Failures in Addressing DMC in Connecticut's Juvenile Justice System

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8. Cases Resulting in Confinement/Commitment – the number of cases where the juvenile is founddelinquent and committed to the custody of the Department of Children and Families;9. Cases Transferred to Adult Court – the number of cases where the juvenile is transferred fortrial in the adult criminal court.2003 Connecticut RRI OverviewRelative Rate Index Compared with WhiteJuvenilesReporting Period Jan / 2003State : Connecticut through Dec / 2003County: All CountiesBlack orAfrican-AmericanNativeHawaiianor otherPacificIslandersAmericanIndian orAlaskaNativeHispanicor Latino AsianOther/Mixed2. Juvenile Arrests 2.67 --- 0.28 --- 0.41 --- 1.163. Refer to Juvenile Court 4.44 2.28 0.24 --- 0.03 --- 3.024. Cases Diverted 2 --- --- --- --- --- --- ---AllMinorities5. Cases Involving SecureDetention1.45 1.63 1.89 --- --- 1.39 1.526. Cases Petitioned 1.11 1.14 1.11 --- --- 1.14 1.127. Cases Resulting inDelinquent Findings0.98 1.03 1.27 --- --- 1.10 1.018. Cases resulting inProbation Placement0.93 0.95 0.97 --- --- 0.72 0.939. Cases Resulting inConfinement in SecureJuvenile Correctional1.17 1.11 1.03 --- --- 1.67 1.15Facilities10. Cases Transferred to3Adult Court--- --- --- --- --- --- ---Group meets 1% threshold? Yes Yes Yes No No NoStatewide data on diversion of juveniles from Superior Court Juvenile Matters are not readilyavailable. As will be discussed in the recommendations section, collecting diversion program data byrace, ethnicity and offense type would help to determine the extent of disparate treatment of minorityyouth between the point of arrest and referral to juvenile court.Using the RRI formula, the following can be said about Disproportionate Minority Contact inConnecticut’s juvenile justice system:African-American juveniles are 2.67 times more likely to be arrested than their Whitecounterparts;2 Cases diversion data is not available on a state-wide basis by race and ethnicity. While some of this data is collectedlocally by Youth Service Bureaus, aggregate data is not readily available.3 Data for juveniles transferred to adult court by race and ethnicity was not available for 2003.4
Minority juveniles are 3.02 times more likely to be referred to juvenile court than their Whitecounterparts. The extent of this disparity is much greater for African-American juveniles thanfor Latinos (RRI of 4.44 for African-Americans compared to RRI of 2.28 for Latinos);Once referred to juvenile court, minority youth are 1.52 times more likely to be placed in pretrialdetention than their White counterparts who are referred to court;Minority youth referred to court are just as likely as their White counterparts to have their caseshandled judicially, to be found delinquent and to be committed as delinquent to the Departmentof Children and Families.The RRI overview points to juvenile arrests, referrals to Superior Court Juvenile Matters andplacement in secure pre-trial detention as areas of concern regarding DMC. These three decisionmakingpoints should be the focus of future work in this area.Comparison of 2003 Data to 1998 Data1998 4 2003WhiteBlack orAfrican-AmericanHispanicor Latino Asian WhiteBlack orAfrican-AmericanHispanicor LatinoAsianConnecticutPopulation % 74.92% 11.15% 11.07% 2.66% 71.11% 12.37% 13.73% 2.79%10-15 Years Old N 231,156 34,398 34,153 8,208 211,284 36,760 40,806 8,291Referred to Juvenile DRI 0.66 2.52 1.85 0.19 0.63 2.81 1.44 0.15Court % 49.26% 28.07% 20.52% 0.50% 45.00% 34.76% 19.82% 0.43%N 5,719 3,259 2,382 58 7,103 5,487 3,128 68Cases InvolvingSecure Detention DRI 0.37 3.91 2.47 0.05 0.49 3.17 1.83 0.23% 27.99% 43.64% 27.35% 0.13% 34.99% 39.24% 25.14% 0.63%N 220 343 215 1 1,052 1,180 756 19Cases Resulting inCommitment to DRI 0.38 3.32 3.04 0.18 0.55 3.10 1.62 0.19DCF % 28.29% 37.07% 33.66% 0.49% 38.79% 38.39% 22.28% 0.54%N 58 76 69 1 289 286 166 4Prior to the advent of the RRI as a generally accepted tool for measuring DMC, most states used amethod called the Disproportionality Rate Index (DRI). While this measure can prove biased whencomparing jurisdictions to each other, it is presented here as a basis for gauging Connecticut’s progressin addressing DMC since 1998. As was the case in 1998, minority children and juveniles inConnecticut are still two to three times more likely than their White counterparts to be referred to4 1998 DRI data is made available here from the Reassessment of Minority Overrepresentation 2001 report, commonlyknown as the Spectrum Associates report. The Spectrum Associates report, however, used a population of 10-16 years ofage and their referral statistics were based on “instant offense.” The “instant offense” is defined as the juvenile’s last casedisposed in the study year. The data provided to the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance by the Court Support ServicesDivision of the Judicial Branch, however, includes all offenses in the calendar year.5
Page 1 and 2: Out of Balance:Failures in Addressi
Page 3: accountability was built into the p
Page 8 and 9: court. It must be reiterated that,
Page 10 and 11: Based on their proportion of the po
Page 12 and 13: 7. Connecticut Must Use More of its
Page 14 and 15: APPENDIX II: RAW DATA FOR ALL DECIS
Page 16 and 17: 1. AREA REPORTED 2. MINORITY GROUP:

Failures in Addressing DMC in Connecticut's Juvenile Justice System

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