Ezra G. Goldstein

Assistant Research Professor at Pennsylvania State University

Do Foster Youth Face Harsher Juvenile Justice Outcomes?


Journal article


Christian M. Connell, Sarah A. Font, Ezra G. Goldstein, Reeve Kennedy, Allison E. Kurpiel
Working Paper, 2023

View PDF
Cite

Cite

APA   Click to copy
Connell, C. M., Font, S. A., Goldstein, E. G., Kennedy, R., & Kurpiel, A. E. (2023). Do Foster Youth Face Harsher Juvenile Justice Outcomes? Working Paper.


Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Connell, Christian M., Sarah A. Font, Ezra G. Goldstein, Reeve Kennedy, and Allison E. Kurpiel. “Do Foster Youth Face Harsher Juvenile Justice Outcomes?” Working Paper (2023).


MLA   Click to copy
Connell, Christian M., et al. “Do Foster Youth Face Harsher Juvenile Justice Outcomes?” Working Paper, 2023.


BibTeX   Click to copy

@article{christian2023a,
  title = {Do Foster Youth Face Harsher Juvenile Justice Outcomes?},
  year = {2023},
  journal = {Working Paper},
  author = {Connell, Christian M. and Font, Sarah A. and Goldstein, Ezra G. and Kennedy, Reeve and Kurpiel, Allison E.}
}

For decades, child welfare scholars and policy-makers have been concerned with the strong association between foster care and juvenile justice involvement. Foster care placement may have a direct effect on delinquent behavior, but differences in justice system outcomes may be misleading if youth in foster care face "processing bias"---differentially harsh treatment by agents of the juvenile court. Previous research found that youth in foster care at the time of juvenile justice contact were treated more harshly by the court, resulting in higher rates of punitive case outcomes. However, earlier findings may be driven by both observable and unobservable heterogeneity in the characteristics of the youth and their case. We revisit the question of processing bias using detailed administrative data on more than 10,000 adolescents in Pennsylvania in 2015-2019 and a selection-on-observables design. We find no evidence of processing bias against youth in foster care. Compared to observationally equivalent cases, those that involve youth in foster care do not experience more punitive outcomes. If anything, our estimates suggest the opposite---youth in foster care are less likely to have a charge adjudicated, be placed under court-ordered supervision, or enter into juvenile detention. The precision of our estimates and bounding exercises allow us to rule out even modest evidence of punitive processing bias.

Share
Tools
Translate to