اتهامات بدرفتاری و بزهکاری: آیا خطر دستگیری نوجوانان متفاوت از وضعیت اثبات است؟

Abstract There exists a healthy debate about the process and value of substantiation in child welfare. Much of this debate focuses on understanding whether substantiated and unsubstantiated allegations of maltreatment share equal risk of recurrence. In the current study we seek to advance this debate by extending the analyses to focus specifically on the risk of juvenile delinquency. We also seek to determine whether the relationship between substantiation and delinquency varies by race and gender. Our sample includes 38,223 youth between 5 and 16 years of age from Los Angeles County. We use propensity score matching to create relatively equivalent groups and use Cox Regression to model the risk of juvenile arrest. The results indicate that the relative risk ratio of arrest is 2.2 times greater for youth associated with a substantiated report of maltreatment as compared with similar youth associated with an unsubstantiated report of maltreatment. Older youth, and African American youth are also at an increased risk of juvenile arrest. These findings indicate that the process of substantiation is not without merit – as investigators and supervisors are clearly able to distinguish cases based on individual risks and strengths.

. Introduction Allegations of child maltreatment represent a key decision point in child protection. Substantiation is “a means of officially validating the occurrence of prior events (of child maltreatment) in accordance with agency standards” (Drake & Jonson-Reid, 2000, p. 227). Three types of decisions are typically made for allegations: substantiated, unsubstantiated, or inconclusive. In general, it is assumed that a “substantiated” case represents a true incident of maltreatment. Some studies (Thompson et al., 2001) report that children with substantiated reports are at greater risk of harm and require greater need for social services compared to children with unsubstantiated reports. Yet, there exists a healthy debate about the process and the system of “substantiated” and “unsubstantiated” in child abuse reporting (Kohl et al., 2009 and Leiter et al., 1994). A number of scholars suggest that children associated with unsubstantiated reports may share many of the same risks relative to substantiated cases (Kohl et al., 2009). These authors question whether the substantiation process is useful in distinguishing at-risk (Kohl et al., 2009 and Leiter et al., 1994). The current study seeks to help inform and advance this debate by exploring the risk of juvenile arrest for youth associated with unsubstantiated and substantiated allegations of maltreatment. More than 3.5 million children in the United States were reported and received an investigation or assessment for abuse or neglect and an estimated 794,000 (23%) of these investigations were substantiated (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2009). In terms of age, 32% of all allegations were under four years old; 24% were 4–7 years old and 19% were 8–11 years old; and 25% were 12 years and older. Regarding gender, males comprise 48% of allegation referrals. In terms of race and ethnicity, nearly half of all children were White (46%), one-fifth were African American (22%), and one-fifth were Hispanic (21%). The majority of the children were involved in neglect cases (59%), followed by multiple forms of maltreatment (13%), physical abuse (11%), and sexual abuse (8%) (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2009).

6. Conclusion The evidence indicates that youth with a substantiated allegation are significantly more likely to be involved with the juvenile justice system. Thus, the process of substantiation is not without merit – as investigators are clearly able to distinguish cases based on risks and strengths. What remains unanswered is exactly which specific risks and strengths are predictive to subsequent juvenile offending and how child protection might intervene so that youth are less likely to transition from child welfare to juvenile justice.