The research also used information from a review of research literature. It focused on decisionmaking at five points: law enforcement, court intake, court adjudication, court disposition, and Department of Youth Services commitment placement. Independent variables considered included legal variables, community variables, extralegal variables such as demographic characteristics. Results revealed that the youth's race had a crucial role in actions taken at each decision point. It also had a cumulative penetration effect. Race usually affected decisionmaking in indirect rather than direct ways. However, multivariate results indicated that socioeconomic status as perceived by police, court workers, and judges appeared to be a more important predictor than race in accounting for the action taken at each decision point. Findings indicated the need for changes in policies, programs, and services to eliminate the disparate handling of black and underclass youth. Figures, tables, appended instruments, and 32 references