Text

theses

The country’s punitive turn over the last forty years has spurred a robust research literature to document the myriad forms and consequences of dramatic changes to justice policy and practice. Findings generally conclude that incarceration in adulthood and social disadvantage have become increasingly inextricably linked during this phase, yet several areas remain unexplored. Specifically, existing research tends to focus on the impact of these policies for adults within the criminal justice system. There has been far less attention to how these policies impacted youth in the juvenile justice system, despite their stark departure from the system’s origins in rehabilitative ideals.
This dissertation explores processes of selection into and social consequences of juvenile justice involvement throughout an era where youth in the system were treated with increasing hostility. Empirical analyses designate the juvenile justice system as a conceptually distinct institution for understanding processes of cumulative disadvantage throughout the life course. Three sections identify changes in the administration of juvenile justice, pathways to system involvement, and social consequences following general and stage-specific contact during a time when justice policy became more punitive.
Observed changes in juvenile justice system processing are more consistent with a phenomenon of mass supervision than mass incarceration. Probation consistently constitutes the most common case disposition for youth in the juvenile system, while the court’s most severe dispositions – waiver to adult court and secure placement – impact a small portion of all system-involved youth. There are persisting disparities in the population of youth involved with the juvenile system. However, selection processes into the system appear relatively unchanged as the system’s orientation shifted towards punitiveness. Contact with the juvenile system impacts individuals’ mental health throughout adulthood. These relationships are independent of any repeated institutional contact with the criminal justice system, indicating the importance of early system contacts for long-term wellbeing. Taken together, empirical findings affirm juvenile justice involvement as a consequential experience that is unequally distributed across the population.

ETD_9930

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

Includes vita

doi:10.7282/t3-4ymt-t744

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.