Juvenile justice was conceived as a way to intervene constructively in the lives of teenagers in order to steer them away from the adult criminal justice system. It has long been recognized as counterproductive to label children as criminals, because the description becomes self-fulfilling. But for many black and Hispanics children, juvenile justice serves as a feeder system into adult courts and prisons.

Impact:
The racial disparities that characterize criminal justice in America affect young people deeply, and cause minority youth to be over-represented at every stage of the juvenile justice system. Juvenile justice plays an especially destructive role in the lives of minority communities.

Racially skewed juvenile justice outcomes have dire implications, because the whole point of the juvenile justice system is to head off adult criminality. For example, one pillar of the juvenile justice system is the segregation of children from adult prisoners. Placing more black and Hispanic teenagers in adult prisons where they will come into contact with career criminals serves to incubate another generation of black and Hispanic criminals.

In the last decade, juvenile justice policy has increasingly blurred the distinctions between children and adults. Many states and the federal government have adopted laws that permit, encourage, or require youthful offenders to be tried as adults and ultimately transferred into adult prison populations. This ongoing erosion of the juvenile justice system we have known for a century is disastrous for juvenile offenders in general, but minority youths suffer most from this policy shift because they already bear the brunt of racially skewed law enforcement.

For example, minority youths are disproportionately targeted for arrest in the war on drugs. In Baltimore, Maryland, 18 white youths and 86 black youths were arrested for selling drugs in 1980. One decade later, juvenile drug sale arrests had increased more than 100 percent overall, and the almost 5-to-1 racial disparity that existed a decade earlier had become a 100-to-1 disparity: white youths were arrested 13 times for selling drugs in 1990--less than in 1980--while black youths were arrested 1304 times, an 1400 percent increase from 1980.

These figures reflect the broader national experience: From 1986 to 1991, arrests of white juveniles for drug offenses decreased 34 percent, while arrests of minority juveniles increased 78 percent. All this despite data suggesting that drug use rates among white, black, and Hispanic youths are about the same, and that drug use has in fact been lower among black youths than white youths for many years. Similar disparities appear in relation to non-drug-related crimes. While a National Youth Survey found that the ratio of violent crimes committed by black and white male youths was approximately 3:2, the ratio of arrests for violent crimes between these two groups was approximately 4:1, according to data from the FBI. In California, from 1996-1998, Hispanic youth were more than twice as likely, and black youth more than six times as likely, to be arrested for a violent offense than white youth. In short, whatever the age of the offender, "black illegal activity is more likely to lead to attention by the criminal justice system."

Over-representation of minority youths in the juvenile justice system increases after arrest. As a general matter, minority youths tend to be held at intake, detained prior to adjudication, have petitions filed, be adjudicated delinquent, and held in secure confinement facilities more frequently than their white counterparts. For example, in 1995, 15 percent of cases nationwide involving white juveniles resulted in detention, while 27 percent of cases involving black juveniles resulted in detention, even though whites comprised 52 percent, and blacks only 45 percent, of the entire juvenile caseload.

These conclusions based on national statistics were very recently reaffirmed in a report released by the Youth Law Center and prepared by researchers from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. The report found substantial over-representation of minorities at all stages of the juvenile justice system, and noted that three out of every four youths admitted to adult prisons were minorities, despite the fact that the majority of juvenile arrests involved whites.

The experiences of individual states are equally dismaying. Disproportionate confinement of young Hispanics has been documented in each of the four states with the largest Hispanic youth populations-- Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California. In Ohio in 1996, minorities represented 43 percent of the juveniles held in secure facilities, despite representing only 14.3 percent of the overall state juvenile population. Similarly, in Texas in 1996, minority youths represented 80 percent of those juveniles held in secure facilities, while representing only 50 percent of the overall state juvenile population. A 1990 Florida study determined that "when juvenile offenders were alike in terms of age, gender, seriousness of the offense which promoted the current referral, and seriousness of their prior records, the probability of receiving the harshest disposition available at each of several processing stages was higher for minority youth than for white youth." Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American youths are far more likely to be transferred to adult courts, convicted in those courts, and incarcerated in youth or adult prison facilities than white youths.

A recent study of Los Angeles County juvenile justice trends carried out by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) is revealing. Under California law, an under-18 youth may be prosecuted either in juvenile court or adult court, may be sentenced either to a prison term in a California Youth Authority (CYA) facility, and then perhaps transferred to an adult facility at age 18, or given probation. The JPI study concluded that while minority youths are five times more likely than white youths to be transferred to a CYA facility by a juvenile court (a disturbing disparity in and of itself), they are 10 times more likely to be placed in CYA facilities by an adult criminal court. The study found that although minority youths comprised 75 percent of California's juvenile justice population, they comprised almost 95 percent of all cases found "unfit" for juvenile court and transferred to adult court. Cases involving Hispanic youth alone accounted for 59 percent of the cases deemed "unfit" for juvenile court. By contrast, cases involving white juveniles, who make up 24 percent of California's overall juvenile population, were transferred to adult court only five percent of the time. Black, Hispanic and Asian youths in California are six, 12, and three times more likely, respectively, to be transferred to adult court.

The disproportionate number of minority transfers to adult court cannot be explained by the commission of more, or more serious, crimes by minority youths. The JPI study found a 2.8-to-1 violent arrest ratio between minority and white youths--that is, for every white youth arrested for a felony, 2.8 minority youths were arrested. But after the felony arrest stage, the likelihood of minority youths being transferred to adult court as compared to white youths increased to 6.2-to- 1. The ratio of adult court prison sentences increased even further: Minority youths arrested for violent crimes were seven times more likely overall to receive prison sentences from adult courts than white youths arrested for similar crimes. The numbers for black youth were particularly stark. As compared to a white youth who committed a violent crime, a black youth was 18.4 times more likely to be sentenced to prison by an adult court (Hispanics were 7.3 times more likely, and Asian-Americans 4.5 times more likely, than whites to be sentenced to a CYA facility by an adult court). The JPI report concludes that "the discriminatory treatment of minority youth arrestees accumulates within the justice system and accelerates measurably if the youth is transferred to adult court." = The increasingly severe treatment of minority youths in the California justice system has dramatically changed the composition of the State juvenile prison population. Whereas white youths made up 30 percent of the CYA population in 1980, in 1998, they comprised 14 percent. In the next several years, Hispanic youths are expected to comprise 65 percent of the CYA population.

The trend is continuing in California. On March 7, 2000, that state(927320)oters approved Proposition 21, the "Gang Violence and Youth Crime Prevention Act," a measure first proposed during his term of office by former Republican Governor Pete Wilson and supported by current Democratic Governor Gray Davis. Proposition 21 permits prosecutors to charge youthful offenders as adults without obtaining the approval of a juvenile court judge, and imposes longer, sometimes mandatory, sentences on a broader range of crimes committed by juveniles. Membership in a gang, for example, carries with it a mandatory 6-month term. At the same time, Proposition 21 eliminates certain early intervention programs.

The consequences of Proposition 21 are staggering. California taxpayers have voted to spend an additional $1 billion for prison construction at a moment when youth violence is declining throughout the state. They have also voted to incarcerate 15 and 16 year olds in adult prison, despite the fact that teenagers incarcerated in adult facilities are five times as likely to be raped, twice as likely to be beaten, and eight times as likely to commit suicide as adults in those facilities. Given the demonstrable racial disparity in juvenile justice, there is little question that the impact of Proposition 21 will fall largely on minority youth.

Several national trends parallel the California experience: "Tough on crime" juvenile justice policies are in vogue, and minority youths are the primary targets of these policies. First, the overall under-18 population in state prisons is increasing. In 1985, 3400 youths were admitted to state prisons; by 1997, the number was 7400, more than double the prior total. This increase was more pronounced than the increase in arrests during that time. For every 1,000 arrests for violent crimes by minors, 33 youths were incarcerated in 1997, as compared to 18 in 1985.

Second, the number of cases transferred from juvenile courts to adult courts has increased 70 percent in a decade, from 7200 in 1985 to 12,300 in 1994. The prison terms served by these youths has also increased, from a mean minimum term in 1985 of 35 months to a mean minimum term in 1997 of 44 months. Contrary to contentions that this development reflects a surge of violent criminal activity by America's youth, approximately two-thirds of the youths prosecuted in adult court in 1996 were charged with nonviolent offenses. Yet overall, in 1998, nearly 18,000 youths spent time in adult prisons, and approximately 20 percent of these youths were mixed in with the adult population.

Third, minority youths make up the majority of those youths in the state prison system. In 1997, Hispanic and black youths made up 73 percent of the overall under-18 state prison population, a 10 percent increase from 1985 figures. 

Fourth, the disparity between the numbers of minority and white youths in state prisons is increasing, especially for drug offenses. In 1985, the number of black youths held in state prisons for drug offenses was 1.5 times greater than the number of white youths imprisoned for the same offenses. By 1997, the number of black juvenile drug offenders in state prisons was over 5.3 times greater than the number of imprisoned white juvenile drug offenders.

Finally, minority youths are involved in an increasing number of the cases transferred from juvenile to adult court: the number of cases involving white youths that were transferred from juvenile to adult courts increased approximately 50 percent between 1985-1994; transferred cases involving black youth increased almost 100 percent, and are now approximately half of all transferred cases, despite the much smaller percentage of black youth in the overall juvenile population. And cases involving black juveniles were almost twice as likely to be transferred to adult criminal court as cases involving white juveniles, principally because of the relatively large number of transferred (nonviolent) drug cases involving black juveniles.

Background:
Recent years have brought an ever-increasing reliance on juvenile justice policies that downplay rehabilitation and favor incarceration of children in adult facilities. This trend represents a major departure from a century of U.S. juvenile justice practice -- and imposes grave harm upon children and their families. Moreover, because the racial disparities that occur throughout the American criminal justice system mean that minority youth are over-represented at every stage of the juvenile justice process, punishment-based approaches to juvenile justice play an especially destructive role in the lives of minority communities.

In the past decade, nearly every state has enacted or toughened laws making it easier to try juvenile offenders as adults. On March 7, 2000, for example, California voters approved Proposition 21, the "Gang Violence and Youth Crime Prevention Act," a measure first proposed by former Republican Governor Pete Wilson during his term of office and supported by current Democratic Governor Gray Davis. Proposition 21 calls for the increased incarceration of 15-and 16-year-olds in adult facilities, permits prosecutors to charge youthful offenders as adults without obtaining the approval of a juvenile court judge, and imposes longer -- sometimes mandatory -- sentences on a broader range of crimes committed by juveniles. Membership in a gang, for example, carries with it a mandatory 6-month term. At the same time, Proposition 21 eliminates certain early intervention programs. In February 2001, an appeals court ruled that the portion of Proposition 21 that transfers from judges to district attorneys the decision whether to prosecute a juvenile as an adult is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers by stripping courts of what is essentially a sentencing decision.

Ill-conceived efforts to facilitate the transfer of juveniles into the adult justice system have not been limited to the state level. For the past several years, Congress has considered legislation that would permit U.S. Attorneys to prosecute youths as adults for certain crimes and require states to take the same approach with respect to their juvenile offenders. Despite the disproportionate impact of such measures on minority youth, these proposals would also lift the requirement that states collect data on racial disparities in their juvenile systems.