The Disproportionate Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in ...

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The Juvenile Justice System
In response to the closed ended questions about race differences in the system,
most of the juvenile court personnel thought there were rarely any differences in
processing (84 percent responded almost never/never to overall processing) (Table
10,11). When asked if black youth were treated differently than whites in the juvenile
justice system, the respondents split their answers. Forty-three percent said they were
treated differently almost never or never while 57 percent said they were treated
differently sometimes or most of the time.
Although the majority of decision makers believe that bias in the system is a rarity, at
least in Scott County, it was apparent from the interviews that race bias is an inevitable
aspect of the system. For instance, some think that if you start seeing a lot of minorities
or females with bad attitudes, it is difficult not to place expectations on them and/or
stereotype. Thus, decision makers believe it is important to treat each case individually.
We live in a community that is probably 90 percent white and when a
community is that heavily one race, I think some discrimination is
inevitable because people aren’t perfect. I don’t think that we will ever get
everyone to be unconscious of race.
I think it’s possible and I think that should be our goal. I think it’s going to
be very difficult to achieve. But, I think that should be our goal.
I don’t think it’s probable because the juvenile justice system is made up
of so many different people, and I don’t think you’re ever going to get any
kind of bias totally out of everyone, but you can learn how to work with it
and control it.