Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Race, Crime, and Juvenile Justice: The Issue of Racial Disparity
Race, Crime, and Juvenile Justice: The Issue of Racial Disparity
Pages 228-260
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From page 228... ...
States were required to assess the level of confinement of minority juveniles and to implement strategies to reduce disproportionate minority representation where it was found to exist. In 1991, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention created the Disproportionate Minority Confinement initiative to help states comply with the mandate by testing various approaches for addressing the problem.
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From page 229... ...
Key Terms There is considerable confusion and variation in the meaning of terms used to examine and describe the racial disparity in the juvenile justice system. This confusion has contributed to divergent findings regarding the presence or absence of racial bias in the justice system and the tendency to attribute all racial differences in system outcomes to prejudice and bigotry (Walker et al., 1996~.
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From page 230... ...
Using the term racial disparity in this chapter is largely a reflection of the kind of data available. Most official arrest data, as well as victimization and self-report surveys, do not permit an examination of disproportionality by the numerous ethnic groups found in the United States today.
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From page 231... ...
In the last part of the chapter are the panel's specific recommendations for research and policy. RACIAL DISPARITY IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM Although black youth represented approximately 15 percent of the U.S.
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From page 232... ...
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 adjudicatoryhearings and waiver hearings.
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From page 233... ...
ho o ,~ · o Ed ¢ ¢ do ~ u u ~ v)
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From page 234... ...
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.
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From page 235... ...
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. Figure 6-1 reveals the substantial overrepresentation of minority youth in official arrest data, showing major discrepancies between black and white youth.
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From page 236... ...
Annual average number 129,997 49,858 80,139 % white 5 0 3 8 5 7 % black 48 60 41 % other 2 2 2 Note: NCVS = National Crime Victimization Survey. UCR = Uniform Crime Reports aJuvenile offenders are those for whom victims indicated that they believed the offender to have been less than 18 years old.
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From page 237... ...
In contrast, Greenfeld found that for aggravated assault, black juveniles have a one-third higher likelihood of the offense being reported to the police (the rate was 52 per 100 offenders for black youth compared with 39 per 100 for white youth) , a 50 percent higher rate of being referred to juvenile courts (rates for black youth were 22 per 100 compared with 15 per 100 for white youth)
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From page 238... ...
Compared with white children, black children are less likely to grow up in households in which one resident parent is fully employed. In sum, from the early days of childhood, black juveniles have more experiences with poor health care and health conditions and with poor economic conditions, and they are more likely to live in segregated, isolated neighborhoods with concentrated poverty than are white juveniles.
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From page 239... ...
Economic risk indicators also reflect differences between whites, Hispanics and blacks. A total of 32 percent of Hispanic children live below the poverty level, compared with 40 percent of black children and 12 percent of white children.
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From page 240... ...
In 1960, 20 percent of white children lived below the poverty level, 4 percent more than in 1996, with only slight variations in the intervening years (low of 11 percent in 1970 and a high of 17 percent in 1992 and 1993~. The proportion of black children living below the poverty level, although much higher than the proportion of white children, was similarly stable.
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From page 241... ...
The next section examines attempts to consider the influence of exposure to risk factors on rates of violence. Examining Risk Factors to Account For Racial Disparity There is scant research that examines the extent to which risk factors explain racial disparity.
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Proportionately more black juveniles reside in urban areas and therefore are exposed to a greater likelihood of formal processing. Clearly, blacks have been exposed to a wider array of risk factors than have whites.
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From page 243... ...
found that citizens consider police behavior to be among the most important sources of racial disparity. Police often accuse black youth of theft when they have purchased clothing.
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From page 244... ...
reconsidered his earlier conclusion about racial bias, finding that black offenders were more likely to be treated in a punitive fashion by the police even though they were not more likely to be arrested. In subsequent analyses, Smith and Visher (1981)
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From page 245... ...
The Project on Policing Neighborhoods, described in Chapter 5, involved systematic social observations of patrol officers in the field by trained observers who accompanied officers during their entire work shifts (Worden and Myers, 1999~. Worden and Myers reported that 62 percent of the juvenile suspects encountered by police were minority, and 95 percent of these were black.
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From page 246... ...
In contrast to the previous analyses, in officerinitiated cases, in which there is considerable police discretion, the minority status of the juvenile was a significant predictor of arrest. When the seriousness of the crime and the presence of evidence were taken into account, the effect of minority status was no longer statistically significant, although the odds of being arrested remained twice as high for minority juveniles compared with white juveniles.
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From page 247... ...
Referrals to Juvenile Justice Intake Units After the police have encountered youth and have made decisions about whether to continue to process or to divert them, others become involved in the decision-making process. Table 6-4 presents a number of studies that have examined racial disparities at various points in the processing of youth through the juvenile justice system.
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From page 248... ...
National Juvenile Court Data Archives California and Florida, 1985 National Youth Survey National Sample, 1976-1989 No National Youth Survey National Sample, 1976-1989 No Aggregate level multiple sources California, 1991 Nine jurisdictions in Michigan, 1990 Hennepin County, Minnesota, 1986 Florida, 1985-1987 Counties in Pennsylvania, 1989 Counties in Wisconsin, 1985-1991 States, 1980s and l990s Three counties in Washington state, 1990-1991 Uniform Crime Reports, National Crime Victimization Survey, Supplemental Homicide Reports, 1976-1995 36 states, 1995 National Crime Victimization Survey Aggravated Assault Robbery Yes No aDoes not control for important covariates. No determination can be made regarding whether the disparities are justified or unjustified.
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From page 249... ...
RACE, CRIME, AND JUVENILE JUSTICE in the 249 -- report of ~nquency Victim Reporting Arrest Intake Detention Counsel Adjudication Placement Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes yesc Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
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From page 250... ...
Since the 1960s, studies of racial bias in juvenile courts have examined whether court officials treat minority youth more severely than white youth (Aday, 1986; Arnold, 1971; Bishop and Frazier, 1988; Bortner and Reed, 1985; Carter and Wilkins, 1970; Fagan et al., 1987a, 1987b; Horowitz
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From page 251... ...
point out that, although these studies call attention to racial discrimination in the juvenile courts, few have examined the mechanisms by which this process might take place. That is, how might court officials' perceptions of juvenile offenders contribute to racial differences in legal dispositions?
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From page 252... ...
While the additive model was not sensitive to race differences, the interactive model was. Black offenders receiving the most severe sentences tended to be single, from urban areas, had a previous felony record, and committed multiple and more serious offenses.
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From page 253... ...
examined racial disparity comparing American Indians to whites in Arizona. After accounting for previous felony convictions and several other factors, American Indians were found to receive longer sentences than whites for the relatively common crimes of robbery and burglary and relatively shorter sentences for the less common crime of homicide (Alvarez and Bachman, 1996~.
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From page 254... ...
For example, the probability of a white juvenile being handled formally by the courts is: 620, 200 _ 0 011 54, 700, 000 and the probability of a black juvenile being handled formally by the courts is: 326, 500 0 031 10, 700, 000 The probabilities that appear on the inside of Figure 6-3 are the transitional probabilities, computed as the proportion of people at one stage 5The panel expresses appreciation to Jane Costello and Alaattin Erkanli of Duke university Medical School and Nancy Crowell of the National Research Council staff for providing the results of this analysis.
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From page 256... ...
The relative risk for a black juvenile being handled formally, in relation to that for a white juvenile is the ratio of the transitional probabilities: 062 =1.15 0.54 TABLE 6-5 Compounding of Racial Disparity in the Juvenile Justice System Risk of: Relative Black Relative Compound to White Risk Black to White Risk Being arrested Referred to court for delinquency case Case being handled formally Being adjudicated delinquent or found guilty Being put in residential placement 2.00:1.00 1.19:1.00 1.15:1.00 0.93:1.00 1.23:1.00 2.00:1:00 2.38:1:00 2.82:1:00 2.51:1:00 3.12:1:00 Source: Arrest data from Federal Bureau of Investigation (1997) and Snyder and Finnegan (1999~; court and placement data from Stahl et al.
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From page 257... ...
Thus, at almost every stage in the juvenile justice process the racial disparity is clear, but not extreme. However, because the system operates cumulatively the risk is compounded and the end result is that black juveniles are three times as likely as white juveniles to end up in residential placement (see Table 6-5~.
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From page 258... ...
The existence of disproportional racial representation in the juvenile justice system raises concerns about differential exposure to risks and the fairness and equal treatment of youth by the police, courts, and other players in the juvenile justice system. Given the importance of the problem of race, crime, and juvenile justice in the United States, the scant research attention that has been paid to understanding the factors contributing to racial disparities in the juvenile justice system is shocking.
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From page 259... ...
Research should move beyond the traditional focus on urban jurisdictions to include rural and suburban jurisdictions as well. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has been instrumental in the process of collecting data to establish the existence of racial disproportionality among juveniles involved in the juvenile justice system.
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From page 260... ...
. Developing a systematic monitoring procedure to determine the percentage of minority youth being processed through each stage of the juvenile justice system, from initial police contact through confinement release.
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