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Impact of Juvenile Justice Involvement on Educational Outcomes

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Impact of Juvenile Justice Involvement on Educational Outcomes The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: Document Title: Impact of Juvenile Justice Involvement on Educational Outcomes Author(s): Paul Hirschfield Document No.: 206047 Date Received: June 2004 Award Number: 2001-IJ-CX-0007 This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally- funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. i The Impact of Juvenile Justice Involvement on Educational Outcomes By Paul Hirschfield Graduate Fellow of the National Institute of Justice And Doctoral Candidate, Department of Sociology Northwestern University [email protected] Current e-mail: [email protected] Abridged Version of Dissertation Submitted on June 12, 2003 to satisfy requirements for the Ph.D. in Sociology at Northwestern University This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. ii © Copyright by Paul Hirschfield 2003 All Rights Reserved This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. iii Abstract Despite its increased emphasis on punishment and accountability, juvenile justice policy still coheres around rehabilitative aims such as the placement and reentry of adjudicated youth into appropriate educational settings. However, theories of the impact of sanctions such as labeling and defiance—as well as exclusionary trends in public schools suggest that juvenile sanctions may actually hinder the performance and enrollment for inner-city youth. This prediction was largely confirmed in empirical research involving a sample of 778 urban youth of color who were arrested at least once. Separate subsamples of youth arrested while enrolled in seventh, eighth, or ninth grade, respectively, are compared, with respect to subsequent school performance in that grade, to youth from the same grade who are arrested in the subsequent grade. The results of these quasi-experimental, multivariate comparisons suggest that first arrest has no main effect on math and reading achievement test scores during seventh and eighth grade, but it does increase the odds of repeating eighth grade. During ninth grade, being arrested dramatically increases the risk of dropping out, and substantially lowers attendance and grades, net of a comprehensive set of selection factors. The adverse consequences of arrest are magnified for youth who spend time in detention or who are arrested multiple times, while measures of available social support following arrest inconsistently blunt the effects of arrest. In order to further explore omitted and moderating variables, as well as the processes mediating sanction effects, supplementary interviews focused on the psychological, social, and institutional dynamics that twenty youth aged 18-20 encountered following sanctioning. Eleven youth showed declines in educational performance following arrest while nine youth evidenced at least one improvement in school performance following arrest. The interviews suggest that youth whose performance declines following arrest are less likely to receive and capitalize on support from family, teachers, and probation officers following their arrests and are more likely to allege serious mistreatment by school and justice system authorities. Taken together, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggest that, in the most disadvantaged inner-city communities, juvenile justice involvement is so pervasive and so closely associated with school termination, that it helps mark the transition to adult status, thereby usurping some of the traditional functions of scholastic achievement. This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation is an unusual fusion of perspectives and methods. While I can accept most of the credit (or take most of the blame depending on how effective this integration is) for its execution, much of the credit for its conceptualization and development belongs to the scholars and researchers who have exerted a direct, diverse, and supportive influence over my work. First and foremost, I am grateful to Professor Tom Cook. Dr. Cook nurtured my initial interest in youth in relation to social institutions, provided me full access to the Comer School Development Program Evaluation data, integrated my project into the Spencer Foundation grant proposal, and—perhaps most importantly—suggested and guided the quasi-experimental approach that gives this research its unique flavor and force. Aside from being a quasi-experimental examination of the impact of legal sanctions on school performance, my work also integrates and attempts to extend insights from criminology. For this reason I must acknowledge the contribution of two prominent criminologists. John Hagan and John Laub not only share a first name and seemingly boundless knowledge but also an interest in my intellectual development and this project in particular. Professors Hagan and Laub helped keep the project focused and relevant to criminology, referring me to relevant literature and suggesting solutions to various theoretical and methodological issues that arose over the years. In addition to bringing quasi-experimental method to bear on a novel criminological question, the research also seeks a deeper, interpretive understanding of the statistical findings. This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. v In this connection, my first strategy was to conduct supplementary interviews with youth about their experiences in school and in the justice system. I am indebted to Kathryn Edin for inspiring and emboldening me to pursue such research and to Tim Nelson for his invaluable tips on the mechanics of interviewing young men of disadvantaged backgrounds. The second strategy for deepening my understanding was to situate all my findings within the macro-sociology of punishment. Professor Bernard Beck was perhaps the most helpful in this endeavor simply through his bold and expansive intellect, unafraid to search for connections where none have thought to look. Thanks are also due to those who provided data for this project. Words cannot express the depth of my gratitude to Dr. David Reed, who generously shared with me the juvenile justice data that he worked so hard to obtain and prepare and without which my project would not have been possible. In addition, Dr. Wesley Skogan generously provided data on neighborhood crime rates. Next, Shazia Miller, Elaine Allensworth, and Todd Rosenkrantz of the Chicago Consortium on School Research were all very helpful in providing and explaining official school records data. Various institutions provided invaluable support for this research. The National Institute of Justice and National Science Foundation provided financial support and generous extensions on the deadlines for expenditure of those funds. The Institute for Policy Research provided invaluable assistance in grant application and administration and, through its Joint Center for Poverty Research, provided one full year of funding. In addition, the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Cook County Department of Corrections, and the Cook County Probation This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. vi Department deserve thanks for helping me locate interview participants and/or facilitating interviews with them. Thanks to Thomas Cook and my institutional sponsors, I was also fortunate to enlist the help of several undergraduate research assistants who lent their talents in various ways including merging data, finding and recruiting interview participants, statistical programming, and transcribing and coding interviews. These dedicated and motivated young people are Monica Holliday, Chris Sherman, Christina Saenz, Jennifer Chambers, Shannon Mok, and Jinna Yun. I have also not forgotten those who provided helpful materials, technical help, and advice at various points in this research including Carol Heimer, Jens Ludwig, Spencer Di Li, Michael Alan Sacks, Stephanie De Luca, and Robert Murphy. Finally, I was the beneficiary of an extraordinary team effort in the final stretch to
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