Are Intake Processes in Juvenile Justice Systems Really Fair
The many valid - and even disturbing - questions surrounding fairness issues in the processing (arrest, intake screening, assignment to incarceration) of juveniles into the criminal justice system in America are not new questions; indeed, they have been raised for a number of years. First, the disproportionate number of minorities locked up in juvenile justice systems is a glaring issue which has not really been addressed adequately since the U. S. Department of Justice, under Attorney General Janet Reno, issued a highly critical report in the year 2000; and secondly, in conducting research, one finds an abundance of statistics on the number of juveniles in trouble but little information about the screening process per se. These are issues which need to be addressed, in particular, if one believes the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) statistics that show that the number of "child delinquents" (ages 7 to 12) in juvenile courts has increased 33% in the past ten years (OJJPD, 2003), and arrests for "violent crime" among that same group has risen by 45%.
Another key fact illustrating the institutional bias against minority kids is found in a 1987 study (by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges) of ethnicity in much-preferable private JJS facilities vs. The ACLU research reveals that, "for at least the last ten years, Massachusetts' youth of color have been overrepresented at every decision-making point in the Commonwealth's juvenile justice system. generally miserable public JJS facilities: 35% of private inmates were minorities and 65% were white. But, as to how to "regulate screenings so the influence of extralegal factors can be minimized," what the ACLU says here is probably a template for JJS policies which should be repeated in every state in which there are disparities in the admitting of the number of minorities into juvenile hall. That means, someone in a position of authority, made a decision, at the intake / screening process level, that more non-whites should be incarcerated at public facilities. " How to rectify this situation' The ACLU report recommends "The Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and the Executive Office of Public Safety determine the root causes of racial disparities by examining law enforcement activity and decision-making in Boston's juvenile justice system. Indeed, a kind of institutional racial bias appears obvious in almost every angle in the JJS. The problem in many cases begins at the arrest level; either through racial profiling, or blatant bigotry by police, or over-emphasis upon patrolling minority communities, or anti-gang police units a little out of control, it appears the wheels of injustice at the juvenile justice system are in motion when the youth is arrested. Race: Chances of incarceration are far greater if you're a Black kid Between the years 1985 and 1994, delinquency cases brought through the Juvenile Justice System (JJS) increased by 41%; but more disturbing is the fact that in that time period, delinquency cases involving blacks jumped 78% and cases involving other non-white youths skyrocketed by 94% (Lardiero, 1997). Given this shocking dimension to the problem of youthful offenses, the emphasis, sadly, is likely going to be on prevention and punishment measures rather than fairness and justice with regard to intake processes. For example, "while black youths comprise approximately 15% of the ten-to-seventeen year old population at risk for delinquency" (Bishop, et al, 1996), "they constitute 28% of youths arrested. report asserts; for the same crimes, black kids are in for an average of 254 days - while Latinos serve 305 days, on average. The report did not allude to flaws in the intake processes - but clearly such well-documented and widespread instances of institutionalized bias result from faulty arrest / intake procedures and policies. One of those groups is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which, in its June 2, 2003 report ("Disproportionate Minority Confinement in Massachusetts: Failures in Assessing and Addressing Overrepresentation of Minorities in the Massachusetts' Juvenile Justice System"), challenged Massachusetts to live up to federal mandates vis-A -vis the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
Common topics in this essay:
Public Safety,
Justice Dept,
Janet Reno,
Court Judges,
Act ACLU,
Prevention OJJDP,
African American,
,
System JJS,
juvenile justice,
Race Chances,
justice system,
juvenile justice system,
youth color,
intake processes,
mental health,
aclu report,
justice delinquency prevention,
screening process,
justice delinquency,
department justice,
janet reno,
juvenile justice delinquency,
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Acceptance Essays
