Toward a Structural Perspective on Gender Bias in the Juvenile Court

Abstract

A number of hypotheses about the effect of gender on the likelihood of incarceration in the juvenile court are tested. A purposive sample of 3911 delinquent (nonstatus) offending youths from 19 juristictions throughout the United States is analyzed employing the log-linear technique to control for the legal variables of severity of offense and prior record. The results indicate that females were less likely to be incarcerated than were males throughout the jurisdictions sampled. These and other findings lend support for a structural theory of gender bias in the juvenile court.