Effects of Socioeconomic Context on Official Reaction to Juvenile Delinquency

Abstract

This study uses survey data in conjunction with police and court records to examine the two-tiered effects of socioeconomic context on official police reaction to juvenile delinquency. The results suggest that neighborhood SES has an inverse effect on police contacts independent of actual law-violative behavior as measured by self-reported delinquency. On the other hand, individual SES has a negative influence on subsequent court referrals independent of both self-reported delinquency and police records. This general result holds for males as well as females, and persists despite controls for the prevalence, frequency and type of delinquency, race, family structure, delinquent peers, and gang membership. Discrepancies between self-reports of deviance and official records are thus not simply due to errors in measurement or different domains of behavior, but to structurally patterned sources of social control.