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Cumulative Disadvantage as an Explanation for Observed Disproportionality within the Juvenile Justice System: An Empirical Test
Author(s) -
MCGUIRE M. DYAN
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
juvenile and family court journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.155
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1755-6988
pISSN - 0161-7109
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-6988.2002.tb00052.x
Subject(s) - disadvantage , adjudication , disadvantaged , economic justice , juvenile , test (biology) , psychology , econometrics , criminology , social psychology , demographic economics , political science , economics , law , paleontology , genetics , biology
A number of scholars have attempted to explain disproportionality within the juvenile justice system as a function of cumulative disadvantage. This empirical test of the cumulative disadvantage hypothesis suggests that minorities tend to be most disadvantaged at stages in the process where confinement decisions are made (detention, commitment). Thus, while disadvantage does not appear to aggregate consistently and unidirectionally as the child moves through the system, there is some evidence that disadvantage does aggregate between the detention and adjudication stages, once controls from legal differences are imposed.