Date of Award

1-1-2023

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

School of Criminal Justice

Content Description

1 online resource (xi, 192 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Dana Peterson

Committee Members

Justin Pickett, Jennifer Peck

Keywords

Disparities, Juvenile Justice, Racial Threat, Sentences (Criminal procedure)

Subject Categories

Criminology

Abstract

Research consistently finds that Black and Hispanic youth are overrepresented at various stages of juvenile justice processing. However, less research has considered the role of community characteristics in juvenile justice processing, and much of this research has been mixed. This is particularly concerning given the explicit reliance on extralegal factors, and on the local organization of juvenile justice systems which likely make them considerably more vulnerable to community anxieties. Racial threat theory posits that as “threatening” populations increase, they begin to threaten economic and political resources of the dominant group. As this happens, the dominant group will retaliate with discriminatory policies intended to disadvantage the threatening group and remove the threat to resources. “Threatening” population size has been operationalized in a number of ways, including “static” (overall percentage of population the threatening group makes up) and “dynamic” (the overall change in threatening group population over time).This study tests both static and dynamic minority threat theory for both Black and Hispanic youth in the Texas Juvenile Justice System. To do this, multilevel logistic regression models with cross-level interactions are used to determine whether Black/Hispanic youth are treated differently based on the Black/Hispanic population size. Texas offers an ideal location to test these models, which have onerous level-one (individual) and level-two (county) sample size requirements, as well as level-one unit within level-two-unit requirements. Using five years of data from the Texas Department of Juvenile Justice for an overall individual-level sample size of 144,084 matched with American Community Survey data for all of Texas’s 254 counties, this study models both static and dynamic threat for Black and Hispanic youth at the following juvenile justice process outcome points: (1) detention (2) intake referral to prosecutor (3) prosecutor referral to court (4) adjudication and (5) sentencing. Overall, this study found that Black youth were significantly overrepresented at all five stages of processing, and Hispanic youth were overrepresented at all stages except for sentencing. This study also found that the rate of disparity for Black and Hispanic youth was conditional on the Black/Hispanic population size in some outcomes. For both Black and Hispanic youth, only the first two outcomes are affected by Black/Hispanic population sizes. Black youth are significantly more likely to be detained in communities with larger Black populations (static threat) and are also significantly more likely to be referred from intake to prosecutor as Black community population increases (static threat); Black youth are also overrepresented at these stages as compared to White youth, and this disparity increases as Black population increases. Alternatively, Hispanic youth are less likely to be detained as the Hispanic population grows over time (dynamic threat), and less likely to be referred to the prosecutor from intake in communities with larger Hispanic populations (static threat); Hispanic youth are overrepresented at these stages as compared to White youth, however this disparity decreases as the Hispanic population grows, or grows over time.

Download

Included in

Criminology Commons

Share

COinS