The Disproportionate Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in ...

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he is on probation, he knows the rules and he is out there stealing
In addition to the perception of changes in the youth and in family dynamics,
there is also a belief that the court hold youth more accountable due to the demands
placed on them by the schools and society in general.
Our referrals are up, some of our referrals I think are based in that 10 years
ago never would have been referred to us. Some of the kids we are
working with have gotten into fights at school. That used to be handled by
the school authorities and now that becomes a disorderly conduct. Schools
are depending on police for control.
. . . I think that young people are getting charged with more offenses now
than in the past. I am talking about criminal mischief kinds of things and
assaults. In the past, they were fights and they used to get warned and sent
on their way but now they are getting charged. So I think they are getting
charged more than in the past...They were doing the same things 20 years
ago they just weren’t getting charged with it, like playing with matches,
setting fires, back then you would hear of it but you didn’t hear a child
getting charged with it.
In Black Hawk county, the juvenile court personnel expressed a tremendous
amount of concern over state control and the impact of that control on their job. Here, the
sense is that the state is holding the court more accountable for the youth, via paperwork,
review of hearings, and reports to judges. Some dissatisfaction was also indicated
regarding what the role of the officer should be when dealing with youth and within the
office itself. The following statements support these points.
...for many of our officers, the kind of cases
that they directly supervise are the much more