The Disproportionate Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in ...

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Analysis
The analyses followed the recommendations of Pope and Feyerherm (1990a,b)
and the work of Bishop and Frazier (1988). Multivariate analyses were performed
controlling for additive and interactive effects. Because each of the dependent variables is
categorical (each decision making stage), logistic regression techniques within SASS
were employed. In addition to estimating main effects in additive models, two—way
interactions by race and each of the variables were performed for each outcome or
decision making point in the proceedings. The use of interaction terms allows for the
evaluation of the interactive effects race may have with social, legal, and case processing
variables on each outcome. However, these were not be reported if their inclusion did not
improve the overall chi-square fit of the model over the estimates of the main effects.
Race Specific Findings from Phase One
Each of the stages in the system or the dependent variables were regressed on the
various independent variables controlling for their individual additive effects. The
regression runs were estimated separately for each of the four counties. Although legal
factors (e.g., the severity of the offense, prior record) were most often the strongest
predictor of the severity of the outcome, race effects were present at a number of stages
in a number of the counties. A summary of the race effects and gender effects are
provided in Table 2.