The Effect of Race on Juvenile Justice Processing

Studies concerning differential treatment of minority youths in the juvenile justice system have not provided conclusive evidence. However, previous literature has revealed methodological problems which may account for the inconsistency among previous studies. Multi-stage design, adequate control of legal and non-legal variables, and refined measurement of social variables have been demonstrated as crucial elements in resolving the inconclusiveness in previous studies. The purpose of this study is to employ these approaches to detect case-handling bias at three stages of juvenile justice processing: detention, adjudication, and disposition. Data were obtained from juvenile cases reported to the Ohio trial court in 1989. A total of 2,334 court cases were randomly sampled from 17 Ohio counties. Research findings showed a differential treatment of minority juveniles at the detention stage. Further, detention status was also found to have an increasing impact at the two subsequent decision points.