Criminalization of Sexual Minority Youth and Civic (Dis)Engagement: Collateral Consequences of Sanctioning in Young Adulthood

Background & Purpose

Adolescent subpopulations within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community increasingly face disparities in the juvenile justice, criminal justice, and educational systems.

Specifically, recent evidence has demonstrated that sexual minority youth (SMY) are more likely to receive sanctions (suspension, expulsion, juvenile incarceration) than heterosexual peers, predicting later involvement in the criminal justice system. With some exceptions, many of these SMY disparities are unexamined.

This study offers an empirical follow-up, evaluating the longitudinal effects of institutional sanctions on SMY. I test whether, in light of increased exposure, youth sanctions have a greater effect on young adult civic involvement for sexual minorities compared to heterosexuals.

This study offers previously unidentified findings and makes significant contributions to social work research and policy agendas by advancing the field's evaluation of criminal and juvenile justice disparities, outlined in the most recent Grand Challenges for Social Work. This research also advances knowledge on civic barriers faced by sexual minorities, a marginalized population for which political engagement is doubly important.

Methods

Data and sample.  This study uses public-use data from Add Health (N = 6,504; Waves I-III). Restriction to observations across three waves yields a paired analytical sample of 4,882 participants.

Measures and analysis.The predictor, sexual minority status (SMS), is taken from indicators of same-gender attraction, behavior, and SMS self-identification. Additional covariates include gender, age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, school climate, violent behavior, educational attainment, civic involvement in adolescence, and parent’s civic involvement.

Using exploratory factor analysis, a scale is constructed for civic engagement outcomes. First, latent items for measuring engagement indicators are isolated, reducing the scale to 10 items for inclusion. A weighted sum of the factor matrix is calculated by scaling factor coefficients to observed scores, producing a refined composite measure.

Regression analyses are performed in three stages using ordinary least squares: (1) a full model assessing net impact; (2) a restricted analysis; and (3) a moderated analysis to determine the effect of the sanctions on civic engagement by SMS.

Results.Net of sanctions, I find that SMY are predicted to have significantly higher civic disengagement in young adulthood. Furthermore, among equally sanctioned youth, SMS continue to have significantly lower civic engagement later on. Results of the moderated analysis extend these findings, indicating that the effect of educational sanctions on civic engagement is significantly greater for SMY than heterosexuals, predicting a 2.2 unit decrease on civic engagement measures. Comparable effects of criminal justice sanctions are not found.

Conclusions & Implications

These findings suggest that sanctions may have a more negative impact on SMY. More precisely, suspensions or expulsion may produce collateral consequences for sexual minorities’ future civic participation, perhaps compounded by the propensity for SMY to receive a sanction and experience sociopolitical marginalization. The implications of these findings for evaluating zero-tolerance policies and promoting equitable school climate for LGBT youth are considered. I further explore the theoretical possibilities of Erving Goffman’s “patterns of mortification” for advancing the field’s evaluation of social control and zero-tolerance policies.