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Race, Pre- and Postdetention, and Juvenile Justice Decision Making

NCJ Number
245040
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 59 Issue: 3 Dated: April 2013 Pages: 396-418
Author(s)
Michael J. Leiber
Date Published
April 2013
Length
23 pages
Annotation
A detailed examination was conducted of the factors associated with pre- and postadjudication secure detention.
Abstract
A detailed examination was conducted of the factors associated with pre- and postadjudication secure detention, including secure detention as a dispositional sentence and the effects of secure detention on decisionmaking that further contribute to cumulative disadvantage for African-Americans. The research was based on interpretations of the symbolic threat thesis, with emphasis on the stereotyping of African-Americans as threatening, delinquent, and/or in need of confinement, to study decisionmaking in one juvenile court jurisdiction. The results reveal that legal factors were most often predictors of each type of secure detention and decisionmaking at other stages, but so too was race individually and in combination with legal and extralegal considerations and indirectly through secure detention. The relationships, however, did not always result in disadvantageous outcomes. Abstract published by arrangement with Sage Journals.