Poster #97 - Does Criminal Justice Climate Matter? Effects on Criminal Justice Experience among Young Adults

• In Event: Poster Session II

Abstract

Prior work has identified critical individual and contextual factors that are associated with increased odds of criminal justice contact. Most research on context has focused on poverty and informal social control as key contextual predictors. One understudied contextual factor is the criminal justice climate—jail rates—of a geographical area. Using event history and multi-level modeling we analyze data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (n=1,321) to assess whether: (1) respondents who reside in counties (n=122 at wave 5) with higher jail rates are more likely to have criminal justice experience (arrest and jail); and (2) criminal justice contacts occur at younger ages. We argue that including a measure of criminal justice climate moves beyond measuring disadvantage and informal social control by assessing the prevalence of surveillance and criminal justice contact. Understanding the effects of criminal justice climate is imperative given the reality that contact with the criminal justice system is not random and often is concentrated among specific neighborhoods. Findings from this study will further our understanding of how context shapes criminal justice contact net of additional contextual factors (e.g., neighborhood disadvantage) and individual level factors (e.g., prior delinquency, substance use, mobility, and family socioeconomic status).

Authors

• Marissa Landeis, Bowling Green State University

• Peggy C. Giordano, Bowling Green State University

• Monica A. Longmore, Bowling Green State University

• Wendy D. Manning, Bowling Green State University