Beyond Reoffending and Rearrest: Expanding the Collateral Consequences of Formal Processing to Youth Homelessness

There is robust evidence that juvenile justice contact during formative years is associated with deleterious outcomes. The effect of juvenile court intervention on youth homelessness, however, has received scant empirical attention despite evidence that many justice-involved youth are represented in the unhoused youth and adult population. This study leverages data collected from the Crossroads Study (N = 1115), a longitudinal, multi-site study to explore the impact of formal processing on subsequent experiences with homelessness. This study found that even when accounting for the effect of detention and other factors associated with youth homelessness, youth who were formally processed were twice as likely to report living on the streets compared to their informally-processed peers. These findings highlight the need for researchers to move beyond investigations of criminal justice outcomes to reveal the other ways in which justice-system involvement during adolescence can alter life course trajectories and expose youth to adverse experiences.