Onset of juvenile court involvement: Exploring gender-specific associations with maltreatment and poverty

doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2007.11.015

Children and Youth Services Review

Volume 30, Issue 8, August 2008, Pages 914-927

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2007.11.015 Get rights and content

Abstract

Despite increased attention to gender differences in youthful offending, no known studies have examined the relative impact of poverty, maltreatment, and their combination on gender-specific patterns of offending. This research addresses the question of the differential impact of maltreatment and poverty on the onset of status and delinquent petitions for girls compared to boys. A sample of youth born in 1982–1986 in the Midwest was examined. The independent variables were poverty, maltreatment, and both. The risks of delinquent petition and status petition were analyzed using separate Cox proportional hazards models by gender. A second set of analyses were conducted on a subset of youth reported for maltreatment. There was an increase in the likelihood of juvenile court petition based on the combination of poverty and maltreatment risk factors compared to maltreatment only. This increase in risk held true only for the boys in the maltreatment subsample. Thus, the notion of these risk factors being additive is supported with males, but only for females when a non-maltreatment comparison group exists. The gender-specific nature of these relationships supports conceptual propositions that girls' pathways to the juvenile justice system are distinct from boys'. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Introduction

As the field of juvenile justice research has progressed, researchers and theorists have increasingly promoted an ecological perspective, asserting that understanding youth crime and the needs of juvenile offenders requires assessment and intervention in multiple systems (Guerra, 1997, Borduin et al., 1995, Williams et al., 1998). While individual, family, and neighborhood levels of influence are now acknowledged, gaps remain in the research assessing the interactions among risk factors and how they may vary for youth subpopulations. These constraints on knowledge limit the degree to which we can affect change in youth crime.

This article attempts to address part of the gap in the present literature on youthful offending. As the following discussion will show, prior researchers and theorists make clear assertions that boys and girls have different pathways to juvenile justice system involvement, contending that maltreatment is particularly important in understanding girls' crimes. Meanwhile, many believe that poverty, maltreatment, or both place youth at higher risk of law-breaking behavior. However, no known studies have examined the relative impact of these risk factors on gender-specific patterns of offending.

Section snippets

Poverty

Several sociological thinkers (e.g., Bursik and Grasmick, 1995, Lundman, 1993, Shaw and McKay, 1969) have promoted theories of juvenile justice based on the idea of social disorganization. The essential common feature among them is an emphasis on geographic “delinquency areas,” urban neighborhoods in which arrests of juveniles are far more common than in other areas. Poverty and other structural factors such as unemployment, racism and discrimination, lack of cohesion, and the flight of the

Maltreatment

Child maltreatment has long been assumed to be a precursor to youthful offending. Because of this connection, child welfare systems and juvenile justice systems are inherently linked, as evidenced by their common court setting; delinquency outcomes may be indicative of the success or failure of child welfare system intervention (Barth & Jonson-Reid, 2000). Specifically, researchers have reported results suggesting that having experienced maltreatment is associated with committing offenses or

Cumulative risk

Given that poverty and child maltreatment both have empirical support as risk factors for later juvenile court involvement, it may be that a combination of the two experiences compounds the risk for juvenile court petition. This assertion is in keeping with the currently popular framework analyzing juvenile court system involvement as multiply determined, according to a combination of a number of risk factors (Fraser, Kirby, & Smokowski, 2004). However, no known research has yet tested this

Gender differences

The feminist perspective has contributed a new understanding of girls' offending behavior, noting that males and females have different pathways to offending, display different patterns of offending, and may well respond differently to intervention. Feminist thinkers have emphasized that a gender-blind research agenda does a disservice to girls in the juvenile justice system because it ignores female experience in the face of boys' more frequent and somewhat more visible offending behavior (

Methods

A subgroup of youth born in 1982–1986 in a Midwestern metropolitan region was selected from a longitudinal study of service paths of low-income children compared to children reported for abuse and neglect. The total sample size for this analysis was 3453 children, 1701 girls and 1752 boys. The youth in the sample were either reported for maltreatment in the years 1993–1994, were in families receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

Results

Table 1 displays the demographic characteristics in the overall sample and the maltreatment subsample. As is shown in the table, 1128 (32.7%) youth in the total sample had delinquency or status petitions, and 841 (36.7%) youth in the maltreatment subsample had juvenile court petitions.

Research question 1: Are maltreatment and poverty together associated with a greater risk of status or delinquency petition than either condition alone?

Controlling for race and special education eligibility, both

Discussion

This study represents a first attempt to examine, from a prospective standpoint, the differences among maltreatment, poverty, and the combination of the two on gender-specific juvenile justice system outcomes.

The idea of “cumulative risk,” or an increase in the likelihood of juvenile court petition based on the combination of poverty and maltreatment risk factors, seemed very salient in models of male and female status and male delinquent petition. With female delinquent petition, however, risk

Conclusion

Despite some limitations in the data, this research begins to address a gap in the literature about the relative importance and additive nature of poverty and maltreatment among boys and girls on juvenile court petitions. Although the relationships among independent, control, and dependent variables are complex, some patterns emerged. First, the idea of “cumulative risk” appears especially relevant to boys. In targeting limited funds for prevention and intervention services related to juvenile

Acknowledgements

Data for the analyses are drawn from a study of cross-sector service paths and outcomes for maltreated children funded by Grant No. R01 MH6173302 from the National Institute of Mental Health. Points of view and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the funding agency.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Society for Social Work and Research annual conference held on January 15, 2006 in

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Onset of juvenile court involvement: Exploring gender-specific associations with maltreatment and poverty

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Poverty

Maltreatment

Cumulative risk

Gender differences

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Children and Youth Services Review

Child Abuse and Neglect

Child Abuse and Neglect

Child Abuse and Neglect

Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Child Abuse and Neglect

Child Abuse and Neglect

Survival analysis using SAS: A practical guide

Factors related to recidivism among delinquent females at a state correctional facility

Journal of Child and Family Studies

Mental health problems and sexual abuse among adolescents in foster care: Relationship to HIV risk behaviors and intentions

AIDS and Behavior

Social learning theory

Focusing on girls and young women: A gendered perspective on female delinquency

Women and Criminal Justice

Multisystemic treatment of serious juvenile offenders: Long-term prevention of criminality and violence

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Contextual complexity and violent delinquency among Black and White males

Journal of Black Studies

Neighborhood-based networks and the control of crime and delinquency

Differences between male and female juvenile offenders as measured by the BASC

Journal of Offender Rehabilitation

Girls, delinquency, and juvenile justice

The female intervention team

Juvenile Justice

Prevalence of emotional disorders in a juvenile justice population

American Journal of Forensic Psychology

Substantiation and recidivism

Child Maltreatment

Racial disparities in the punishment of youth: A theoretical and empirical assessment of the literature

Social Problems

Child maltreatment histories among runaway and delinquent children

Clinical Pediatrics

Risk and resilience in childhood

Juvenile delinquency: Peer influences, gender differences, and prevention

Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community

Intervening to prevent childhood aggression in the inner city

Predictors of youth violence

The effects of maltreatment and family structure on minor and serious delinquency

International Journal of Comparative Criminology

Causes of delinquency