Riley Starr, a Senior studying Criminal Justice at Michigan State University won first place at the 2025 Honors College Research Showcase for her presentation An In-depth Exploration on Sex Bias in Juvenile Delinquency Risk Assessment.
Starr’s presentation was based on research conducted in 2024 with Dr. Caitlin Cavanagh, Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice, for the Juvenile Risk Assessment Team. Starr collected data through a partnership with a Lansing area courthouse where she was an evaluator for the court’s juvenile rehabilitation programs.
Starr says “I became interested in the issues juvenile delinquents face when I became aware of an absence of research on girls in the juvenile justice system.” The lack of research and data on how to rehabilitate females involved in the juvenile justice system inspired Starr to focus her research efforts on improving risk assessments for female juvenile delinquents.
Starr’s findings suggest that males and females have roughly similar chances of being involved in the juvenile justice system. However, despite having similar risk levels, males were far more likely to be repeatedly involved. This meant that the court’s current risk assessments were not accurately predicting recidivism rates among female juveniles, as they were for males.
While Starr’s tenure with the Juvenile Risk Assessment Team is drawing to and end, she plans on attending Law School in the Fall to continue advocating for minors involved in the Juvenile Justice System.