NCJ Number
203160
Journal
Youth & Society Volume: 35 Issue: 2 Dated: December 2003 Pages: 243-263
Editor(s)
Kathryn G. Herr
Date Published
December 2003
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study examined the case processing of youth through the juvenile justice system in the State of Hawaii and the issue of race and ethnic disparity in the administration of juvenile justice.
Abstract
An issue of social concern that continues to this day is the degree to which race and ethnicity influences the administration of juvenile justice. History indicates little research on juvenile justice decisionmaking in ethnically diverse settings. The State of Hawaii is considered one of the most ethnically diverse States in the Nation and provides a unique comparative framework from which to examine issues of race and ethnic disparity in the administration of juvenile justice. The study began with a review of the theoretical framework and prior literature on race and ethnic disparity in juvenile justice processing with attention given to reviewing the limited number of studies that examined other ethnic minority groups. In this study, ethnicity was categorized into the following groups: Hawaiians, Whites, East Asians, Filipinos, Samoans, and others. The data used consisted of a random sample of 3,000 juvenile delinquency cases referred to the family court in Hawaii from the years 1980 to 1986. In the analysis, ordinal probit regression was used to estimate the decisionmaking of Hawaii’s juvenile court. The results indicated that Hawaiian and Samoan youth received different treatment in comparison with Whites only. However, they also indicated that this ethnicity disparity was substantially reduced by including other legal and social factors. In Hawaii, juvenile court is found to be punitive for Hawaiians and Samoans and lenient for Whites. The findings suggest that relative social disadvantage does not provide a complete explanation for group differences in the juvenile justice outcomes. Future research is recommended in collecting qualitative information to help reveal how the underlying social and/or cultural differences between the various ethnic groups in Hawaii affect the treatment of these groups in the juvenile justice system. References