Race, Gender, and Disability and the Risk for Juvenile Justice Contact

• NCJ Number: 255858
• Journal: Journal of Special Education Volume: 53 Issue: 4 Dated: 2020 Pages: 226-235
• Author(s): Martin Mendoza; Jamilia J. Blake; Miner P Marchbanks III; Kelsey Ragan
• Date Published: 2020
• Length: 10 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2012-JF-FX-4064
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Since research has demonstrated support for links between exclusionary school discipline (suspension) and negative outcomes such as school dropout and juvenile justice involvement, the current study examined the intersections of race, gender, and disability in explaining the risk for juvenile justice contact, using a state database that represents a sample of adolescent students.

Abstract

Controlling for individual, school, and community characteristics associated with juvenile justice contact, such as race/ethnicity, previous years’ discipline rate, student retention from previous year, primary disability, whether the campus is a Title I school, and student body size and diversity, results suggest that disproportionality is prevalent when examining juvenile justice contacts, but the relationship among race, gender, disability, and discipline is complicated. Implications for understanding juvenile justice contact outcomes and future research for advancing the field are discussed. 69 references (publisher abstract modified)