Minority Youth Over Representation in the Juvenile Justice System: An Overview of the Issue and Federal and State Responses

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Minority Youth Over Representation in the
Juvenile Justice System An Overview of the
Issue and Federal and State Responses

• Michael J. Leiber, Ph.d.
• Virginia Commonwealth University
• mjleiber_at_vcu.edu
• Presented at the Youth Violence Prevention
  Conference University of Missouri-St. Louis
• April 8, 2010

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Background

• In 1989, the disproportionate minority
  confinement mandate (DMC) was passed as part of
  the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and
  Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974 (Public
  Law 93-415, section 223a23.

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Background

• States receiving funds from the federal
  government are to develop a comprehensive
  approach to the disproportionate minority youth
  presence in the juvenile justice system
• - Formula Grant Funds

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Background

• In 2002, the DMC mandate was amended as part of
  the reauthorization of the JJDP Act
• address juvenile delinquency prevention
  efforts and system improvement efforts designed
  to reduce, without establishing or requiring
  numerical standards or quotas, the
  disproportionate number of juvenile members of
  minority groups, who come into contact with the
  juvenile justice system.
• Changed from confinement to contact

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DMC - History

• The purpose of the DMC Core Requirement remains
  the same to ensure equal and fair treatment for
  every youth in the juvenile justice system,
  regardless of race and ethnicity.

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DMC mandate
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DMC mandate

• Interrelated and Ongoing Stages
• Identification extent of presence
• Assessment search for causes/
  contributing factors
• Interventions reduce DMC
• Evaluation see if interventions working
• Monitoring assess over time

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Extent of Presence

• Nation wide
• From 2002 to 2004, African Americans were
• 16 of youth.
• 28 of juvenile arrests.
• 30 of referrals to juvenile court.
• 37 of the detained population.
• 34 of youth formally processed by the juvenile
  court.
• 30 of adjudicated youth.
• 35 of youth judicially waived to criminal
  court.
• 38 of youth in residential placement.
• 58 of youth admitted to state adult prison.

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Latest stats - 2005

• See Table 1

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DMC assessment phase

• The purpose of conducting an assessment study is
  to provide policy makers and system practitioners
  with precise information upon which interventions
  can be developed and implemented to reduce DMC
• A search for causes, contributing factors to DMC

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DMC

• To understand DMC
• Differential offending
• minorities commit more crime and more
• serious crime
• Tracy some studies that find evidence of bias,
• discover minorities commit more crime

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DMC

• Arrests suggest race differences in delinquent
  behavior or differential offending however,
• problems with arrests- police deployment
  patterns, race profiling, biased
  decision-making, data itself

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DMC BACKGROUND

• Additionally,
• some self-report survey data indicate few
  race differences in the commission of delinquency
  
• (e.g., Piquero Brame, 2008).
• Or Huizinga and colleagues (2007) found that the
  extent of self-report differential offending did
  not solely account for differences in police
  referrals to juvenile court

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DMC BACKGROUND

• Second explanation for DMC, selection bias
• This is where the system focus comes into play

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DMC BACKGROUND

• Bias has many forms
• Direct intentional, overt, conscious
• Subtle unintentional, indirect, unconscious
  
• tied to legitimate factors but
  racially
• tainted, just as harmful,
  disadvantaged

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DMC

• Subtle unintentional, indirect tied to
  legitimate and extralegal factors
• e.g., assessments about family Pope and
  Feyerherm
• secure detention
  Leiber and Fox
• Assessment studies need to be conducted with this
  in mind

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DMC - Other Examples of Subtle Bias

• Bridges and Steens (1998) analysis of
  pre-disposition reports written by juvenile
  probation officers provides powerful evidence of
  racial stereotypes and their influence on
  recommendations at disposition. In these
  accounts, race was correlated with attributions
  about the causes of crime and to perceptions of
  the risk of re-offending and harsher
  dispositions.

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DMC BACKGROUND

• That is, probation officers more often attributed
  offending among whites to external and alterable
  causes (e.g., delinquent peers, problems at
  school), while crimes committed by African
  American youth were more often attributed to
  internal and enduring character traits (e.g.,
  aggressiveness, lack of remorse).
• These causal attributions corroborated beliefs
  that minority offenders are more dangerous than
  whites, which in turn provided the basis for more
  punitive recommendations (see also, Steen et al.
  2005).

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DMC BACKGROUND

• Graham and Lowery (2004) also found attributions
  about the causes of crime to be linked to racial
  disparities in punishment responses among
  juvenile court probation officers and police
  officers.

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DMC assessment

• Studies of Juvenile Justice System
• Pope and Feyerherm (1993)
• Pope and colleagues (2003)
• Bishop (2005)
• Engen and colleagues (2005)
• Pope and Leiber (2005)
• Conclude most studies find evidence of overt
  and subtle bias even after considering influence
  of legal and extralegal factors

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DMC BACKGROUND

• Appears Both Differential Offending and
  Selection Bias play a role in DMC

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DMC mandate
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DMC BACKGROUND

• If differential offending as a reason for DMC
• Interventions focus on crime prevention
• family dysfunction
• drugs
• negative peer influences,
  associations
• lack of quality education
• lack of access to meaningful
  employment

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DMC BACKGROUND

• If bias accounts for DMC
• Example Solutions
• structure decision making at detention
• and intake (race neutral)
• cultural sensitivity training
• advocates
• diversity in hiring
• education

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DMC

• Recently, Bishop (2005), Kempf-Leonard (2007) and
  Piquero (2008)
• have argued that there is a need to examine
  factors that may be linked to both differential
  offending and selection bias
• e.g., impoverished communities, heavy emphasis
  on crime control, high crime rates, etc.

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DMC mandate

• Evaluations/Monitoring
• Overall, there are only a few interventions that
  have been evaluated (e.g., detention diversion
  advocacy program or DDAP, Alternatives for
  Youths Advocacy initiative or AFY, detention
  reform in Multnomah county)
• These have shown some success at reducing DMC.

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DMC mandate

• Given that twenty years have passed since the
  passage of the DMC mandate, this is a significant
  limitation since there are relatively few known
  evaluations of strategies created and implemented
  to reduce minority overrepresentation.

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DMC mandate

• Success or Failure?
• On one side of the continuum,
• Tracy (2005 2002) views as a failure,
  wrong
• focus, should be on crime prevention

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DMC mandate

• Another view but seen as failure
• Bell and Ridolfi (2008) of the W. Haywood Burns
  Institute critique of the DMC mandate centers on
  the lack of benchmarks and the failure to change
  procedures that result in bias and minority youth
  overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system
  

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DMC mandate

• Leiber and Rodriguez are in the middle of these 2
  views -
• some problems, some room for improvement
• but also see advances
• not a zero sum situation. Bringing about change
  within organizations is often slow, complex and
  evolutionary. It is a process involving forward
  movement, backward movement, and at times, no
  movement.

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DMC mandate