Race and Juvenile Justice Processing in Court and Police Agencies (From Criminal Justice and Latino Communities, P 221-240, 1995, Antoinette S. Lopez, ed. - See NCJ-168536)

• NCJ Number: 168548
• Author(s): D Dannefer; R K Schutt
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 20 pages
• Sale Source: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

Bias in the New Jersey juvenile justice system was examined in a study that compared how blacks, Hispanics, and whites were handled from police contact through sentencing in six counties.

Abstract

The research used data from randomly selected juvenile delinquency cases from the first 8 months of 1973 and 1975 in county courts and each of six municipalities. The data covered 1,271 police juvenile bureau cases and 1,553 juvenile court cases. Log-linear analysis was used to allow simultaneous control for the influence of prior record, type of allegation, family type, sex, race, and county. Findings supported the hypothesis that racial bias was more apparent in police dispositions than in judicial decisions. Police bias was especially pronounced in the more urban of the two social settings studied, where minorities amounted to a relatively high proportion of the population. However, in the same setting, court decisions may compensate somewhat for this bias. Results also revealed that Hispanic juveniles received more severe court dispositions than black juveniles. Findings indicated the importance of attention to social environment and the need for future research that compares the characteristics of social environments and their impact on bias in the juvenile justice system. Tables, footnotes, and 38 references (Author abstract modified)