Extended Foster Care and Juvenile Justice System Involvement
Given the disproportionate rates of juvenile justice system involvement among young people in foster care, this study focuses on the association between extended foster care (EFC) services and juvenile justice system involvement among transition-aged youth (TAY) living in care. This study drew upon California state child welfare administrative data from 2006 to 2016 and included individuals in care between their 16th and 18th birthdays (N = 69,140). Data from the National Juvenile Court Data Archive were retrieved to control for trends in the state’s annual rate of delinquency petitions. Juvenile justice system involvement was documented if a youth moved from child welfare-supervised placement to probation-supervised placement during the study window. The sample was divided into the pre-policy period (2006–2011) or the post-policy period (2012–2016), based on California’s implementation of EFC. The rate of youth experiencing juvenile justice involvement was lower after the EFC policy than before the policy (43% lower for 16-year-olds; 24% lower for 17-year-olds in the post-policy), even after controlling for characteristics of youths captured by the state’s child welfare case management system and the overall decline in delinquency petitions. Results suggest that extension of foster care to age 21 reduces the likelihood that older adolescents in foster care experience juvenile justice system involvement. This finding has national implications in the current era of federally extended foster care, where youths in 28 states can stay in care until their 21st birthday, unless contact with the juvenile justice system makes them ineligible. This study adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the positive benefits of extended care and raises questions for future research.