Children with Disabilities in Poor Households: Association with Juvenile and Adult Offending

Disabled youths are arrested, adjudicated, and recidivate at higher rates than their nondisabled peers. Although multiple theories have been offered to explain the relationship between disability and delinquency, the empirical evidence is limited and contradictory. Little is known about how disability may be associated with offending once poverty and family risks like maltreatment are controlled for. Using administrative data from a Midwest state, this article discusses results from a Cox regression of juvenile and young adult offending outcomes for low income disabled compared with nondisabled youths (N = 1,568). Youths with disabilities had higher rates of juvenile court petitions than similarly low-income peers. In models of adult offending, there was no relationship between disability status and adult arrest, but youths who had received educational services for emotional disturbance or other categories of health impairment had higher risk of entering adult corrections.