Anyone who has set foot inside a juvenile detention facility in America has seen it first-hand n a sea of black and brown faces dressed in orange or blue jumpsuits with only a scattering of white faces in between.
Although Congress sought to address the disparity 20 years ago, as part of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, young people of color still suffer disproportionate arrest rates and harsher prison sentences than whites, according to a new report out of the nation’s capital.
Blacks under 17 years old comprise just 17 percent of the nation’s youths, but represent about 30 percent of those arrested, says the report, “Critical Condition: African American Youth in the Justice System,” released in September by Campaign for Youth Justice.
“It is baffling that we are still faced with this serious problem of racial disparities in our justice system,” said Liz Ryan, president and CEO of Campaign for Youth Justice.
In the city of St. Louis, African-American youth represented 95 percent (3,638) of the 3,830 delinquency referrals received by Family Court in 2007.
Of the disparity, Juvenile Court Judge Jimmie Edwards said it’s both about race and class. He also noted that nearly 80 percent of black youths arrested in the city of St. Louis are arrested by black police officers.
Furthermore, just look at the arrests by ZIP codes. Last year, the St. Louis City Family Court found that more than 70 percent of kids detained in the city were from the 63118, 63101 and 63115 ZIP codes.
“Most of the kids arrested come from areas where people are poor and struggling,” Edwards said. “It’s easier to arrest a poor kid than a rich kid, because people think that if you’re arrested in a certain ZIP code then nobody cares.”
The NAACP supports the report’s findings and points to the infamous Jena Six n in which a half-dozen black Louisiana youth were initially prosecuted for attempted murder in adult court for their role in a schoolyard fight with a white classmate n as just one example of how prejudice embeds itself in the judicial system.
“It is difficult for any American of conscience to say with conviction that our current legal system is operating with the creed ‘equal justice under the law,’” Hilary O. Shelton, director of NAACP Washington Bureau, said.
Edwards said fixing families is key to reducing the incarceration rates of black youth. Most youth end up in the system for three reasons: lack of parental supervision, too much idle time and economic constraints, he said.
“The people who are going to affect change with youth the most are the volunteers,” Edwards said. “Any time you see a coach with a child, that child is not breaking into someone’s house.”
Missouri youth corrections praised
Missouri’s system for rehabilitating delinquent youth has been singled out again as a national model, this time being honored as “the guiding light for reform in juvenile justice” by a leading child advocacy group.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation gave the Missouri Division of Youth Services its 2008 Innovations Award in Children and Family System Reform. The award, administered by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, comes with $100,00 to be used to train other states to mimic Missouri’s programs.
Dubbed the “Missouri Model,” the state’s youth corrections system is known for focusing on rehabilitation, rather than punishment. In recent years, multiple states have sent officials to tour Missouri’s youth facilities.
Missouri’s youth services programs underwent a transformation beginning in the 1970s, after the state was singled out by the federal government for its prison-like youth facilities. Since then, the state has moved to smaller residential programs, in which offenders are organized into groups of 10 to 12 and serve as role models for one another.