Does Geography Matter? Neighborhood Change and Juvenile Delinquency Among Foster Youth

Background and Purpose: There are mixed findings on whether out of home placement improves well-being among foster youth. For example, some studies reported that out of home placement is associated with increased risk of delinquency.  Yet it remains unclear as to which factors associated with the placement experience increase the risk of delinquency. The current study addresses this knowledge gap. This study aims to investigate how neighborhood change related to placement is associated with the risk of juvenile delinquency.  Based on findings from sociological studies on neighborhood effects, we hypothesize that moving to a neighborhood characterized by concentrated disadvantage, ethnic heterogeneity, and lower residential stability is associated with increased risk of delinquency.  

Methods: The design for the current study is longitudinal.  Our sample is comprised of foster youth from two birth cohorts born in 1983 and 1984 in the City of Chicago, Illinois. The sample was 91% African American and 50% male. Overall, 12% were associated with an official juvenile arrest. We used data from multiple sources, including the 1990 census data and administrative data from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Cook County Juvenile Court.  We used neighborhood cluster as our neighborhood scale, which was developed by sociologists who studied Chicago neighborhoods. To measure neighborhood change, we calculated the difference between home and placement neighborhoods on ten census variables: percentage of households below the poverty line, households on public assistance, female-headed households, unemployed population, and persons less than 18 years old, percentage of African American, Latino, foreign-born, residents living in the same house as five years earlier, and owner-occupied homes, all of which are commonly used in neighborhood studies. We identified two factors within the ten census variables, including concentrated disadvantage and residential stability, and used the two factor scores in the following analysis. We conducted cox regression to model time to first arrest.

Results: The results showed that moving to neighborhood with higher residential stability has statistically significant impact on delinquency. More specifically, each standard deviation increase on residential stability is associated with decrease in the odds of delinquency (Exp(β) =.59, p<.05). In addition, males are significantly more likely to be associated with a formal delinquency arrest as compared with females (Exp(β) =14.55, p<.001).  In contrast with many other studies of maltreatment and delinquency, race did not emerge as a significant predictors.  Perhaps this relation is in part explained at the neighborhood level. 

Conclusions and Implications: The current study is unique and advances the knowledge base with regard to housing vulnerable children and adolescents in substitute care setting.  The findings indicate that neighborhood change is associated with juvenile delinquency among foster youth. More specifically, moving to neighborhood with higher residential stability is associated with decreased risk of juvenile delinquency among foster youth. Our findings suggest that neighborhood characteristics ought to be seriously considered in the decisions surrounding foster care placements. Neighborhood effects might also help the field better understand disproportionate minority contact as it relates to child welfare and juvenile justice systems.