Placement and Delinquency Trajectories of Youth with Active Juvenile Court Dependency Cases

This is the final research brief in a series conducted as part of NCJJ’s work in the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change systems reform in the juvenile justice initiative. The research brief (8 pages) examines a cohort of adolescent youth twelve years of age and older who were active with the King County Juvenile Court (Seattle) on a dependency matter in the calendar year 2006 to better understand how the trajectories of delinquency offending vary for youth with different placement experiences. Key findings include that the vast majority of youth in the study cohort had histories of dependency court involvement that began early, the youth of color were disproportionately represented in the cohort and were more likely to have child welfare experiences at an early age. Further, more than 80% of youth in the study spent 2 years or more in out-of-home placement and more than 40% were referred on an offender matter between 2006 and 2008. Finally, the vast majority (74%) of dependent youth with some prior history of prior group home referral, prior AWOL episode and prior delinquency referrals reoffended during the study period.