New article alert: Youth homelessness and formal juvenile justice processing

Dr. Cavanagh's latest article, Beyond Reoffending and Rearrest: Expanding the Collateral Consequences of Formal Processing to Youth Homelessness, is out now in Justice Quarterly.

The US is experiencing a housing crisis. Does formal processing in the juvenile justice system increase the likelihood that youth will experience homelessness?

Although we know justice-involved adults and youth are disproportionately likely to be unhoused, we don’t know much about the accelerating effect of juvenile court intervention on youth homelessness.

Among a sample of youth in three states who were arrested for the first time, we found that formally processed youth were TWICE as likely to report living on the streets 1 year after their first disposition, relative to their informally processed peers. 

This was true when accounting for the effect of detention, age, race, prior offending, drug/alcohol dependence, evaluation of living situation, and history of running away/homelessness.

Researchers should consider moving beyond recidivism when examining the impact of system involvement. Formal processing may disrupt many other factors of a youth's life, which can have a cascading effect on the rest of their lives!

Practitioners should move away from formal processing when possible, given evidence that it is detrimental. We can't expect youth to succeed upon reentry if they are unhoused. We need more wraparound services to avoid youth slipping into homelessness upon exit from court supervision.