When Kids Get Arrested: What Every Adult Should Know

15. Does Race Matter?

151 15 Does Race Matter? FACTS 1. Minority children are overrepresented at every stage in the justice system. 2. One in three black boys born in 2001 will spend some time in prison.1 3. Latinos are thirteen times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses than whites.2 4. School failure is a primary pathway into the juvenile justice system. Research reveals that minority children are disciplined more harshly, resulting in a school-to-prison pipeline. During the summer of 2007, the “Jena 6” case rocked the country . Thousands of people across the country rallied to speak out against racial bias in the adult and juvenile justice system. Thousands more went to the small town of Jena, Louisiana, to protest the case of Mychal Bell. The case of Mychal Bell began in 2006 when a group of white students hung nooses on a tree on school grounds. Black parents and the principal wanted the students expelled. Instead, the board of education and school superintendent decided the white students would be sent to an alternative school for nine days and have two weeks of in-school suspension. For months, racial issues continued to escalate in Jena. In December 2006, Mychal Bell, a sixteen-year-old black student, fought with a white student, Justin Barker, in the schoolyard. Justin was knocked out, got a black eye, and went to the hospital. He sustained no permanent injuries. As a result of the fight, Mychal Bell was arrested for aggravated second degree battery and was transferred to adult court where he could have received a sentence of twenty-two years. The case became a national symbol for racial injustice. After Mychal spent a year in adult prison the court of appeals overturned the battery charge and ruled that he would be charged as a juvenile. Mychal was ultimately sentenced to eighteen months in a juvenile facility.3 You can’t have a book about children in the justice system without addressing the overrepresentation of minority children, or “disproportionate minority contact.” Anyone who has spent time in correctional facilities knows that mostly brown and black faces are confined within detention center walls. Some would dismiss this fact by saying that children of color are locked up because they commit more crimes. However, a closer look at the numbers indicates that the reality is much more complicated. WHAT DOES “OVERREPRESENTATION” MEAN? “Overrepresentation” exists when, at various stages of the juvenile justice system, the proportion of a certain population exceeds its proportion in the general population.4 According to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency’s January 2007 report: • African American youth and Latinos are more likely than white youths to be detained for identical offenses. • About half of white teenagers arrested on a drug charge go home without being formally charged and drawn into the system. Only a quarter of black teens arrested on drug charges receive that outcome. • When charges are filed, white youths are more likely to be placed on probation while black youths are more likely to be put into a residential placement. • African American youths are more likely than white youths to be charged, tried, and incarcerated as adults, and African Americans make up 58 percent of youths charged and convicted as adults and sent to adult prisons. 152 IMPORTANT ISSUES AND SPECIAL POPULATIONS • At each decision-making point in the juvenile justice system, minority youths are disadvantaged. And there is a cumulative disadvantage as they travel deeper into the system. The same report indicated that from 2002 to 2004, African Americans were 16 percent of the youth in the general population ; however, African American youths were: • 28 percent of juvenile arrests • 30 percent of referrals to juvenile court • 37 percent of the detained population • 34 percent of the youth formally processed by the juvenile court • 30 percent of the adjudicated youth • 35 percent of the youth waived to criminal court • 38 percent of the youth in residential placement • 58 percent of the youth admitted to state adult prison WHAT CAUSES OVERREPRESENTATION? There is no precise answer to this question; research reveals the following factors have been determined to play a role in overrepresentation:5 • Police targeting patrols in certain low-income neighborhoods. • Group arrest procedures. • Policies requiring immediate release to biological parents. • Location of the offense: white youth using or selling drugs in the house rather than on the street. • Different reactions of victims to...