The link between child welfare and juvenile justice is well established, with over forty years of research that focuses on the increased risk of delinquency associated with child maltreatment. However, with over 700,000 children in the United States being victims of abuse and/or neglect in 2010 (DHHS, 2011), it is important to continue investigating this connection. Few studies are able to identify the same youth in both systems, therefore this study provides the unique opportunity using child welfare and juvenile justice administrative data from Oregon, to compare juvenile offenders that have been in the child welfare system, otherwise known as "Crossover" youth, to Non-Crossover juvenile offenders. The study attempted to examine if Crossover youth differ in terms of demographics, as well as if they committed offenses with higher severity scores than Non-Crossover youth. It also investigated whether an individual's status as a child welfare youth impact processing decisions in the juvenile justice system. Results indicate that Crossover youth have a higher percentage of females, African Americans, and are significantly younger. Crossover youth also have higher severity scores than non-crossover youth, and have a higher percentage of more intense adjudicated delinquent sanctions. Limitations of these findings and suggestions for further research are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-1648 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| Creators | Shrifter, Courtney Nicole |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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