Iatrogenesis in the Juvenile Justice System.

Abstract

The effects resulting from penetration into the Juvenile Justice System, from arrest to court adjudication, has been a controversial and much-debated issue for the past decade. Despite a voluminous and increasing literature on juvenile delinquency there have been virtually no studies which have examined the basic goal of that system, i.e. the reduction of youthful misbehavior. Many service programs have been described and sometimes evaluated, however very few have utilized the youths' own report of their delinquent behavior rather than an official measure such as arrest or recidivism. Yet, the few studies which even remotely examined the effect of legal processing on self-reported delinquency indicated that delinquency increased following their entry into the system. However the youth in those studies were contacted after they had been completely processed. Also, because of the small N's, differential effects were difficult to detect, ex. arrest versus prosecution. This study addressed that gap in the literature by interviewing youth (aged 13 to 16) at two points in the course of court processing; they were r and omly assigned to one of the two time periods. The first group (N = 29) was interviewed after their arrest but before their first court hearing. A second group (N = 26) was interviewed after they had been placed on probation. Another group of youth (N = 25) was also included in the analysis based on the fact that they had committed a felony in approximately the same time period as the court-processed youth, relative to the time of the interview. However, their delinquency had not been detected and therefore they would not be arrested or prosecuted. This group constituted the control. These 80 youths were interviewed as part of a larger project and were not informed of the specific hypotheses of this study. Self-reported delinquency, attitudes toward the school, community, family, peers and the self were solicited. The results indicated that the youth who had penetrated the juvenile justice system were significantly more delinquent. Although the three groups varied somewhat in their 'pre-treatment' delinquency, i.e. delinquent acts occuring before the criterion event which resulted in their selection for the study, the finding was still present after statistically controlling for that variable. It was also hypothesized that penetration into the juvenile justice system would have a negative impact on school, family and self-concept variables which in turn would be associated with increased delinquent activity. Several measurements were made of each of the variables and all were based on the respondents' reports. Legal processing resulted in consistently negative trends across all of the measures although the differences were significant only for school and parental measures. Measures concerning the self were unaffected. Perception of the father's affection was significantly more negative for the youth who were arrested and /or prosecuted. The father-son relationship was predictive of increased delinquency. A causal model was suggested in which juvenile justice processing has a negative impact on the father-son relationship which then results in increased delinquent behavior.