The Disproportionate Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in ...

was counted as only one referral. The unit of analysis is the juvenile rather than the
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charge. Additional delinquencies were taken into account by the variable ‘Current
Number of Charges’, which will be discussed later in the chapter. The study did not
examine why youth commit crime or police decision making as it pertains to juveniles.
Each of the counties differ in their racial composition and in the number and type
of referrals. Therefore, different sampling techniques were used to create racial
comparison groups. The sample selection employed in each county will be discussed
separately. Sampling procedures, variables, and the statistical procedures employed are
presented in Table 1.
Black Hawk County: A total of 9,011 referrals were identified for the twelveyear
period. Since the study focuses on racial differences, it was important to have
adequate number of both whites and minorities represented in the sample. Therefore,
disproportionate stratified sampling was employed to create racial comparison groups. A
random sample of 1,218 referrals of delinquent cases involving white youths from a total
of 8,111 was selected for the analyses. The entire population of black youths (n= 900)
was targeted to provide a sufficiently large number for comparison purposes. Of this
number, 823 were included in the study because the files for the remaining cases were
missing or had been destroyed. The total sample for the analysis for this county
numbered 2,030.
Woodburv County: A total of 10,331 referrals were identified during the time frame of
the study. A random sample of referrals