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School performance and behavior are among the most frequently cited factors in the etiology of crime and delinquency. Not surprisingly, considerable research has documented robust links between school disengagement and involvement in a wide variety of adolescent problem behaviors. However, the exact nature of the relationship between school disengagement and problem behaviors is not well understood. It remains unclear whether school disengagement causes adolescent problem behaviors, problem behaviors lead to school disengagement, or whether both school disengagement and problem behaviors are symptoms of enduring traits and proclivities. This study uses data from a panel of over 3,500 elementary schoolchildren in Chicago to examine this issue. We improve on prior research on this topic by (1) examining the effects of disengagement on delinquency and problem behaviors, as well as the effects of delinquency and problem behaviors on disengagement and (2) by using fixed effects models to control for important, unobserved differences between youth. Results indicate that there is bidirectional or cyclical relationship between disengagement and problem behaviors that is robust to more aggressive controls for between-person differences. Implications for school policies designed to increase engagement and decrease behavioral problems are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to severe differentiation of urban neighborhoods by race, SES, and crime, along with differential law enforcement practices, juvenile justice contact is highly spatially concentrated. The existence and prevalence of schools and neighborhoods in which juvenile justice contact is a normal life event for African-American juveniles is documented. Utilizing police and school records from a major city during the 1990's, annual rates of juvenile arrest in 63 urban high schools during the 1995-96 school year are computed, as well as the lifetime rates of juvenile arrest and institutional confinement among a representative cohort (n=5191) of youth from 22 elementary schools. The 20 high schools with annual black male arrest rates above 50% are comprised almost exclusively of African-American students. An integrated theory of the consequences of the mass, concentrated criminalization of African-American males is developed. It is posited that hyper-concentrated juvenile justice contact (HJJC) contributes to the collective stigmatization of urban African-American males, transforms arrest and incarceration into anticipated life events in certain neighborhoods, and legitimates an oppositional subculture that views justice contact as a status symbol. Through conditioning aspirations, identity formation, and social exclusion, HJJC may help perpetuate elevated rates of delinquency, arrest, and incarceration in the inner-city. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Juveniles in secure confinement allegedly suffer from more mental health problems than their peers. This may reflect background and behavioral characteristics commonly found in clients of both mental health and juvenile justice services. Another explanation is that mental disorders increase the risk of arrest. The present research tests these interpretations on a sample of Pittsburgh boys (N=736). Findings indicate that arrested youth exhibit more attention deficit hyperactivity (ADH) problems, Oppositional Defiant (OD) problems, and non-delinquent externalizing symptoms prior to their first arrests compared to their never-arrested peers. However, arrested and non-arrested youth score similarly on prior affective and anxiety problems and internalizing symptoms. Net of delinquency, substance use, and other selection factors, internalizing problems lower the risk of subsequent arrest, while OD problems and non-delinquent externalizing symptoms increase the risk of arrest. ADH has no effect on arrest net of delinquency and substance use. These findings lend only partial support to the criminalization hypothesis. Whereas some mental health symptoms increase the risk of arrest, others elicit more cautious or compassionate official responses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on poor urban public schools where criminal justice ethos and practice is most salient. A widening circle of journalists, activists, and academics have noted that public schools have undergone an escalation in punishment and control the likes of which has been observed only in the criminal justice system. Coping with rising threats of violence and disorder, many schools have imported the methods, technologies and personnel prevalent in law enforcement, courts and prisons.

Labeling theory posits that formal sanctions contribute negative defining information to a youth?s reputation and that novice delinquents internalize these negative appraisals. Reflected appraisals and social rejection, in turn, reinforce delinquency. This paper argues that, in the context of severely disadvantaged inner-city communities? where being arrested is a normative ritual of male adolescent development and incarceration is a probable life event?the preconditions for a ?labeling? effect of an arrest are generally not met. Retrospective, personal interviews with twenty minority youth (aged 18-20) from high poverty urban neighborhoods, who experienced at least one juvenile arrest, suggest that juvenile arrests, except in limited circumstances, typically carry little stigma and do little discernible harm to self-concept or social relationships. It is suggested that traditional labeling theory does not adequately capture the impact of criminal justice intervention in inner-city black communities. At the same time that the individual social psychological impact of the official labeling process has weakened, the collective social psychological impact of sanctions on minority communities has increased. Mass criminal justice involvement may shift aspirations and revise status criteria among disadvantaged urban youth in a manner which?akin to individual labeling processes?promotes the reproduction of future criminals and prisoners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A neglected topic in both the sociology of education and punishment is how the expansion of punitive intervention has impinged on the function of educational institutions. Building on several theoretical perspectives and available empirical evidence, it is suggested that sanctions within the juvenile justice system affect the ability of and modes with which schools educate their students and allocate occupational futures. This theory is assessed utilizing a large sample pool of inner-city youth and a quasi-experimental design known as staggered replication. The analysis compares the odds of dropping out of first-time arrest population in grade nine to other ninth graders who are first arrested during the subsequent grade. The logistic regression results suggest that first arrests, especially when followed by subsequent arrests, greatly increases the odds of dropping out, net of selection factors. These findings provide further evidence that expanded criminal justice involvement may weaken the stability and economic vitality of inner-city communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research indicates that youth within the criminal justice system report higher rates of mental health problems than their peers. However, we previously reported that arrested and non-arrested adolescent males did not differ significantly in pre-arrest levels of affective and anxiety problems. The purpose of the present study was to determine if first incarceration increased affective and anxiety problems among adolescents. We examined heterogeneous trajectories of affective and anxiety problems for 510 boys from ages 11 to 14. Then we matched treatment (first incarcerated at age 15) and control (no official arrest or incarceration during adolescence) boys within each trajectory group using a propensity score matching algorithm. Matches were found for 37 pairs within the affective problem trajectory groups and 34 pairs for anxiety problems. There were no significant differences in levels of affective or anxiety problems at age 16 between the incarcerated and control groups. Additional analyses indicated that only incarcerated youth who were interviewed in jail at age 16 exhibited statistically non-significant but elevated levels of anxiety than controls. Although speculative, the results suggest that the higher rates of internalizing problems found among detained or incarcerated youth may be due to their being interviewed while in an aversive environment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research shows that juvenile justice involvement elevates the risk of high school dropout. However, it has not examined how the demographically and spatially uneven distribution of juvenile sanctions contributes to disparate educational outcomes, such as the 13 percent lower likelihood that a black male will finish high school in four years compared to a black female. The role of juvenile arrests in explaining the gender gap in high school dropout rates is examined among a large survey sample of public school students from a large Midwestern city. Among African-American students, arrests explain most or all of the gender difference in the odds of dropping out before 11th grade and in the odds of ever dropping out. This pattern does not appear to be due to a confounding influence of prior school performance and attitudes, delinquency, and other risk factors. As expected, arrests contribute much less to the explanation of gender differences in dropout among Latino- and Asian-American students. Alternative interpretations and the wider social implications of the findings are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable research has examined the relationship between the school social bond, that is, attachment, involvement, and commitment to school, and delinquency. However, few studies have explored the connection between the larger constellation of attitudes and behaviors known as student disengagement and delinquency. This study uses data from a panel of Chicago elementary school students to probe the link between affective, behavioral, and cognitive disengagement and school and non-school delinquency. Unlike prior studies on the school social bond, we consider several potential confounding factors and the possibility that delinquency leads to disengagement rather than vice versa. Results from structural equation models indicate that both affective and behavioral disengagement from school are significantly associated with increases in both school and non-school delinquency, controlling for prior levels of delinquency. The effects of affective disengagement on non-school delinquency are mediated entirely by family bonding. However, cognitive disengagement is significantly associated with decreases in school delinquency, a finding which we attribute to the consequences of trying harder in school and not succeeding. These effects are invariant across gender and grade. Delinquency has few effects on disengagement. Suggestions for future research and implications for policy are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the critical challenges facing youth returning from custodial settings is reentry in an appropriate educational setting. This study examines the impact of a unique programmatic innovation in NYC whereby from 2002 to 2004, youth released to Manhattan, almost exclusively, were eligible for expedited, assisted re-enrollment in a mainstream New York City school or a specialized transitional school. "Differences in differences analyses" assess whether, relative to youth released to Brooklyn, Manhattan releasees experienced greater improvements in re-enrollment (rates and duration) and recidivism during this intervention. In addition, separate multi-level models examine the individual- and neighborhood-level determinants of facilitated re-enrollment in both types of educational settings, as well as the impact of re-enrollment on recidivism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "broken windows" hypothesis and social norm theorists (Meares and Kahan, 1998) suggest that the aggressive enforcement of drug and quality-of-life offenses, if applied in accordance with community demand, can strengthen pro-social community norms and help transmit law-abiding values to children. Others (Roberts, 1999) counter that such policing initiatives inevitably violate constitutional rights and discriminate against minority youth and, as a result, legitimate an oppositional "street" culture (Anderson, 1999). These competing assertions are tested with a large, multi-wave sample of youth (grades 5 to 8) living mostly in disadvantaged neighborhoods of Chicago during the 1990's. Hierarchical linear models examine the relationship between annual increases in neighborhood rates of officer-initiated juvenile arrests in general and juvenile drug arrests in particular and children's attitudes concerning the importance of obeying the law, the importance of not using drugs, and the wrongfulness of selling drugs. Antecedent control variables include neighborhood crime rates, perceived parental disapproval of law violation, individual and peer delinquency and substance use, individual arrests, and demographic background. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]