Covering the Juvenile Justice System: Kids Behind Bars, the Role of the Media and More
Our friends at the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (JJIE) spent this week at the Kids Behind Bars: Where's the Justice in America's Juvenile Justice System? conference in New York, discussing the juvenile justice system and the role of the media in reporting facts (good) and sensationalizing stories (bad).
Their takeaways are relevant for journalists and bloggers but also for readers of this blog, many of whom work with(in) the juvenile system. During day 1 of the John Jay Symposium, speakers discussed:
- the now discounted superpredator theory from the 1990s and the role of the press in perpetuating it
- research findings showing that the human brain does not reach full maturity until the mid-20s
- the importance of mentoring
- disproportionate minority contact
- school discipline policies
- juvenile justice reform efforts
Racial Disparities and the School-to-Prison Pipeine [video]
Alexa Gonzalez, a 12 year old student in New York City, never imagined that an average day at school would turn into her being handcuffed. The schoolgirl was caught scribbling on her desk “I love my friends Abby and Faith” by her Spanish teacher and was immediately taken to the principal office where the police was called. She was then handcuffed, tried in family court, found guilty, had to do community service, write an essay about lessons learned from the incident and ultimately suspended from school.
Similar events are occurring all over the country as confirmed by the U.S. Department of Education that released statistics showing that minorities, particularly African Americans and Hispanics, are being suspended and/or arrested for the same minor offenses over their White counterparts.
Suspensions, Expulsions Mask the True Issue
Recently, the U.S. Department of Education released a study documenting disproportionality in rates of suspensions and expulsions in public schools across the United States.
The report, which covered 72,000 schools across the United States, states that African-Americans only make up 18 percent of youth at the studied schools, but 35 percent of students suspended once and 39 percent of those expelled.
These findings mirror one aspect of a Texas study released last year, which found that African-American students in Texas were 31 percent more likely to be disciplined in school, at least once, than otherwise identical Caucasian or Hispanic students.
Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board looked at these findings and deduced that this highlights the need for increased school choice. Just as importantly, it highlights another education reform priority – the overcriminalization of students of all races.
As zero tolerance policies have increased in both scope and consequences (now covering fish oil dietary supplements, asthma inhalers, oregano, and butter knives), more and more minor misbehavior spurs referrals to the justice system or triggers suspensions, when it previously would have been handled through parental involvement or traditional disciplinary methods, such as a visit to the principal’s office, after-school detention, or requiring the student to perform school or community service.
Black Students Face More Discipline in Schools
New data from the Department of Education finds that black males face much harsher discipline in public schools than other students. These findings validate what many activists have been saying for awhile: that there is increasingly a school-to-prison pipeline for students of color.
From the New York Times:
Although black students made up only 18 percent of those enrolled in the schools sampled, they accounted for 35 percent of those suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended more than once and 39 percent of all expulsions, according to the Civil Rights Data Collection’s 2009-10 statistics from 72,000 schools in 7,000 districts, serving about 85 percent of the nation’s students. The data covered students from kindergarten age through high school.
One in five black boys and more than one in 10 black girls received an out-of-school suspension. Over all, black students were three and a half times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.
And in districts that reported expulsions under zero-tolerance policies, Hispanic and black students represent 45 percent of the student body, but 56 percent of those expelled under such policies.
“Education is the civil rights of our generation,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in a telephone briefing with reporters on Monday. “The undeniable truth is that the everyday education experience for too many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of the American promise.”
Bryan Stevenson at TED2012 on Injustice, Juvenile Justice System, Need for Reform
"How can a judge turn a child into an adult?" That's a question lawyer Bryan Stevenson has spent years asking. Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit group providing legal representation to communities that have been marginalized by poverty and discouraged by unequal treatment.
Stevenson was invited to speak at TED2012, an annual conference showcasing big thinkers and doers throughout the world. He spent his 20 minutes discussing the power of identity, the dire need to reduce inequalities (including disproportionate minority contact), the injustice of juvenile life without parole sentences and mass incarceration. In his own words:
Here's an excerpt from the TED Blog:
Report Highlights Racial Disparities in California's Juvenile Justice System
A recent report by the W. Haywood Burns Institute indicates that while California’s current corrections policies appear to be race-neutral, data shows that many young people of color are being incarcerated at higher rates than white youth for non-criminal acts rather than being treated for mental health and behavioral health needs. The report, titled “Non-Judicial Drivers into the Juvenile Justice System for Youth of Color,” highlights multiple studies that point to the same conclusion:
“Using locked cells to change the behaviors of teenagers is ineffective, expensive, and more likely to increase crime.”
The Burns Institute highlights the “non-judicial drivers” that result in high rates of incarceration among youth of color. An example of a non-judicial driver is school referrals for disorderly conduct accounting for 40 percent of annual juvenile arrests in California. The authors also highlight cases where low-risk youth with high mental health needs are placed in long-term detention with no treatment of the underlying trauma that is contributing to their delinquent behavior.
Illinois Official Urges Juvenile Justice Reform
George Timberlake retired five years ago as an Illinois judge, and now he's convinced he was doing it all wrong.
"I put kids in jail at a higher rate than almost anybody," he recently told the Henderson Rotary Club. "I thought that was the right way to do things."
But when he "turned around and looked at what I had been doing," he said, he came to the conclusion that "we were just greasing the skids" for youngsters' path downhill to adult prison.
When it comes to kids, he said, "jail doesn't help. There is no evidence that ... incarceration changes behavior. None." The key instead, he said, is to evaluate the kid's risk of fleeing the jurisdiction or not appearing in court when sentencing jail time.
Timberlake is now chairman of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, and as such he is helping lead the nation out of the dark ages of juvenile justice. The "Redeploy Illinois" program hands out state money to communities who are able to reduce their number of incarcerated juveniles.
"You solve their problems, you link them with services, and you have a dollar bill that pays for it. That works. It makes you safer, it saves more tax dollars and it's a better outcome for kids."
