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Office of Justice Programs, Innovation - Partnerships – Safer Neighborhoods

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Serving Children, Families and Communities

CM - Mobility

One of the realities of modern life is easy access to automobiles and other means of mobility, so that youth who reside in one community may, in fact, spend considerable time in other jurisdictions. While present in those other jurisdictions, it is possible that youth may commit delinquent behavior, resulting in their being arrested and, perhaps, processed further in a jurisdiction other than their own home area. When arrest statistics are compared to census statistics on juvenile population, which are based on the area of residence, the result may be that the rate of juvenile arrests in one area may appear either higher or lower than would be expected. Several forms of such mobility-related DMC have been observed.

Seasonal Mobility

Seasonal mobility occurs when a community has an influx of juveniles during a particular season, frequently either a holiday season (spring break) or a vacation season (summer break). A community may be a destination for many families or youth; depending on the patterns of movement, this may result in higher numbers of youth of color in a community than were recorded in census estimates. For example, many resort communities draw youth from larger urban areas during school holidays. That influx will temporarily change the demographic composition of the juvenile population. As an extreme example, one midwestern county discovered that the arrests of African American youth exceeded the total number of youth estimated in the census as county residents. Further exploration suggests that this county serves as a summer retreat destination for many families, which has the impact of substantially increasing the number of African American youth in the community during the summer.

Attractive Nuisance

Attractive nuisance is a term that might be applied to a number of commercial or entertainment areas, particularly in urban settings. For example, a shopping mall or entertainment facility may be located in a suburban community or an urban neighborhood that has lower proportions of minority residents but draws youth from across an urban area. It is likely that the demographic profile of youth in such a location reflects a higher proportion of minority youth than does the census estimate for the area immediately surrounding the facility.

Immigration- and Migration-Related Mobility

Immigration- and migration-related mobility may have an impact on communities to create higher levels of DMC, particularly where policies of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, formerly Immigration and Naturalization Service) are a major concern. To the extent that jurisdictions detain Hispanic (or other) youth suspected of illegal immigration, DMC numbers are likely to be affected. Moreover, as networks of illegal behavior become more organized and youth from other countries join as participants, DMC numbers may be exacerbated. For example, in one community that monitors RRI numbers, the juvenile agency noticed increasing RRI values for Hispanic youth at the detention stage. The agency generated a list of possible factors, including concerns such as availability of interpretive services, availability of alternative programs, staffing changes, etc. When the agency presented this list to its advisory council, one judicial officer noted that she had seen several cases involving youth from another country who were explicitly brought to the United States as runners for drug trafficking. Upon further exploration, it became clear that there were multiple examples of this phenomenon and that when such youth were excluded from the activity counts, the RRI values were reduced for Hispanic youth. Such a finding provides an opportunity for collaboration between the juvenile justice system and both prevention workers and other agencies concerned with such activity.

Institutional Effects

Institutional effects may occur when a jurisdiction provides residential or detention capacity for a number of other jurisdictions. For example, if a county operates a regional detention facility, then it might appear that its volume of detention activity is higher than in surrounding counties, and if the county includes these nonresident youth in its RRI calculation, it might create erroneous results. This artificial effect is usually eliminated by calculating detention activity or residential placements based on the county making the commitment placement, not the county physically holding the youth.

Differential Behavior

Indirect Effects

Differential Opportunities for Prevention and Treatment

Justice by Geography

Legislation, Policies, and Legal Factors With Disproportionate Impact

Accumulated Disadvantage

Statistical Aberration