Children with disabilities in poor households: association with juvenile and adult offending.
Social Work Research › Vol. 34 Nbr. 2, June 2010
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Children with disabilities in poor households: association with juvenile and adult offending.
Disabled youths are arrested, adjudicated, and recidivate at higher rates than their nondisabled peers. Although multiple theories have been offered to explain the relationship between disability and delinquency, the empirical evidence is limited and contradictory. Little is known about how disability may be associated with offending once poverty and family risks like maltreatment are controlled for. Using administrative data from a Midwest state, this article discusses results from a Cox regression of juvenile and young adult offending outcomes for low-income disabled compared with nondisabled youths (N = 1,568).Youths with disabilities had higher rates of juvenile court petitions than similarly low-income peers. In models of adult offending, there was no relationship between disability status and adult arrest, but youths who had received educational services for emotional disturbance or other categories of health impairment had higher risk of entering adult corrections.
KEY WORDS: adolescents; delinquency; disability; learning disabilities;poverty ********** Disabled youths are arrested, adjudicated, and recidivate at higher rates than their nondisabled peers (Morris, Schoenfield, Bade-White, Joshi, & Morris, 2006;Wagner, Newman, Cameto, Levine, & Garza, 2006). Although multiple theories have been offered to explain the relationship between disability and delinquency, the empirical evidence is limited and contradictory. For example, little is known about whether disability status is associated with juvenile or adult offending above and beyond risks associated with poverty or child maltreatment. If children with disabilities are more at risk for later offending behavior, then targeting prevention to those systems where disability is identified and served is a logical approach. If, however, the increased risk of offending can be explained by poverty or experience of maltreatment, this may suggest an approach of targeting these areas of risk rather than focusing on services for disabilities.This study helps fill a gap in knowledge by increasing our understanding of whether disability status is associated with a higher risk of later juvenile or adult offending within a low-income sample that excludes children with any report of abuse or neglect. BACKGROUND Youths with disabilities are overrepresented in the juvenile and adult justice systems. Between 23.0% and 57.7% of youths in correctional and deten tion facilities have...See the full content of this document
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