A solvable problem: reducing the disproportionality of youths of color in juvenile detention facilities.

Shortly after the establishment of the first juvenile court in 1899, W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the most significant American thinkers of the 20th century, wrote in his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, that "the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line." Also around that time, psychologist G. Stanley Hall coined the term adolescence, describing it as a period between the ages of 12 and 20 that encompassed a developmental state distinct from other periods of life. (1)

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Today, color and adolescence have converged in a way that has led juveniles to be confined in numbers that should give pause to any civil society. During the past 25 years, there has been a dramatic shift in the complexion of youths confined for being in trouble with the law. During that time, the juvenile justice system has shifted from a detained population of 56 percent white to 68 percent minority.

If one were to divide the juvenile justice system into subparts, there would be several points at which decisions are made regarding young people of color and their families. For example, decisions about where to patrol and who to arrest, charge and prosecute can widen the net for youths of color, reports Building Blocks for Youth, an initiative that conducts new research on the disparate impact of the justice system on youths of color. Although there is probably no deliberate, known racism in the majority of cases, Building Blocks for Youth argues that the fact remains that young people of color are represented in juvenile justice systems in numbers that cannot be accounted for by law violations alone.

Moreover, it is explicitly apparent that "the great weight of punitive juvenile justice policy falls disproportionately on [youths of color]," Building Blocks for Youth reports. In addition, according to the Coalition for Juvenile Justice Web site, (2) youths of color "receive harsher sanctions than their white counterparts at every stage" of the juvenile justice system "from the point of surveillance (including racial profiling), to sentencing and incarceration." The coalition also reports that black youths are six times more likely to be incarcerated for person offenses and nine times more likely to be sentenced to a juvenile facility for violent offenses as compared with white youths charged with the same types of offenses. Further, Latinos, who comprise nearly 12 percent of the U.S. population, comprise 15 percent of the youth population sentenced to adult prisons. While such inequalities are startling and well documented, they remain prevalent, the coalition asserts.

According to the article "Juvenile Jailhouse Rocked," (3) the degree of minority overrepresentation in secure detention far exceeds the rates of minority offending. Overall, by 1997, youths of color represented the majority of youths in detention in 30 out of the 50 states (which comprise 83 percent of the U.S. population), the article reports. Currently, about four out of five new youths detained in the juvenile justice system are youths of color. The article also states that disproportionate minority confinement is a serious problem that affects almost every county in the country.

An effective and rational juvenile justice system is required to ensure public safety by securely confining those who pose a risk to themselves and the community. Accordingly, youths who commit serious delinquency offenses should be rightfully detained. Unfortunately, the vast majority of youths of color in local detention facilities are languishing, not for the severity of their offenses but for bureaucratic delays, unaccountable decision-making and outdated policies.

History of Disproportionate Minority Confinement

Disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) entered the national dialogue when Congress reauthorized the 1974 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1988 and required states to make efforts to reduce the proportion of youths of color detained or confined in secure detention facilities, correctional facilities, jails and lockups if such proportion exceeds the proportion such groups represent in the general population. This mandate established the measuring of DMC.

As a result of this mandate, states began to measure their levels of disproportionality and found that, with the exception of Vermont (which did not have enough minorities to be statistically significant at the time of the report), all states were confining youths of color in numbers larger than could be accounted for by crimes alone.

Once states had measured the level of disproportionality, the next phase involved developing strategies to address the situation. It is not an exaggeration to state that the first strategies involved nothing more than hand wringing, in that many of the "intervention strategies" had little to do with directly targeting DMC. Although many of the "programs" reported to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention involve youths of color in some way, their impact on reducing DMC is attenuated at best. For example, if a disproportionality study revealed that young people between the ages of 13 and 15 living in certain zip codes were overincarcerated, rather than attacking the problem head on and actually engaging alternatives to detention, the jurisdiction would take the "youth development" approach and institute after-school programs, tutoring programs, anti-violence programs, etc.

Although many of these are, no doubt, wonderful programs, this response does not address the policies and practices that contribute to DMC. Not surprisingly, the number of minority youths in the system has continued to grow at astonishing rates. Therefore, although every state has completed multiple studies re-examining and restating what they already know, DMC reduction remains a largely unattained goal.

During the past 18 years, despite a core federal mandate and millions of dollars spent, only two of the 3,100 counties in this nation can claim to have successfully reduced DMC over a sustained amount of time. Notwithstanding these paltry results, jurisdictions are beginning to tire of endlessly funding strategies that do not yield results and are seriously beginning to address their disproportionality. Now more than ever, jurisdictions are realizing this is a solvable problem and the innovations and assistance are available for success.

DMC Reduction Strategies

Each year, between 300,000 and 600,000 youths are incarcerated in pretrial juvenile detention facilities, according to a 1997 census by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Most of the youths in pretrial detention are minorities. With the projection that children of color in the United States will comprise more than 50 percent of the nation's youths by the mid-century, unless correct policies are implemented to change the present trend, the racial disproportionate contact rate of youths of color in the largest states--California, Texas, New York and Florida--could well reach 100 percent of the institutional populations within the next decade. (4) Despite this gloomy forecast, reducing DMC while maintaining public safety is achievable.

The W. Haywood Burns Institute and the Annie E. Casey Foundation are involved in working directly with local jurisdictions to reduce unnecessary detention and reduce DMC. According to its Web site, the Casey Foundation established the Juvenile Detentions Alternative Initiative (JDAI) in 1992 to "demonstrate that jurisdictions can establish more effective and efficient systems to accomplish the purposes of juvenile detention." The objectives of JDAI include the numerical reduction of unnecessarily or inappropriately detained children, numerical minimization of failed court appearances or re-offenses pending adjudication by juveniles, the redirection of public funds toward successful reform strategies and the improvement of conditions of confinement.

The Burns Institute is a leading national organization working to reduce the overrepresentation of youths of color in the juvenile justice system. The Burns Institute model requires the active commitment and participation of the key traditional and nontraditional stakeholders in the juvenile justice system in each site, including judges, prosecutors, public defenders, police, probation, political leaders, service providers and community groups. The organization leads these stakeholders through a data-driven, consensus-based process that focuses specifically and

intentionally on reducing disproportionate minority confinement. The Burns Institute has learned from its work in multiple sites that jurisdictions must be focused and strategic in order to measurably reduce disproportionality.

Participating jurisdictions begin the Burns Institute process by forming a representative governing body. This board should include high-level representation from the key agencies in the juvenile justice system as well as representation from community groups, parents and youths. The board is the key decision-making body in the Burns Institute process and is responsible for ensuring that all of the process steps are completed.

The jurisdiction should then hire a full-time, local site coordinator to lead the process locally. Experience has shown that trying to reduce DMC without local staff capacity is a huge mistake. The local site coordinator leads all aspects of the strategic efforts and is responsible for planning and implementing all of the procedural steps enumerated below. The local site coordinator, Burns Institute staff and the board work together to establish a regular meeting schedule, which requires two hours each month; sign a confidentiality agreement; and create a timeline that includes the tasks required and dates by which these tasks should be completed.

Establishing a Baseline. Many jurisdictions contact the Burns Institute wondering if they have a DMC problem. Historically, DMC is measured by comparing the percentage of minority youths (ages 10-17) in the juvenile justice system with the percentage of minorities in the general youth population in a particular jurisdiction. For example, minority youth population represents 26 percent of a particular county in general, yet minority youths represent 72 percent of those housed in secure detention, then it is clear that this county has minority youths detained at a rate disproportionate to its numbers in the population.

There are other ways to measure DMC as well, such as the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's relative rate index. Regardless of the method, it should not be a secret if localities have a disproportionality problem.

Targeted Data Collection. In order to reduce DMC, participating jurisdictions will be required to analyze local juvenile crime data by race, gender, offense, time and location by using police data on juvenile arrests and/or probation data on youths in detention. This data collection is important because it informs participating jurisdictions of certain groups of youths committing specific types of offenses at precise times, so that appropriate interventions and services can be tailored for such youths. For example, in order to reduce DMC, it is important to know if a 14-year-old black male who lives in zip code 94026 and is arrested for minor behaviors in his neighborhood at 3 p.m. on a Sunday can be released to an alternative to detention that provides adequate supervision during the times and in the location most relevant to that youth.

This analysis is important and reveals several things. The jurisdictions learn what the crimes are by ethnicity so that programs can be established that meet the needs of that community. It reveals the time of day to target interventions and services and whether juvenile justice system interventions are available in the communities that need them the most.

Community Profile. Once it is known which communities contribute most to detention, it is important to profile them. The community profile has three components, each of which helps develop a three-dimensional picture of the neighborhood in which young people have to make decisions about right and wrong. Focus groups illustrate the overall strength and deficits of a community. Physical mapping further identifies a community's strengths and deficits as well as offers recommendations for improvement. The creation of a program matrix provides comprehensive information regarding all programs for youths, as well as illustrates the potential lack of adequate services in a particular target community. A key value for the Burns Institute approach to reducing disproportionality is involving the communities that have the majority of interaction with the juvenile justice system. Therefore, the contextual information gathered through the community profile is integral in understanding and implementing any recommendations proffered.

System Flow Chart. Upon completion of the community profile, participating jurisdictions will create a system flow chart illustrating the process in which youths move through the entire juvenile justice system, analyzing the risk assessment instrument by race, defining a local target population that substantially contributes minority youths to detention, and engaging a special analysis of the case review. The juvenile justice system comprises various agencies and organizations, and although all systems persons may understand their own agency's procedures perfectly and may think they understand how other agencies process youths, they may be mistaken about some aspects of how youths are handled by other agencies.

Risk Assessment Instrument--The Front Door. JDAI is the state of the art when it comes to reducing unnecessary detention and rational detention policies. Model JDAI sites indeed have reduced detention and disproportionality while maintaining public safety. The Burns Institute works in conjunction with JDAI to ensure that strategies maintain their focus on youths of color.

As stated above, youths of color are thrust into the deepest parts of the system more quickly than their white counterparts. The JDAI strategies focus on the front door, case processing and placement alternatives. JDAI carefully scrutinizes front door admissions by implementing a risk assessment instrument that objectifies decision-making. Young people are given points based on offense, prior history and other factors that categorize them into low, medium and high risk. Low-risk youths should be immediately released without supervision; medium-risk youths should be released with some supervision to ensure that they get to court and do not re-offend.

Special Detention Cases. From working in the JDAI sites, the Burns Institute knows that probation violations, bench warrants and placement failures are large contributors to overdetention and DMC. JDAI strategies and technical assistance are essential to dealing with these groups of young people. Similarly, JDAI core strategies require analyzing court processing procedures to determine if unnecessary court delays are contributing to DMC.

Time for Action

It is clear from working in jurisdictions that DMC will not be reduced unless jurisdictions begin to be intentional, strategic and committed to implementing the strategies mentioned above. There are no longer any reasons to engage in the "fund and hope" approach. The great American author James Baldwin said that "to act is to be committed." It is time for actions and commitment on behalf of youths of color and their communities.

ENDNOTES

(1) Hall, G.S. 1904. Adolescence: Its psychology and its relations to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion and education. New York: D. Appleton and Co.

(2) See www.juvjustice.org/media/issues.html.

(3) Lubow, B. 2000. Juvenile jailhouse rocked. Advocasey, 1(3). Available at www.aecf.org/publications/advocasey/winter2000/juvenile/juv1.htm.

(4) Snyder, H.N. and M. Sickmund. 1999. Juvenile offenders and victims: 1999 national report. National Center for juvenile justice. Available at www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/nationalreport99/toc.html.

James Bell has been director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity in San Francisco since 2001.