African-American Youth in The Juvenile Justice System

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comparable across states, and analyses that aggregate across jurisdictions may mask important information. The data used in the analysis by Hamparian and colleagues vary for the time period in which they were collected. Information from some of the states is incomplete. Problems with assigning race or ethnicity are reflected in these statistics as well. This brief review, along with evidence cited in other chapters of this volume, strongly suggests that there is racial disparity at various points in the juvenile justice system and in various jurisdictions across the nation. The focus of the rest of this chapter is not to further document disparity, since the evidence appears fairly clear, despite the limitations of existing data. Some of the nation's minority juveniles, most notably blacks, experience higher rates of arrest and further justice system involvement than do whites. The remainder of this chapter examines the research findings that may prove helpful for efforts to better interpret and understand these disparities and identify areas in which research or action is most urgently needed. Earlier in the chapter, contrasting explanations of disproportionality were raised. The first—attributing the disparity to the behavior of the youth—suggests that the disparity is an accurate or reasonable reflection of the extent of involvement in delinquent and criminal behavior by these youth. The second perspective—attributing the disparity to the justice system—emphasizes the persistent effect of bias among decision makers in the juvenile justice system. We first consider the evidence for race differences in delinquent behavior and then consider evidence of bias in the juvenile justice system. Behavior-Based Explanations To explore the possibility that the racial disparity observed in rates of justice system involvement arises as a result of racial differences in criminal conduct, the possibility of error in crime data must first be entertained. Errors could lead to the appearance of racial disparity that, on closer examination, can be shown not to exist. Then, to the extent that racial disparity can be shown to exist, its causes must be explored. In the field of juvenile and criminal justice research, there are several measures that have been used to determine the extent of criminal behavior. In Chapter 2, the issues of measuring delinquency and crime were discussed and it was pointed out that none of the measures is without problems. There is fairly good agreement that the best approach to measuring crime is to use multiple sources of information (Farrington, 1998; Loeber et al., 1998b; National Research Council, 1993). The use of multiple sources of information may be especially rewarding for efforts to understand the sources and causes of racial and ethnic disparity. The three most common approaches to measuring delinquency and crime —self-report surveys, victimization surveys, and official arrest and conviction statistics—all indicate high rates of serious offending among young blacks. While studies using differing methods and sources of data are not in agreement on the magnitude of differences in rates of involvement in youth crime across racial, ethnic, and social class categories, most research does show important differences, particularly with regard to race. Page 52 of 114
Figure 6-1 reveals the substantial overrepresentation of minority youth in official arrest data, showing major discrepancies between black and white youth. These differences are on the order of magnitude of 1.8:1. The racial disparity in offending behavior is lower when the measure used as an index of offending is based on self-reports. For example, using data from the National Youth Survey, Elliott (1994b) found that, at age 17, 36 percent of black males, 25 percent of white males, 18 percent of black females, and 10 percent of white females reported committing a serious violent offense (robbery, rape, or aggravated assault involving injury or a weapon) in the previous year. Thus, selfreport data from this large nationally representative sample reveals differences in criminal behavior between black and white juveniles. It should be noted, however, that the discrepancies were not nearly as large as the differential revealed by official arrest data (1.5:1 for self-report compared to 4:1 for arrest —Elliott, 1999). Greenfeld (1999) presented results to the panel from an analysis of data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the third source of criminal behavior information, for the years 1993 to 1997 (annual average) for robbery and aggravated assault for juvenile offenders. The NCVS, conducted annually by the Bureau of Justice Statistics since 1973, asks victims about their victimization experiences and about characteristics of the offender(s) who victimized them, including race. Information from the NCVS is helpful for crimes involving a personal confrontation like robbery, assault, or rape, but it is not very useful for property crimes for which there was no direct confrontation. Juvenile offenders are defined as those whom victims indicated they believed to have been less than 18 years old. Table 6-2 shows the race distribution of juvenile offenses for robbery and aggravated assault as reported by victims (NCVS) and in arrests from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Several points are worth noting. First, in both sources of information, black juveniles are overrepresented for these two crime types, compared with their proportion in the general population. Second, in both data sources, a higher proportion of white youth are reported for aggravated TABLE 6-2 Race Distribution of Juvenile Offenses for Robbery and Aggravated Assault as Reported by Victims (NCVS) and in Arrests (UCR), Annual Average 1993-1997 Total Robbery Aggravated Assault As reported by victims (NCVS) a Annual average number 949,992 362,498 587,494 % white 42 27 51 % black 41 58 31 % other 14 12 15 Juvenile arrestees (UCR) Annual average number 129,997 49,858 80,139 % white 50 38 57 % black 48 60 41 % other 2 2 2 Note: NCVS = National Crime Victimization Survey. UCR = Uniform Crime Reports a Juvenile offenders are those for whom victims indicated that they believed the offender to have been less than 18 years old. Page 53 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
Page 48 and 49: Both selective inattention (ignorin
Page 50 and 51: FIGURE 6-1 Involvement of juveniles
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
Page 72 and 73: Gase, one of the study’s authors,
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
Page 100 and 101: 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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