberger, 1999). In order to incorporate a consideration of context into understanding how and why girls become legal-system-involved, Phase II will entail a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interview data, using phenomenological narratives (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and open thematic coding (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). In Phase III we will mix results from Phase I and Phase II by grouping transcripts based on class and examining differences and similarities in order to understand the role of context in the legal system involvement of girls in each class. Validity will be established through the identification of negative cases (Berg, Lune, & Lune, 2004; Guba & Lincoln, 1989). Implications for future research and intervention will be discussed, including, for example, support for interventions that address the contextual factors that impact girls’ mental health symptomatology and in turn influence their engagement with risky behaviors.

Authors

• Josh Grossman Adler, Mr.
  Presenting Author

• Corianna E Sichel, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shabnam Javdani, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author