Background: Among arrested juveniles, Black and Hispanic youth are more likely to be formally booked than White youth
When interacting with juveniles, police officers have considerable discretion over how to handle arrests. In less serious cases, for example, officers can simply release the youth with a warning or can call the youth’s parent or guardian. In more serious cases, officers can issue a citation or an order to appear in court. Finally, of course, police can formally book the youth and admit them to a local detention facility. In cases involving a formal booking process (in which the charge is officially logged and the youth’s fingerprints are recorded), the arrested youth will officially have a juvenile criminal record. Understanding the processes governing this entry-point into the criminal justice system is especially important, as the records that are produced at this stage can have serious consequences on other opportunities such as employment and on how one may be treated in subsequent interactions with the criminal justice system (through rap sheets, risk assessments, etc).
We know that there is substantial variation in what actions follow a juvenile arrest. Less than 40%, for example, lead to a formal booking, while just over 40% lead to a citation, and about 20% lead to neither. (This variation does not exist in adult arrests: between 70% and 80% of adult arrests lead to a formal booking; just over 20% lead to a citation, and almost none lead to neither.) It is also clear that the outcome of a juvenile arrest varies widely depending on the race of the youth. Black youth, for example, are about 50% more likely to be booked following an arrest than white youth; Hispanic youth are about 18% more likely to be booked than White youth. And White youth are 40% more likely to be released with a warning than Black youth. Even for youth who are arrested multiple times, the racial disparity persists: White youth being arrested for the fourth time are fifteen percentage points less likely to be booked than Black youth arrested for the fourth time, and only three percentage points more likely to be arrested than Black youth arrested for the first time.
Figure 1: Status of Arrests by Race/Ethnicity for All Juvenile Arrests
Figure 2: Status of Arrests by Race/Ethnicity Youth Arrested for the First Time
In this study, O-Lab affiliate Steven Raphael and Sandra Rozo investigate two critical questions regarding these disparities in juvenile arrest patterns: first, how does an initial booking influence the likelihood that a person will be booked as a result of a future arrest? In other words, are police officers more likely to formally book an arrestee if that person has previously been booked? And second: how much of the racial disparity we observe in juvenile booking rates can be attributed to racial bias on the part of the arresting officer?
Finding 1: Prior bookings make future bookings more likely
To determine what effect a prior booking has on the likelihood one will be booked during a future arrest, the researchers examined data from the Monthly Arrest and Citation Register, which provides detailed information on all recorded arrests and citations in California. They observed individuals who were arrested at least twice between 1990 and 2013, comparing those whose first arrest occurred just before 18 with those whose first arrest occurred just after they turned 18, but for a similar or the same crime. Given the close proximity in age, the key difference between these comparison groups is that, for one group (those initially arrested just before their 18th birthday), the arresting officer has far more discretion on how to handle the arrest, while for those occurring after age 18, a dramtically higher proportion of arrests leads to a booking. Ultimately, they found that, when comparing two suspects, a suspect is about 11 percentage points more likely to be booked during a second arrest if he or she had previous been booked during his/her initial arrest. In other words, the decision an officer makes about how to handle the arrest of a juvenile affects more than that single arrest; it can have a serious effect on how an individual may be dealt with in any subsequent arrests.
Finding 2: Much of the racial gap can be explained by where the youth was arrested (and by what agency), reflecting persistent racial segregation in California cities.
Given the implications an initial arrest can have on one’s prospects in any subsequent interactions with law enforcement, the racial disparities described earlier become all the more salient. It is possible, however, that these disparities can be driven by differences in the kinds of crimes youth are arrested for, by the number of times they may have interacted with law enforcement prior to the initial booking, or by differences in the way different agencies handle juvenile arrests (for example, it’s possible that many of the white youth in the sample may have been arrested in areas where law enforcement are generally more likely to issue citations to youth).
As it turned out, the data confirmed these hypotheses to an extent, as it became clear that about three-quarters of the racial disparity in booking rates could be explained by including detailed analyses of differences in the types of crimes youth were arrested for, prior involvement with law enforcement, and by differences in the agencies processing the arrests.
Finding 3: Racial disparities are highest when police officers have high discretion over how to process an arrest.
After controlling for the type of crime and the arresting agency, about one-quarter of the racial disparity in booking rates remains unexplained. This gap could either be the result of racial bias or of differences between the arrested youth that we cannot measure but which would lead officers to treat them differently. To understand this, the researchers examined the relationship between officer discretion on racial gaps in bookings. They found that racial disparities in booking rates are the highest for offense categories where police officers have the most discretion over how to handle the arrest, such as in non-violent felonies. In addition, in comparing booking rates for juveniles and adults, there is a far sharper increase in the booking rates for white youths at and above age 18, which both narrows the racial gap among those over 18 and also supports the finding that discretion in processing juvenile arrests leads to greater racial disparities in booking rates. In short, when police officers have more discretion in how to handle arrests, racial disparities are more likely to arise. This is strong evidence that racial gaps in booking rates can be explained by differential treatment by police officers of youth of different races.
Policy Implications
“When police officers have more discretion, racial disparities are more likely to arise.”
Given the clear and significant racial gaps in juvenile bookings, it is important to consider how the processing of a juvenile arrest may permanently impact life prospects of the youth. Criminal records are a critical factor in one’s opportunities in life, with implications for how one is treated by police officers during law enforcement interactions, how one is assessed by employers, and what kinds of social services, education, and housing one is able to access. The disparities revealed in this study underscore the need for deep and far-reaching re-thinking of how police departments interact with communities of color, and of how bias - explicit and implicit - continues to impede progress toward racial equity in the criminal justice system.