Sociology Ph.D. Dissertations

Collateral consequences of juvenile arrest: investigating adult prosocial behavioral and attainment outcomes

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Thomas Mowen (Committee Chair)

Second Advisor

Wendy Watson (Other)

Third Advisor

John Boman (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Stephen Demuth (Committee Member)

Fifth Advisor

Danielle Kuhl (Committee Member)

Abstract

Juvenile arrest is recognized as a major turning point in an adolescent’s life. Research has examined the influence of juvenile arrest on future offending, punishment, and incarceration. Yet, only a handful of studies have examined the consequences of juvenile arrest on adult prosocial outcomes such as employment and civic engagement. Drawing on 19 waves of data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this dissertation examines the effects of juvenile arrest on educational attainment, gainful employment, and civic engagement. Broadly, there are four goals of this study. First, from a life-course perspective, I explore the role of timing of first arrest on adult prosocial behaviors and attainments. Second, drawing from labeling theory and the concept of cumulative disadvantage, I examine the effects of repeated arrest on adult outcomes. Next, I seek to examine if there is an interaction effect between timing of first arrest and repeated arrest. Finally, I examine whether race/ethnicity conditions the relationship between arrest and adult prosocial behaviors and attainments. To address these goals, I present three analytical chapters that examine the effects of juvenile arrest on different adult prosocial outcomes. The first analytical chapter examines the effects of juvenile arrest and repeated arrest on educational attainment. The second analytical chapter examines the effects of arrest on later adult gainful employment. The final analytical chapter investigates the relationship between arrest and civic engagement. Each chapter uses a two-stage statistical analysis. First, using propensity score models, I test whether there is a treatment effect of age at first arrest on each outcome. I found that for my measures of adult prosocial attainments (educational attainment and gainful employment), there is a treatment effect for experiencing first arrest as a juvenile compared to as an adult. There were no treatment effects for timing of arrest for civic engagement. Second, using multilevel modeling I test how longitudinal factors, such as cumulative arrest, condition the observed relationship between age at first arrest and each outcome. Frequency of arrest was significant for only two of my five outcomes; weeks worked and political awareness. In regard to cumulative disadvantage, I found two significant interactions between age at first arrest and cumulative arrest. I found that there were two interactions between total arrest and race/ethnicity. Together the findings from my dissertation provide insight into the effects of arrest timing and the cumulative effects of repeated arrest on adult prosocial outcomes such as education, gainful employment, and civic engagement. Ultimately, the findings of this study carry significant policy implications for the juvenile justice system. The biggest is that the criminalization of children carries significant impacts on adult attainments.

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