Research summaryFor decades, child welfare scholars and policy makers have been concerned with the strong association between foster care and juvenile justice involvement. Foster care placement may lead to differences in justice system outcomes if youth in foster care face “processing bias”—differentially harsh treatment by agents of the juvenile court. Previous research found that youth in foster care at the time of juvenile justice contact were treated more harshly by the court, resulting in higher rates of punitive case outcomes. We revisit the question of processing bias using detailed administrative data on more than 10,000 adolescents in Pennsylvania in 2015–2019 and a selection‐on‐observables design. We find no evidence of processing bias against youth in foster care. Compared to observationally equivalent cases, those that involve youth in foster care do not experience more punitive outcomes. If anything, our estimates suggest the opposite—youth in foster care are less likely to have a charge adjudicated, be placed under court‐ordered supervision, or enter into juvenile detention. The precision of our estimates and bounding exercises allow us to rule out even modest evidence of punitive processing bias.Policy implicationsThis paper highlights the importance of revisiting the evidence of processing bias within juvenile justice and child welfare agencies. Given the decentralized and continuously evolving nature of these systems, local jurisdictions should investigate their own case outcomes and contexts before implementing reforms to address bias. Yet, many lack the resources for such research and federal support is essential to enhance local data analysis capabilities, promoting more tailored and effective policy reforms. Initiatives that aim to integrate data from multiple systems can better understand and address the needs of overlapping populations, ultimately improving the quality of services and outcomes.

中文翻译：

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寄养青少年是否面临更严厉的少年司法结果？重新调查少年司法程序中的儿童福利偏见


研究摘要几十年来，儿童福利学者和政策制定者一直关注寄养与少年司法参与之间的密切关联。如果寄养青少年面临 “处理偏差”--少年法庭代理人对寄养家庭的苛刻对待，寄养安置可能会导致司法系统的结果出现差异。先前的研究发现，在接触少年司法时，被寄养的青少年受到法院更严厉的对待，导致惩罚性案件结果的发生率更高。我们使用 2015-2019 年宾夕法尼亚州 10,000 多名青少年的详细管理数据和可观察物选择设计重新审视了处理偏倚的问题。我们没有发现任何证据表明对寄养青少年存在处理偏见。与观察上等效的案例相比，那些涉及寄养青少年的案例不会经历更多的惩罚性结果。如果有的话，我们的估计表明情况恰恰相反——寄养青少年不太可能受到指控裁决，被置于法院命令的监督之下，或进入青少年拘留所。我们的估计和边界练习的精确性使我们能够排除惩罚性处理偏差的哪怕是适度的证据。政策影响本文强调了重新审视少年司法和儿童福利机构内部处理偏差证据的重要性。鉴于这些系统分散和不断发展的性质，地方司法管辖区应在实施改革以解决偏见之前调查自己的案件结果和背景。然而，许多国家缺乏此类研究的资源，而联邦支持对于增强本地数据分析能力、促进更有针对性和更有效的政策改革至关重要。 旨在整合来自多个系统的数据的计划可以更好地了解和解决重叠人群的需求，最终提高服务和结果的质量。