The overrepresentation of youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system is a persistent concern, but estimates of their involvement vary dramatically due to differences in how disability is conceptualized and when involvement in juvenile justice is measured. This study linked juvenile court and educational records for 230,760 students in one state to describe the involvement of students with and without disabilities in juvenile court. Overrepresentation of students with disabilities was not robust to sociodemographic controls (relative risk ratio [RR] = 1.07) but varied by disability category such that students with emotional or behavioral disorders (RR = 1.98) and other health impairments (RR = 1.12) remained overrepresented. Students with disabilities were charged with more severe offenses than their peers without disabilities and were more likely to be petitioned to court with a higher degree of offense even after controlling for the type of offense. Implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AizerA.DoyleJ. J. (2015). Juvenile incarceration, human capital and future crime: Evidence from randomly-assigned judges. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130, 759–804. doi:10.1093/qje/qjv003
2.
AkaikeH. (1973). Information theory and an extension of the maximum likelihood principle. In PetrovB. N.CsakiF. (Eds.), Second International Symposium on Information Theory (pp. 267-281). Budapest : Akadémiai Kiadó.
3.
AnnammaS.MorrisonD.JacksonD. (2014). Disproportionality fills the gaps: Connections between achievement, discipline and special education in the school-to-prison pipeline. Berkley Review of Education, 5(1), 53–87. Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0b13x3cp
BarnertE. S.PerryR.MorrisR. E. (2016). Juvenile incarceration and health. Academic Pediatrics, 16, 99–109. doi:10.1016/j.acap.2015.09.004
6.
BarrettD. E.KatisyannisA.ZhangD. (2010). Predictors of offense severity, adjudication, incarceration, and repeat referrals for juvenile offenders: A multicohort replication study. Remedial and Special Education, 31, 261–275. doi:10.1177/0741932509355990
7.
BrierN. (1989). The relationship between learning disability and delinquency: A review and reappraisal. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 546–553. doi:10.1177/002221948902200906
CheelyC. A.CarpenterL. A.LetourneauE. J.NicholasJ. S.CharlesJ.KingL. B. (2012). The prevalence of youth with autism spectrum disorders in the criminal justice system. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 1856–1862. doi:10.1007/s10803-011-1427-2
10.
FabeloT.ThompsonM. D.PlotkinM.CarmichaelD.MarchbanksM. P.BoothE. A. (2011). Breaking schools’ rules: A statewide study of how school discipline relates to students’ success and juvenile justice involvement. New York, NY: Council of State Governments Justice Center.
11.
FornessS. R.KavaleK. A. (2001). ADHD and a return to the medical model of special education. Education and Treatment of Children, 24, 224–247.
12.
GageN. A.JosephsN. L.LundeK. (2012). Girls with emotional disturbance and a history of arrest: Characteristics of school-based predictors of arrest. Education and Treatment of Children, 35, 603–622. doi:10.1353/etc.2012.0026
13.
GattiU.TremblayR. E.VitaroF. (2009). Iatrogenic effect of juvenile justice. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 991–998. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.02057.x
14.
GeibC. F.ChapmanJ. F.D’AmaddioA. H.GrigorenkoE. L. (2011). The education of juveniles in detention: Policy considerations and infrastructure development. Learning and Individual Differences, 21, 3–11. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2010.05.002
KatsiyannisA.BarrettD. E.ZhangD. (2012). Juvenile offenders with disabilities: Challenges and promises. In GrigorenkoE. L. (Ed.), Handbook of juvenile forensic psychology and psychiatry (pp. 521–539). Boston, MA: Springer.
20.
KeilitzI.DunivantN. (1986). The relationship between learning disability and juvenile delinquency: Current state of knowledge. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 1826. doi:10.1177/074193258600700305
21.
KrezmienM. P.MulcahyC. A.LeoneP. E. (2008). Detained and committed youth: Examining differences in achievement, mental health needs, and special education status. Education and Treatment of Children, 31, 1–20.
22.
MendelR. A. (2011). No place for kids: The case for reducing juvenile incarceration. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED527944
23.
Minnesota Department of Public Safety. (2012). On the level: Disproportionate minority contact in Minnesota’s juvenile justice system. Retrieved from http://dps.mn.gov/divisons/ojp
24.
MorrisR. J.ThompsonK. C. (2008). Juvenile delinquency and special education laws: Policy implementation issues and directions for future research. Journal of Correctional Education, 59, 173–190.
25.
NajdowskiC. J.BottomsB. L.VargasM. C. (2009). Juror’s perceptions of juvenile defendants: The influence of intellectual disability, abuse history, and confession evidence. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 27, 401–430. doi:10.1002/bsl.873
26.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). Digest of education statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts
27.
National Council on Disability. (2003). Addressing the needs of youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system: The current status of evidence-based research. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://www.ncd.gov/publications/2003/May12003
28.
National Council on Disability. (2015). Breaking the school-to-prison pipeline for students with disabilities. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://www.ncd.gov/publications/2015/06182015
29.
PostC. H. (1981). The link between learning disabilities and juvenile delinquency: Cause, effect and present solutions. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 32, 58–68.
30.
QuinnM. M.RutherfordR. B.LeoneP. E.OsherD. M.PoirerJ. M. (2005). Youth with disabilities in juvenile corrections: A national survey. Exceptional Children, 71, 339–345. doi:10.1177/001440290507100308
31.
RobbinsA. S.ChaoS. Y.FonsecaV. P. (2002). What’s the relative risk? A method to directly estimate risk ratios in cohort studies of common outcomes. Annals of Epidemiology, 12, 452–454. doi:10.1016/S1047-2797(01)00278-2
32.
RosenbaumJ. (2018). Educational and criminal justice outcomes 12 years after school suspension. Youth & Society. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/0044118X17752208
33.
RutherfordR. B.BullisM.Wheeler AndersonC.Griller-ClarkH. M. (2002). Youth with disabilities in the correctional system: Prevalence rates and identification issues. Retrieved from http://www.edjj.org/Publications/Rates2.pdf
34.
SadehS.SullivanA. L. (2017). Ethical and legal landmines: Causal inference in special education decisions. Psychology in the Schools, 54, 1134–1147. doi:10.1002/pits.22046
35.
SibleyM.PelhamW.MolinaB.CoxeS.KippH.LaheyB. . . . RossJ. (2014). The role of early childhood ADHD and subsequent CD in the initiation and escalation of adolescent cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 123, 362–374. doi:10.1037/a0036585
36.
SkibaR. J.ArtilesA.KozleskiE.LosenD. J.HarryE. G. (2016). Risks and consequences of oversimplifying educational inequities: A response to Morgan et al. (2015). Educational Researcher, 45, 221–225. doi:10.3102/0013189X16644606
37.
Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. (2016). International youth justice systems: Promoting youth development and alternative approaches: A position paper of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Journal of Adolescent Health, 59, 482–486. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.08.003
38.
SpragueJ. R.ScheuermannB.WangE.NelsonC. M.JolivetteK.VincentC. (2013). Adopting and adapting PBIS for secure juvenile justice settings: Lessons learned. Education and Treatment of Children, 36, 121–134.
39.
SullivanA. L. (2011). Disproportionality in special education identification and placement of English language learners. Exceptional Children, 77, 317–334. doi:10.1177/001440291107700304
40.
SullivanA. L. (2017). Wading through quicksand: Making sense of minority disproportionality in identification of emotional disturbance. Behavior Disorders, 43, 244–252. doi:10.1177/0198742917732360
41.
SullivanA. L.BalA. (2013). Disproportionality in special education: Effects of individual and school variables on risk. Exceptional Children, 79, 475–494. doi:10.1177/001440291307900406
42.
SullivanA. L.ThayerA. J.SadehS. (2018). Multisector involvement among adolescents with disabilities. Remedial and Special Education. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/0741932517735574
43.
TulmanJ. B.WeckD. M. (2009). Shutting off the school-to-prison pipeline for status offenders with education-related disabilities. New York Law School Law Review, 54, 875–907.
ZhangD.BarrettD. E.KatsiyannisA.YoonM. (2011). Juvenile offenders with and without disabilities: Risks and patterns of recidivism. Learning and Individual Differences, 21, 12–18. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2010.09.006
46.
ZhangJ.YuK. F. (1998). What’s the relative risk? A method for correcting the odds ratio in cohort studies of common outcomes. Journal of the American Medical Association, 280, 1690–1691. doi:10.1001/jama.280.19.1690
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
