The study focused on seven urban areas with relatively high concentrations of minority ethnic youth and one rural area with a relatively low concentration of ethnic minorities. Information was obtained on 17,054 case decisions (14,432 males and 2,622 females), all between the ages of 12 and 17. The cases were processed over a 15-month period (2001-2002). Four decisionmaking points of case processing were analyzed: the police decision about whether to refer the case for prosecution, the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) about whether to pursue a prosecution and the decision of a court about detention or bail, the CPS or court decision about case disposition, and the court's decision about the nature and length of the sentence. The study did find differences in decisions at the aforementioned stages of case processing according to gender and ethnicity. Although many of these differences were due to variation in case characteristics independent of gender or ethnicity, this was not always true. There were differences in decisionmaking that suggested discriminatory treatment by gender and ethnicity; for example, there was a higher proportion of prosecution of Black males, detention for a greater proportion of Black and Asian males, a slightly greater use of custody for Asian males, a higher rate of prosecution and conviction for young males of mixed parentage, and a higher proportion of Black males who received a sentence of 12 months or more.