This research proposal investigates whether children in foster care in the United States are more likely to become involved in the juvenile justice system than children raised by their parents. Drawing on existing literature, the proposal reviews contributing factors such as maltreatment, lack of education, mental health challenges, peer influence, and instability within out-of-home placements. The study outlines a mixed-methods design using quantitative data from juvenile justice courts across five states (2018–2020) and qualitative data from self-administered questionnaires. It also addresses sampling criteria, ethical considerations, anticipated limitations, and implications for social work practice and policymaking aimed at reducing juvenile delinquency among foster youth.
In the United States, many children cannot live with their parents for a variety of reasons (Cutuli et al., 2016). Such children are typically cared for under the foster care program or out-of-home care initiative. Foster care encompasses children who live with relatives or foster parents in a range of settings, including supervised independent living, emergency shelters, group homes, or residential care facilities (Goodkind et al., 2013). Only children who are still below the age of 18 are placed under foster care. The American juvenile justice system, by contrast, handles minors found to have committed criminal offenses (Bishop & Johnson, 2010).
Juvenile offenders are defined as children who have committed a crime while still below the age of 18 (Leone & Weinberg, 2010). This study seeks to evaluate whether children under foster care are more prone to involvement in the juvenile justice system than those cared for by their parents. According to the Children's Bureau (2014), the United States foster care program provides services to over 0.4 million children living outside of the home on any given day (Cutuli et al., 2016). As a result, children who do not live with their parents are more vulnerable, and thus face higher chances of negative life experiences. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has revealed that many children under foster care undergo severe maltreatment that leads to juvenile delinquency, ultimately resulting in involvement in the juvenile justice system through arrest (Leve et al., 2012).
It is widely believed that most juvenile offenders come from the foster care population and, in part, from underprivileged families. However, this remains an opinion that has not been confirmed by research (Flores et al., 2018). According to the Office of Juvenile Justice, increased delinquency and juvenile justice involvement also result from social changes such as shifts in economic status, residential mobility, and changes in social climate factors like healthcare accessibility. Therefore, this study will evaluate the family backgrounds of juveniles as a primary factor associated with juvenile offending and justice system involvement (Bishop & Johnson, 2010). The study will also seek to establish how a juvenile's community of residence contributes to justice system involvement (Goodkind et al., 2013).
Most youth offenders in the United States come from foster care programs in part because many attend under-resourced schools with minimal recreational facilities (Braverman et al., 2011). Various agencies — both public and governmental — must therefore give attention to the voices, experiences, and opinions of these youth (Leone & Weinberg, 2010). Furthermore, many communities that appear to propagate delinquency lack adequate resources to support young people (Bishop & Johnson, 2010). Most foster care centers have also not received sufficient support from the government. In 2012, the District of Columbia reported that 22% of its population was living in poverty, and 34% of those impoverished individuals were children (Cutuli et al., 2016). More strikingly, 54% of the poor children in the district were enrolled in foster care programs. These statistics directly support the claim that the juvenile justice system is driven significantly by children in foster care (Leve et al., 2012).
There has been a notable trend in juvenile justice cases, and America has responded to these changes over time. Within the last decade, escalating juvenile delinquency cases pushed policymakers to review how offenders are punished. Juvenile justice shifted away from a primary rehabilitation model toward a more punitive approach in most juvenile detention centers (Goodkind et al., 2013). According to Roush, the purpose of juvenile detention was to provide temporary, safe custody — consistent with court jurisdiction — for children who require a restricted and secure environment while awaiting legal determination (Leone & Weinberg, 2010). However, some policymakers have opposed juvenile detention, arguing that it does not meaningfully contribute to rehabilitation. The central research question of this study, therefore, is: Are children in foster care more likely to become involved in the juvenile justice system than non-foster care children? (Bishop & Johnson, 2010).
The juvenile justice system was formed to help reduce juvenile crime rates across the country (Bishop & Johnson, 2010). Any nation would aspire to have zero juvenile offenders. Establishing whether foster care programs contribute to higher rates of juvenile delinquency would inform policymakers and the government of the need to take appropriate measures to restructure foster care centers into healthier environments for children's growth and development. Such initiatives would contribute substantially to a reduction in juvenile justice cases experienced within the United States (Leve et al., 2012).
According to Snyder and Sickmund, juvenile justice has been a growing concern for some time, prompting the creation of a unique juvenile justice system focused on treatment and rehabilitation (Bishop & Johnson, 2010). Although the juvenile justice system aims at restoration, Simpson argues that reforms such as the right to treatment are essential to juveniles' rights (Leve et al., 2012). Failure to provide adequate treatment to juvenile offenders would undermine the entire rehabilitation premise of the system.
Most policymakers are concerned with developing effective policies to address juvenile crime (Goodkind et al., 2013). The central challenge is how to protect the public from juvenile offenders while simultaneously rehabilitating juvenile delinquents. Currently, most states employ incarceration to punish young offenders; however, incarceration may ultimately contribute to higher long-term crime rates (Braverman et al., 2011).
Some states are increasingly placing juveniles in group settings alongside other young people with similar histories of juvenile delinquency (Bartollas, 2010). In many instances, placement in a group care setting is the last option before an individual is sent to a state training facility for incarceration. According to Vorrath (2011), group treatment approaches such as positive peer culture use group therapeutic processes to inspire juveniles toward positive change (Braverman et al., 2011). Nonetheless, association with delinquent peers has become a strong predictor of further delinquent and offensive conduct (Cutuli et al., 2016). Peer influence in group settings has also been reported to increase substance use over time among juveniles (Bishop & Johnson, 2010).
The adoption of treatment measures grouping juvenile delinquents with similar backgrounds may foster bonding (Leve et al., 2012). However, there is no guarantee that enrollment in a treatment plan will lead youths to internalize pro-social norms or be positively influenced in the long term (Goodkind et al., 2013).
Many foster care children are in serious need of government support to access higher education (Goodkind et al., 2013). Many also require guidance on the importance of enrolling in and completing a certificate or degree program (Cutuli et al., 2016). According to the Public Welfare Journal, more than 0.5 million children were in foster care programs by 2015. Research has shown that educational attainment is a significant contributor to juvenile justice system involvement: youths with low or no education engage in juvenile delinquency at considerably higher rates (Goodkind et al., 2013).
Earlier studies indicate that more than one-third of juveniles entangled with the justice system had previously suffered child maltreatment (Braverman et al., 2011). It is therefore necessary to establish how child maltreatment in foster care exacerbates juvenile justice involvement, in order to disrupt that link (Cutuli et al., 2016). Research also shows that youths in out-of-home placements often experience mental health challenges, which in turn increases juvenile justice involvement (Leone & Weinberg, 2010).
According to Bowlby (2013), most children in foster care are destined to live in uncertainty. The continuous drift between foster care placements and the absence of a permanent home automatically impedes a child's development (Goodkind et al., 2013). A stable base is essential for an individual to develop a sense of identity and pursue personal goals. Beyond the lack of intimacy and attachment, extended stays in foster care also lead to frustration and aggression (Leone & Weinberg, 2010). A child raised in an unstable foster care environment may develop deep-seated anger that, if left untreated, can erupt into juvenile delinquency (Cutuli et al., 2016). Earlier research indicates that nearly 50% of youths removed from home were later arrested, convicted, and imprisoned (Leve et al., 2012). Children who experience abuse and those in foster care are three times more likely to engage in criminal behavior than those who remain in their homes (Szilagyi et al., 2015).
Although much of the existing literature suggests that juveniles in foster care are prone to involvement in the justice system, the government has in recent years directed increased support and policy reforms toward foster care centers to minimize maltreatment (Leone & Weinberg, 2010). These efforts may have shifted outcomes (Bartollas, 2010). This research will therefore establish the most current relationship between juvenile foster care and the juvenile justice system in order to inform policymakers about appropriate measures and policies (Cutuli et al., 2016).
This study will obtain and analyze quantitative data from juvenile justice courts across at least five states in the United States, covering the period from 2018 to 2020 (Leone & Weinberg, 2010). The study will account for various demographic variables, including age, gender, race, place of residence at the time of and prior to arrest, and highest academic level attained. Individual-level data will also be collected for children below the age of 18 who were placed in juvenile foster care within the same five states during the study period (Goodkind et al., 2013). This data will be obtained from the Department of Human Services, which — in addition to operating child welfare systems — oversees behavioral health systems that regulate mental health and substance abuse (Bishop & Johnson, 2010). The Department of Human Services serves as a data warehouse that integrates information from its systems, including child welfare, substance abuse, and mental health. Because these data are nonvolatile and time-variant, they will enable the study to trace juvenile movement across systems within the study period (Leve et al., 2012).
Children whose age would be recorded as zero at the date of last family engagement, and those with missing gender data, will be excluded from the study. Adopted children will also be excluded because the Department of Human Services assigns adopted children new case numbers, which would result in data duplication. The study will further exclude children who had juvenile justice involvement prior to entering foster care, since the study is specifically interested in foster care's subsequent relationship to justice system involvement. Only children in out-of-home placement prior to their first juvenile justice involvement will be analyzed (Goodkind et al., 2013).
The study will use purposive sampling to select the five participating states. Purposive sampling involves the researcher deliberately selecting sites and individuals based on specific study criteria. The study will also draw on data from the two most recent years available — 2019 and 2020.
The study will use self-administered questionnaires to collect qualitative data from juvenile justice administrative staff regarding their perceptions of foster care youth involvement in the juvenile justice system. Questions will be designed to address specific objectives and the research question. Open-ended questions will be included to allow participants to express their thoughts freely.
This study will use Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) to evaluate the association between juvenile foster care and juvenile justice system involvement. GEE is a branch of the generalized linear model suited for longitudinal or clustered data. Using GEE is advantageous because it produces unbiased marginal regression coefficients regardless of the assumed correlation structure (Cutuli et al., 2016).
Because this study will obtain data from state departments of Human Services, lack of staff cooperation is likely to pose a challenge. Additionally, some departments may not maintain up-to-date records in a usable format due to staff negligence or resource constraints.
The study will obtain consent and ethical approval from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB), and the Clinical Social Work Association (CSWA). The study will also comply with data protection laws, ensuring that no individual's personal information is made public (Leve et al., 2012).
This proposal is likely to face several challenges. First is the methodological challenge of evaluating the relationship between juvenile foster care and the juvenile justice system (Cutuli et al., 2016). Data limitations require the use of administrative data to establish this link, and administrative data lacks the depth of measures available in other research designs. Second is a challenge with sampling: while some earlier studies have excluded very young juveniles from analysis, others have excluded adolescents, creating inconsistencies that complicate comparison (Leve et al., 2012).
A third limitation concerns race. According to Chung et al. (2010), African American children represent a disproportionately large share of both the foster care and juvenile justice system populations. Prior researchers have attributed this overrepresentation to socioeconomic factors: African American children are more susceptible to poverty, and poverty is associated with both foster care placement and juvenile justice involvement (Goodkind et al., 2013). As a result, African American youth may be more likely to appear in the justice system during data collection and sampling, potentially skewing findings relative to white juveniles.
This study proposal would inform changes in social work practice at foster care centers to ensure that juveniles maintain stable school enrollment. Earlier findings show that children in out-of-home care experience more school transfers and suffer academically compared to their peers (Bartollas, 2010). Because educational attainment is linked to juvenile justice involvement, securing educational stability for foster care children would reduce the rate of juvenile justice engagement, particularly among foster youth (Cutuli et al., 2016).
Without consistent and caring caregivers, juveniles often develop attachment difficulties that persist throughout their lives, contributing to low self-esteem — itself a predictor of criminal activity. The study would therefore recommend that foster care and juvenile justice systems serving youth from backgrounds of neglect, abuse, instability, and trauma adopt more supportive frameworks (Leve et al., 2012).
"Data collection, sampling, and analysis plan"
"Social work and policy recommendations from findings"
Cutuli, J. J., Goerge, R. M., Coulton, C., Schretzman, M., Crampton, D., Charvat, B. J., & Lee, E. L. (2016). From foster care to juvenile justice: Exploring characteristics of youth in three cities. Children and Youth Services Review, 67, 84–94.
Leone, P. E., & Weinberg, L. A. (2010). Addressing the unmet educational needs of children and youth in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems.
Goodkind, S., Shook, J. J., Kim, K. H., Pohlig, R. T., & Herring, D. J. (2013). From child welfare to juvenile justice: Race, gender, and system experiences. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 11(3), 249–272.
Leve, L. D., Chamberlain, P., Smith, D. K., & Harold, G. T. (2012). Multidimensional treatment foster care as an intervention for juvenile justice girls in out-of-home care. In Delinquent Girls (pp. 147–160). Springer, New York, NY.
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