Though policy makers in several states have recently proposed establishing a minimum age of juvenile court jurisdiction to reduce justice system involvement for younger children, research examining the effects of justice system contact in childhood on subsequent outcomes is limited. The current study aimed to examine the association between justice system contact in childhood and negative outcomes in adolescence, including self-reported arrest, self-reported delinquency, and self-reported high school dropout. This study used data from the LONGSCAN consortium and genetic matching to match a sample of 47 youth reporting justice system contact by age 12 with 47 control youth matched on 17 theoretically informed covariates. Matching results indicated justice system contact by age 12 was associated with a proportional increase in arrest between the ages of 15 and 16 of .43, a proportional increase in arrest between the ages of 17 and 18 of .47, and a proportional increase in experiencing three or more arrests by age 18 of .28. Further, justice system contact in childhood was associated with a proportional increase in dropout of .30. Significant differences in self-reported delinquency were not found. Sensitivity analyses indicated these findings were robust to omitted covariate bias. According to results, justice system contact in childhood contributes to negative outcomes for child delinquents. Findings suggest policies establishing a minimum age for juvenile court jurisdiction and restricting justice system contact for children may reduce negative outcomes for youth with an early-onset of delinquent behavior.

中文翻译：

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是否需要最低年龄？儿童司法系统接触与青春期负面结果之间的关联性检验

尽管一些州的政策制定者最近建议建立一个少年法庭管辖权的最低年龄，以减少年幼儿童对司法系统的参与，但研究童年时期司法系统接触对随后结果的影响的研究仍然有限。当前的研究旨在检验儿童时期司法制度的接触与青春期的负面结果之间的联系，包括自我报告的逮捕，自我报告的犯罪和自我报告的高中辍学。这项研究使用了来自LONGSCAN财团和遗传匹配的数据，以对47名12岁以下报告司法系统接触的青年与47名对照青少年（在17个理论上得到的协变量进行配对）进行了匹配。匹配结果表明，司法系统在12岁时的接触与15至16岁之间的逮捕比例成正比（0.43），17岁与18岁之间的逮捕比例成比例成0.47以及体验的比例成正比相关在18岁时（.28）发生三起或更多逮捕。此外，儿童时期的司法系统接触与0.30的辍学成比例增加相关。未发现自我报告的违法行为存在重大差异。敏感性分析表明，这些发现对于消除协变量偏差具有鲁棒性。根据结果​​，儿童时期与司法系统的接触会对儿童犯罪产生负面影响。