This research project is a collaboration with my colleague Ms Sandra Jeter and Dr Camille Quinn. This poster was presented at the NASW TX conference in October 2018, orally presented at the Council of Social Work Education,Association for Justice-Involved Females and Organizations Conference (AJFO) 2019 and at the Society for Social work Research conference in Jan 2020.
Abstract
Background: Research shows that girls of color are disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system (Moore & Padavic, 2010). Black female adolescent’s makeup 14 percent of the national population, however they account for 33.2 percent of girls arrested and committed into the juvenile justice system (Saar et al., 2015). The causes of male delinquency in Black males have been well documented through literature, while there is little research to explain what predicts Black female involvement in delinquency behavior. Therefore, more culturally and gender responsive research literature and programming is necessary to identify the predictors of delinquent behavior in Black female adolescents and provide solutions to this escalating social issue.
Purpose: This study examines social control factors such as suspension/expulsion and parental incarceration in predicting the likelihood that a Black female adolescent will be arrested or taken into custody. Hirschi’s Social Bonding theory postulates that weak social attachment may result in criminal behavior. The objective of this research is to examine whether the lack of commitment and attachment of incarcerated parents, as well as the lack of school involvement in a Black female adolescent’s life influence their trajectory into a criminal career. Our research question is: What is the probability that a Black female adolescent will be arrested or taken into custody considering parental incarceration and school suspension/expulsion? Our hypothesis is that both school suspension/expulsion and parental incarceration is significantly associated with the arrest and custody of Black female adolescents.
Methods: A sample of 377 Black females aged 14-18 was used from the Fragile Families data, a national longitudinal birth cohort study that consists of 4,898 low income families. The Fragile Families data was collected between 1998 to 2017. The data collected from the sixth wave (2014-2017) was used for this research. Binary logistic regression was utilized to examine the contribution of parental incarceration and school suspension/expulsion to the arrest and custody of Black female adolescents.
Results: The logistical regression analysis revealed that the full model containing two predictors (suspension/expulsion and parental incarceration) was statistically significant (p = .000). Parental incarceration was the model’s strongest predictor of arrest or custody of Black female youth. The results revealed that when participants have parents incarcerated, they are about 7.5 times more likely to report being arrested or taken into custody. School suspension/expulsion was also a significant factor, resulting in Black female adolescents being close to 3 times more likely to be arrested or taken into custody. This whole model explained between 5.5% (Cox and Snell R square) to 13.1% (Nagelkerke R squared) of the variance in arrest status and correctly classified 92.6% of the cases.
Conclusion: Parental incarceration and school suspension/expulsion were positively associated with the arrest and custody of Black female youth. Early adversity and the lack of social attachment in the life course of an adolescent can largely contribute to the onset of criminal behavior. It is anticipated that these risk factors are included in the development of future intervention aimed to prevent Black female adolescents from entering the juvenile justice system.
Keywords: juvenile justice system, delinquent behaviors, gender-responsive, Black girls, social bonding theory
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