1. The long reach of juvenile and criminal legal debt: How monetary sanctions shape legal cynicism and adultification.
- Author
-
Paik, Leslie, Giuffre, Andrea, Harris, Alexes, and Shannon, Sarah
- Subjects
- *
DEBT laws , *SOCIALIZATION , *CRIME , *LEGAL liability , *RETROSPECTIVE studies , *INTERVIEWING , *JUVENILE offenders , *PUBLIC opinion - Abstract
• Youth's juvenile justice involvement can lead to financial debt into adulthood. • Juvenile monetary sanctions propel youth into early adulthood, with negative effects. • Juvenile monetary sanctions hinder individuals' educational and work aspirations. • Juvenile monetary sanctions increase individuals' distrust of the legal system. Previous research has established the deleterious long-term effects of juvenile legal system involvement such as increased risk of criminal legal system involvement as adults. This paper examines retrospective accounts of how that process occurs by exploring the following research question: how does one's involvement in the juvenile legal system, which includes monetary sanctions, shape peoples' views of law and legal institutions and with what consequences? Based on 19 interviews with adults who have legal debt from both juvenile and criminal legal systems, the paper focuses on four aspects of the long-reaching effects of juvenile legal involvement and juvenile monetary sanctions: legal socialization, adultification, legal cynicism, and future aspirations. In all these aspects, we show the organizational constraints that shape individuals' perspectives about the law and the impact of monetary sanctions on their lives. In doing so, the paper shows how monetary sanctions associated with juvenile cases add to the cumulative disadvantage of legal system involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF