Bootstrapping : Is It More Likely to Occur with Youth Who Are of Color and/or from Low-Income Families?

Findings from the “Minority Overrepresentation in the Utah Juvenile JusticeSystem” study included that youth and staff involved in the system perceive thatbootstrapping (the practice of adding charges in a single criminal episode) by lawenforcement is more likely to occur with youth who are of color and who are from lowincome families. This study aimed to use arrest records (to determine the number ofcharges per episode), JIS data (to determine race, ethnicity and disposition of all charges)and social files (to explore data related to youth’s socioeconomic status) to explorewhether study participants’ perceptions were accurate.Project staff originally planned to obtain the arrest records of all youth arrested in Ogden, Utah for one calendar year. Ogden was selected as the study site because (1) A review of youth's social files made it impractical to select a statewide sample and (2) relative to other Utah cities, Ogden is racially diverse. Youth’s arrest records—combined with JIS race data and social file data related to family socioeconomic status—would allow the research team to explore whether bootstrapping occurred with identifiable subsets of youth (e.g., youth of color; white youth from low-income families; youth of color from low-income families). Using arrest records from the police department would have the advantage of including all warrants (rather than only those that were forwarded to the court).