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Preliminary Results
Analysis of Juvenile Court Data for Selected Metropolitan Atlanta Counties
In an ideal world, no child would have to encounter the juvenile court system. However, for each of the past three years, over 16,000 children have entered the juvenile courts of Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties. (Table 1. First Cases by County, Year, and Race). The manner in which these children (and their parents or other family members) are handled by the court system has implications for the future functioning of the children and those families from which they are removed.
The Child Placement Project is an effort to improve the management of juvenile cases in the judicial system. The Supreme Court of Georgia has funded Georgia Tech to develop compatible county data bases from the existing case management systems in five metropolitan Atlanta counties (the four listed above and Cobb). The Rollins School of Public Health of Emory is working with those data bases to examine the relationship between deprivation and subsequent delinquency.
This web site presents some preliminary results from the analysis of
the four juvenile court data systems. The results include:
- number of juveniles and cases by year, county, race, gender, and
type of case;
- estimates of the rates of new (first) cases by county, race, and
gender;
- estimates of delinquency recidivism rates for Fulton County (provided
as an example of the calculation of recidivism rates);
- initial results for the association between deprivation and subsequent
delinquency.
The county juvenile court data sets ( prepared by Georgia Tech) consist of a set of files that are related by a unique client identifier. The numbers of records in four of the files are provided in Table 2. The Clayton, Fulton, and Gwinnett data sets contain cases dating back to 1989 (with a few earlier cases). The DeKalb child file begins in 1995, but the cases go back to 1993. (We do not know whether this was a problem in the transfer of the files or in the data base itself.)
The number of cases per child varies from 1.3 in DeKalb County to 2.5 in Fulton County. This illustrates one of the problems in working with the court data (or any longitudinal database). The DeKalb cases only go back to 1993, so any one child only has a maximum of five years in which to accumulate cases. For the other three counties, some children will have had nine years to encounter the juvenile court system. Any attempt to calculate a measure such as recidivism rate should account for differing lengths of exposure.
There are two major sets of issues involved when attempting to analyze
data from a management database. The first set of issues address
data quality:
The juvenile court workload is a function of the number of cases and the number of juveniles in the system at a given time. We have not attempted to count the number of active juveniles or cases at a given time. We have estimated (using first cases) the number of juveniles entering the court system each year (Table 1). Table 3 presents the number of total cases by year and case type. These two measures, new juveniles and total number of cases, provide an estimate for the court workload and indicate historical trends. If we only consider total number of new (first) cases per year, there has been little change over the past four years in Clayton, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties. DeKalb County had a decrease in the number of first cases over the three years, but this may represent a start-up issue, with the entry into the system of juveniles who had prior cases.
The annual number of cases (Table 3) has the same general pattern as the new case data. The total number of cases in Fulton Co. has not changed appreciably since 1994. There has been a continuing, gradual increase in cases in Clayton Co. since 1994, but the 15% increase from 1994 to 1997 does not compare with the 60% increase from 1991 to 1994. The DeKalb data covers a shorter time span and shows an apparent anomaly in 1996-7. A possible explanation is that approximately 1,000 1996 cases were entered into the system (and dated) in 1997.
Distribution of Cases by Case Type (Offense Type)
The Fulton and Clayton case files include a variable (CASETYPE) that classifies cases into six categories - delinquency, deprivation, traffic, unruly, special procedure, and other. The DeKalb case file does not include a similar variable, but the offense file does include a variable with the same categories. The DeKalb data in Table 3 is derived from the offense file. The Gwinnett data base does not include a variable in either the case file or the offense file that corresponds to CASETYPE. If there are multiple offenses for a case (approximately 25% of the cases), then the first listed offense type is used. Table 3 shows the distribution of cases across these categories. There are some differences among the three counties in the distribution of cases across categories (e.g., the unruly proportion in DeKalb is higher than in Fulton and Clayton); but there are not major changes over time, and the county differences may be explained by case classification.
If we sum the cases over the past four years for which we have complete data (1994-7), 53-55% of all cases in each county were delinquency cases (see Figure 1). Clayton County has the highest proportion of deprivation cases (20%), and DeKalb has the highest proportion of unruly cases (18%). The traffic offenses ranged from 9 to 13 % of all cases.
Race: We can describe the racial differences in the juvenile court population, but we cannot determine the causes of the differences. Table 4 provides an estimate of the race-specific first case rate by year and county. [The estimate is obtained by calculating the ratio of first cases to the resident population under age 18. We consider this only an estimate because juvenile cases may be residents of other counties, and juveniles with previous cases are in the denominator but are not eligible to be a first case.] The ratio is relatively consistent over time and across counties for whites (Clayton Co. ratios appear higher than the other three counties). From 1991 through 1994, the ratio increased significantly among African-American juveniles. The ratio (in Fulton and Gwinnett counties) has remained constant since 1994, while the ratio has continued to increase in Clayton Co. In 1997, the ratio of black to white first case ratios ranged from 1.8 to 3.4, meaning that black youth were two or more times more likely to encounter the juvenile court system than white youth.
The problem with using race as an indicator for juvenile offenses is that race is associated with other variables which may be closely linked to juvenile offenses. For example, Table 5 presents the poverty data by county for children under the age of 18. There is a racial difference, and poverty may be the important risk factor for juvenile offenses. The county with the highest poverty rate among white children (Clayton) has the highest first case ratio among whites.
Age: Over 60% of the first cases in the juvenile court system are ages 14 to 17 (with very few 17 year olds). Table 6 shows the peak for 16 year old youth, with about 30% of all first cases for all except Gwinnett County. The higher value (46%) for Gwinnett may reflect more affluence yielding more juvenile access to cars yielding more traffic offenses. The age distribution by type of case (Tables 7A and 7B) shows the influence of traffic accidents on the age distribution for Clayton and Fulton Counties. (There is no case type data for Gwinnett, so we cannot confirm the speculation regarding the association between traffic accidents and the age distribution for Gwinnett Co.)
The age distribution by case type (see Figures 2A and 2B) provides insight regarding the use of the court data to investigate the association between deprivation and subsequent delinquency. Over 50% of all deprivations are for children ages seven and younger. About 75% of all delinquent cases are youth ages 14 and over. Given the limited time covered by our data base (1990 - 1997), many of the abused children with case dates in the early years of the data collection have not reached their prime delinquent years. For example, the child who was five years old and a deprivation case in 1990, was only 12 or 13 years old in 1997 - the last complete year in our current data set. That child is just entering the high risk years for delinquency. We can limit our analysis to children who reached the age of 17 by the end of 1997, but that will exclude children who were abused or neglected at the younger ages. Until we collect more data (longer time period and more cases), we will not know how (or whether) the association between deprivation and subsequent delinquency varies with the age at deprivation.
Gender: Males are more likely to enter the juvenile court system than females, and the difference appears to be slightly race dependent (Table 8). There are about 18 black males for every 10 black females in the juvenile court records; and there are 15 white males for every 10 white females. The consistency across counties is remarkable; the range for the gender ratio is 1.75 to 1.87 for black youth, and 1.49 to 1.57 for white youth.
The proportion of juveniles with only one case on record shows some slight race and county differences, but no gender effect. (In DeKalb County there is a large race difference, with about 40% of black juveniles having multiple cases and only 25% of white juveniles with more than one case. There is also a small gender difference, which is only noteworthy because of its consistency.) There does not appear to be any race or gender difference in Fulton County regarding the number of cases per juvenile. There is only a one- percent spread over the four race/gender combinations. The Clayton County data shows a possible race difference and no gender effect.
The court data, although limited in the number of socio-demographic variables, provides an excellent data source to investigate and describe the involvement of juveniles with the court system. The following examples illustrate uses of the data and potential problems with the interpretation of results.
The recidivism rate is one measure of how well the juvenile court (and other social service or community agencies) are responding to the juvenile and the circumstances that resulted in his/her court appearance. If the system worked, then a juvenile would not appear before the court for more than one incident. For our initial study of recidivism, we chose the juveniles who had their first delinquency case in Fulton County in 1992. We reviewed the cases to date (mid-1998) in the Fulton Co. database to determine if those juveniles had a second delinquent case. Table 9 presents the results of that recidivism analysis for age, race and gender effects. A large majority of juvenile cases (87%) in Fulton Co. are African-American youth. The race data (Table 9A) shows that A-A youth were more than twice as likely to have a second offense as a white youth. The gender data (Table 9B) shows that males are about 1.3 times more likely to have a second offense than a female. However, when we look at the rates by gender and race (Table 9D), we see apparent gender differences for black youth and not for white youth.
The age effect (Table 9C) is more difficult to interpret and illustrates the challenge of working with longitudinal data. If a child is ten years old when he/she commits the first delinquent act, then they will be at risk for another offense as a juvenile for six more years (until their 17th birthday). However, the court (and other) intervention(s) may be more effective at reducing the probability of a subsequent offense for the younger child. The 15 year old first offender will only be at risk for one more year, but their probability of a subsequent offense may be higher - at least on a per year basis.
Our analysis also needs to address the length of time for which we have data. There will only be about one year of exposure (for a second delinquent case) for the ten year old with a first case in 1997. We are using a form of survival analysis to investigate these age effects and to produce more accurate estimates of recidivism.
Deprivation / Delinquency Association
Both theory and research support the hypothesis that abused and/or neglected children are more likely to become delinquent than are children who are not abused and/or neglected. To investigate this association in Georgia juveniles, we selected all juveniles with a deprivation case as their first recorded case. We then reviewed the case files to determine whether these deprived children had a subsequent delinquency case. The results for three counties are presented in Table 10. The rate for all three counties, all races and both genders is 8.9%. There are some differences by county - in Fulton and Clayton the rates are slightly higher for females and whites, but those differences are reversed in DeKalb County. Since we are working with three, relatively independent, county court and data systems, the consistency of the data across counties is surprising.
These deprivation/delinquency data present a conservative estimate of the association between deprivation and delinquency. In the Age discussion of the Race, Age, And Gender section, we described the problem presented by the limited time span of the database and the different age distributions by case type. Even when we control in our analysis for the age distribution, we do not have data to estimate the risk of delinquency for those children with early (age less than 8) deprivation.
Another issue, which we have not discussed, is the cross-over among counties. A child may have a deprivation case in Clayton County and a subsequent delinquency case in Fulton County. The presented individual county results would not identify such a case, and, therefore, would underestimate the association. We have attempted to match (or link) juveniles across counties, and we identified a number of apparent matches (one child with records in two counties). Table 11 presents the number of matches by county pair. We expect to have additional deprivation/delinquency pairs when we include these cross-county cases.
Additional Analyses of the Deprivation / Delinquency Association
The preceding discussion identified the limited time interval of the data base and the time sequence of the deprivation and delinquency cases as factors that could reduce the apparent association between abuse/neglect and delinquency. Both of these factors were examined in brief analyses for Fulton and Clayton counties. Approximately 20% of the youth in the juvenile court system in each county have at least one deprivation.
1. Length of exposure effect. For this analysis, the juvenile population was restricted to youth who were born prior to 1981. Since the court data set includes cases through 1997, this restriction assures that all of the population will have turned 17 during the study period. (There are relatively few delinquent cases for a juvenile over the age of 16. In Clayton county there were 3,132 cases for youth age 16 and only 156 for youth age 17. [Table 7A]) All the youth in this study population will have been through the high risk ages (14 - 16) for delinquent activities. (Approximately 75% of all delinquent cases in Clayton Co. were youth ages 14 - 16.) The limitation of this date of birth restriction is that the study population will not include children whose initial deprivation occurred prior to their 8th birthday.
The association between abuse and subsequent delinquency may be different for those children whose abuse occurred at the earlier ages. One possibility is that early detection of abuse/neglect and early intervention may reduce the probability of delinquency. However, the damage caused by abuse/neglect at early ages may be more severe, with greater probability of subsequent delinquency. These questions can be investigated with a data base covering a longer time.
Table 12 presents the results for the deprivation / delinquency association, with no restriction on the order of the cases, with and without the birth date restriction. There were 10,536 youth in Fulton County with at least one deprivation case, and 2,299 (21.8%) of those youth had at least on delinquency case. That proportion increases to 57.4% (1,198 / 2,088) with the restriction. The corresponding proportions in Clayton County are 17.2% (705 / 4,108) with no birth date restriction and 38.8% (393 / 1,013) with the restriction.
2. Case order effect. Temporal sequence is a requirement for establishing a causal relationship. If one believes that a child with a history of abuse and/or neglect is more like to exhibit delinquent behavior, and that the delinquent behavior is a result of the abuse, then the abuse must precede the delinquency. The children born before 1981, who have both deprivation and delinquency cases (Table 12), are further classified according to the order of the first deprivation and delinquency cases. In Fulton County, 442 (21.2%) of the 2,088 youth whose first case was a deprivation had a subsequent delinquency.
It is also possible that unreported abuse/neglect preceded the delinquency. The delinquency investigation may expose the underlying abuse/neglect and yield a deprivation case with a case date after (or simultaneous with) the delinquency case date. There were an additional 253 youth who had a deprivation case within one month (either before or after) of the delinquency case. The information in the data base used for the analysis is not adequate to determine if the abuse/neglect did precede the delinquency, but the short time period between cases supports that possibility. There are approximately the same number of youth with a delinquency case as their first case, and with the deprivation case more than a month after the delinquency, as had the deprivation precede the delinquency. These distributions in case order are similar for Clayton and Fulton counties.
In addition to case order, the deprivation / delinquency youth can be classified by the combination of cases, adding the unruly cases for consideration. The total population consists of all youth with a deprivation case, and that population can be classified into four categories:
Deprivation only
Deprivation and unruly
Deprivation, delinquency, and unruly
Deprivation and delinquency
The distribution of youth into these four categories, by race and gender, in shown in Table 13. Table 14 presents the distribution by age at first deprivation case.
List of Tables
Table 1. First Cases, by Race and Case Year
Table 2. File Sizes
Table 3. Total Number of Cases, by Case Year, by Type of Case
Table 4. First Case Ratio, by County, Race, and Year
Table 5. Percent Children Ages < 18, Below Poverty
Table 6. Age Distribution, First Cases, 1997
Tables 7A/B. Age Distribution of Cases, by Case Type, 1994-1997
Table 8. Distribution of Total Number of Cases per Juvenile, by Race/Gender
Table 9. Race, Gender, and Age: 1992 Fulton Co. Delinquency Cohort
Table 10. Deprivation / Delinquency Association
Table 11. Cross-County Links
Table 12. Deprivation / Delinquency Association, with Age Restriction
Table 13. Distribution of Juveniles with Deprivation Cases
Table 14. Case Type Groups, by Age at First Deprivation
