African-American Youth in The Juvenile Justice System

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FIGURE 6-1 Involvement of juveniles at various stages of the juvenile justice system, by race, 1996/1997. Note: Delinquency = acts committed by a juvenile that if committed by an adult could result in criminal prosecution. Delinquency referrals = includes not only arrests, but also all other sources of referral to juvenile court, such as social service agencies, schools, and parents. Petitioned = cases sent for formal processing in juvenile court; formal processing includes adjudicatory hearings and waiver hearings. Source: Snyder and Sickmund (1999); Stahl et al. (1999). In a report produced for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Hamparian, Leiber, and colleagues (1997) described the extent of disproportionate minority confinement of juveniles in state facilities. The report focused on six decision points (arrest, secure detention, confinement in secure juvenile correctional facilities, in adult jails, and in adult lockups, and transfer to criminal court), using state data from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Table 6-1 presents findings on the over-representation of minority youth, based on data from the Hamparian et al. (1997) report.1 Hamparian et al. (1997) created an index score, which represents the ratio of the number of youth involved at that decision point divided by the state's total juvenile population ages 10-17.2 An index number of 1.00 means that minorities are represented in the juvenile or criminal justice system in the same proportion as they are represented in the population. An index number larger than 1.0 indicates that minority youth are overrepresented; for example, an index number of 2.0 means that minority youth are represented at two times their representation in the juvenile population. The greater the index number, the larger the extent of overrepresentation. 1. The panel expresses appreciation to Amie Schuck and Jorge Chavez of The University at Albany for their assistance with these analyses. 2. It should be noted that for some states, information was not available for the entire state. In these cases, the at-risk population was calculated for the designated area. Page 50 of 114
TABLE 6-1 Overrepresentation of Minorities Percent Minority Population Arrest Secure Detention Secure Corrections Adult Jail Adult Lockup Transfer Criminal Court All minority youth a Mean 23.2 1.7 2.9 2.8 2.0 2.2 2.4 index 1.8 score b Median 17.2 1.7 2.6 2.4 1.7 1.3 1.9 index 1.8 score N 46 37 44 40 22 10 22 5 Black youth Mean 15.4 2.2 3.2 3.3 1.8 2.6 3.1 index 2.8 score Median 9.2 2.2 3.2 3.2 1.9 1.8 1.9 index 2.4 score N 40 30 32 33 16 11 15 8 Probation Note: Some of the numbers in this table differ slightly from those reported in Hamparian and Leiber (1997) for unknown reasons. a Minority youth include black, Hispanic, American Indian, and Asian or Pacific Islander. b Index score = ratio of number of youth involved at that decision point divided by the at-risk population. Source: Based on information from Hamparian et al. (1997) Table 6-1 clearly reveals that minority youth are overrepresented at all stages of the juvenile justice system included in this analysis. This table also shows that the disparity for black youth is higher, in all cases except one, than for all minorities. This suggests that it is the disparity for blacks that is driving the disproportionate minority representation. This also suggest that some other minorities are underrepresented in the juvenile justice system. Using these data, the smallest index number is 1.6 for arrests of all minority juveniles across the 37 states reporting data on arrests. For black youth, the index for arrests across the 30 states that reported separately for blacks is 2.2. The small number of states that reported data separately for Hispanics, American Indian, and Asian/ Pacific Islanders made it impossible to compare their indices to those for blacks. However, the data suggest that Hispanic and American Indian juveniles experience overrepresentation in the juvenile and adult justice systems, whereas Asian and Pacific Islander juveniles tend to be underrepresented. The above information is presented in an attempt to make concrete the extent of disproportionate representation of racial minorities; however, there are several limitations to these findings that need to be acknowledged. One of the difficulties involved in trying to ascertain the extent of disproportionality in the juvenile justice system is that laws and practices vary by state, and this makes state-by-state comparisons problematic. Thus, there are no standard reporting mechanisms that are Page 51 of 114
Page 2 and 3: Turning the Improbable Into the Exc
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Page 8 and 9: 6. 1 We disseminate Quarterly publi
Page 12 and 13: death their hostility. 17 He came a
Page 18 and 19: eceive the death penalty. Early deb
Page 20 and 21: punishment. The increased ease in t
Page 22 and 23: According to the Office of Juvenile
Page 24 and 25: Proposed Reforms Many scholars stre
Page 26 and 27: Boston, youth court is available to
Page 28 and 29: Types of Incarceration Some inmates
Page 30 and 31: populations relative to their repre
Page 32 and 33: unrelated to crime rates. That is,
Page 34 and 35: targeted media campaign to shift pu
Page 36 and 37: Promoting Alternatives: The JDAI Mo
Page 38 and 39: Nationally, the youth rate of incar
Page 40 and 41: The percentage of black arrests and
Page 42 and 43: Working with Police The OJJDP data
Page 44 and 45: Next, the County Attorney's staff w
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Page 52 and 53: comparable across states, and analy
Page 54 and 55: assault (51 percent for NCVS and 57
Page 56 and 57: FIGURE 6-2 Child risk indicators by
Page 58 and 59: lack youth. The next section examin
Page 60 and 61: one of the few studies of black cit
Page 62 and 63: Huizinga and Elliott (1987) compare
Page 64 and 65: controlling only for present offens
Page 66 and 67: of their sentences (Carroll and Mon
Page 68 and 69: whites. The relative risk for a bla
Page 70 and 71: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Ove
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Page 74 and 75: The Cook County, Illinois, Dispropo
Page 76 and 77: Lancaster County, Pennsylvania redu
Page 78 and 79: Break Down Language Barriers Even t
Page 82 and 83: Notes _____________________________
Page 86 and 87: African American Youth and the Juve
Page 88 and 89: Attachment B Minority Youth in The
Page 90 and 91: Minority Youth in the Juvenile Just
Page 92 and 93: 4 In t r o d u c t i o n Minority y
Page 94 and 95: 6 the community’s service provisi
Page 96 and 97: 8 In Iowa, a Youth Race and Detenti
Page 98 and 99: 10 References Arizona Juvenile Just
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The National Conference of State Le
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Attachment C Racial Disparities in
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POLICY BRIEF: RACIAL DISPARITIES IN
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APPENDIX C. POLICY BRIEF: RACIAL DI
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Advocacy Foundation Publishers Page
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Issue Title Quarterly Vol. I 2015 T
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Issue Title Quarterly Vol. V 2019 O
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LI Nonprofit Confidentiality In The
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Vol. XVIII 2032 Public Policy LXXVI
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Racial Profiling June 2019 … Page
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The e-Advocate Journal of Theologic
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Issue Title Quarterly Vol. I 2015 I
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The e-Advocate Juvenile Justice Rep
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2018 - The Theological Law Firm Aca
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www.TheAdvocacyFoundation.org Page
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