Processing Families: A Historical and Intersectional Analysis of the Los Angeles Juvenile Court

Amanda Sheely, University of Toronto Mississauga

This project provides a rigorous and detailed historical understanding of origins and development of the processes used by the Juvenile Court to identify, classify, and intervene in families. Using a unique data source: 1,933 case files from the Los Angeles (LA) Juvenile Court for cases that started in 1920, we assess how the treatment of families depended on whether they were charged with delinquency, dependency, or a status offense. To shed light on the origins of racial/ethnic inequalities in the child welfare system, we use an intersectionality framework to explicitly consider how court processes were shaped by the characteristics of children (gender, ethnicity, and nationality). Initial quantitative results show that Black and Mexican children were overrepresented in Juvenile Court cases, compared to their share of the population. The reasons that children were brought into court varied based on their gender and nationality/ethnicity. Across all ethnic groups, the most common offenses for boys were related to theft. Among Mexican girls, most cases (62%) were related to not having proper parental control. Meanwhile, the charges among Black and American girls were more evenly split between being without proper parental control, disobedience, and “in danger of leading an immoral life.” The primary goal of the Juvenile Court was to keep children with their families or in the most homelike environment possible. Across all groups, with the exception of Black boys, the majority of children spent some time in an institution, including Juvenile Hall, a foster care placement, or a congregate institution. While Black boys have the lowest proportion sent to institutions, Black girls have the highest. Among American and Black children, girls were sent to institutions more often than boys, while the opposite is true among Mexican children. Indeed, Mexican boys have the highest proportion sent to institutions out of all groups.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 60. Crime, Justice and the Law