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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.

Given the negative outcomes associated with suspension, scholars and practitioners are concerned with discipline disparities. This study explored patterns and predictors of suspension in a sample of 2,750 students with disabilities in 39 schools in a Midwestern district. Hierarchical generalized linear modeling demonstrated that disability type, gender, race/ethnicity, and free/reduced lunch status were significant predictors of suspension among students with disabilities. Adjusting for gender and race/ethnicity attenuated suspension risk associated with disability type, and adjusting for student-level socioeconomic variables attenuated risk associated with race/ethnicity, but significant disparities remained. School characteristics were not predictive of suspension risk, but their inclusion in the models was associated with increased risk of suspension among students with emotional disturbance. Results underscore the value of multilevel modeling when identifying predictors of suspension and the need to explore a wider variety of classroom and school factors that may account for inequitable discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]