Juvenile justice in Louisiana: an exploratory study of trends surrounding juvenile incarceration

In the State of Louisiana, one of the major problems surrounding youth is juvenile delinquency. Several studies have been conducted regarding juvenile delinquency, however, actual research pertaining to recidivism among youth offenders who were later incarcerated as an adult vs. those who were not incarcerated as an adult are limited. For this study, chi-square analyses were conducted to analyze the association between six variables and recidivism. The age of first OJJ contact was the only variable that was not statistically significant. Such knowledge is crucial for research and policy formation at the local, state, and national levels for positive progression on this issue. Based on the chi-square analyses results, the researcher learned that majority of the independent variables (gender, race, supervision level, number of OJJ contacts, and gang affiliation) had a statistically significant relationship with recidivism.