Chapter 3: The Influence of Juveniles' Race on Police Decision-Making: An Exploratory Study

Previous studies evaluating the effects of juveniles' race on police decision-making have rendered inconclusive results. Many of these studies have suffered from methodological shortcomings. The present study utilized vignettes to describe police-juvenile encounters in order to determine police charging practices for black and white youth. The results suggest modest offense-related race effects. Black youth tend to be charged with more offenses while white youth were released more frequently. A refinement in the research methodology is indicated for further explorations of the critical issue of police bias.     

A Prospective Investigation of Racial Disparity in the Juvenile Justice System

Abstract Black males are over-represented in the juvenile justice system. With the exception of a few recent studies, most investigations to determine why such over-representation exists have used retrospective data from existing records, conceptualized their research as a series of separate juvenile justice decisions, and employed bivariate and zero-order correlation techniques. This paper presents the results of a prospective study designed to determine why disproportionately more black than white males are represented in Georgia's juvenile justice system. Youth from eight communities were tracked through four decision points: police apprehension, and juvenile court intake, adjudication, and disposition. The study examines the direct and indirect effects of race on decision making. Multivariate analysis methods allowed specification of results for each separate decision point as well as the cumulative effects of race across decision points.