Racial and ethnic disparities Flashcards
Disproportionate minority contact (DMC)
-Rates of contact with the juvenile justice system among juveniles of a specific
minority group that are significantly different from rates of contact for
white non-Hispanic juveniles
___ are more likely than white youths to be arrested and subsequently go deeper into the juvenile justice system
-Youth of color
Historical context
-European settlers who came to dominate this land adopted laws, policies, and practices that enabled their regulation and subordination of indigenous and African people, thus
criminalizing and punishing them when they refused to comply with or actively resisted colonization and enslavement
-For centuries, state and federal governments perpetrated legally sanctioned terror over enslaved people who were not afforded protection under their laws (e.g., Jim Crow Laws)
-The double standards have been embedded in U.S. legal systems
Black youth represent approximately
___ of the population, yet in 2019, Black youth accounted for ___ of arrests
-14%
-34%
Black youths were ___ times more likely and American Indian youths were ___ times more likely to be arrested
- 2.4
-1.5
According to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), amended in 2018, racial and ethnic disparity means
-Minority youth populations are involved at a decision point in the juvenile justice system at disproportionately higher rates than non minority youth at that decision point, referred to as RED
From 2002-2018, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to this as:
-Disproportionate minority contact (DMC)
-Before that, DMC used to stand for disproportionate minority confinement
-Confinement was changed to contact because of disproportionality throughout all stages of the juvenile justice system, not just at confinement
Today, overrepresentation, although still used by some organizations, has been replaced by the ___ since minority youth are often ___
-Terms disparity or disproportion
-Underrepresented in receiving more lenient outcomes such as diversion from court and probation placement after a finding of delinquency
The terms disproportionality and disparity are often used interchangeably to refer to:
-Rates of contact with any point of the juvenile justice system that are different
for different races or ethnicities, regardless of the cause
Measuring Disparities in Juvenile Justice: Proportions
-The racial breakdown of youths in the general population is compared to the racial breakdown of youths at a certain
stage in the juvenile justice system
-Shortcomings:
-Not as useful for seeing trends, measuring changes over
time (especially when the youth population changes), or
comparing disparity levels from one jurisdiction to
another
-When minority groups are in the majority, disparities
may appear less evident
Measuring Disparities in Juvenile Justice: Relative Rate Index (RRI)
-The RRI compares the rates of processing for minority youth to the rates of processing for white youth
-The RRI method describes the volume of activity from one contact point to the next and how it differs between white and minority youth
Stages of the JJ Process and Disparities
-Police contact and arrest
-Disproportionate policing in
communities of color
-Racial profiling and its impact on
arrest
-Detention and pre-trial decision
-Disparities in detention rates and use
of detention alternatives
-Factors influencing judicial decisions
(SES, race)
-Adjudication
-Differences in outcomes for minority
youth compared to white youth
-Post-dispositional and reentry issues
-Challenges among youth of color
during rehab and reentry
-Recidivism rates and long-term
impact of JJ involvement
Often DMC is presented as being caused by either:
-Differential offending – youths of color commit more crimes or commit more serious crimes
-Differential treatment – the juvenile justice system treats youth of color differently
Research suggests that there no racial or ethnic differences in actual offense rates across types of crime except
-Serious violent crime
Difference in violent crime can be explained by:
-Historic segregation and ongoing discrimination that
has led to people of color to be disproportionately
likely to live in spaces that are marked by
concentrated socioeconomic disadvantages and
social risk factors
Factors contributing to disparities
- Differential offending framework
focuses on the individual, family, and
neighborhood factors related to
offending. Such as:- Economically disadvantaged
communities - Neighborhood social contexts
- Low-performing institutions (e.g.,
public schools) - Delinquent peers
*Family risk factors - Great exposure to violence
- Economically disadvantaged
The differential treatment framework focuses on the structure of
justice decision making acts that can disadvantage minority youth.
Such as:
-Justice by geography (e.g., stricter law enforcement, harsher judges)
-Legislation, policies, and legal factors
-Statues that treated crack cocaine
more severely than powdered
cocaine
-Zero-tolerance policies in school
- Differential processing or inappropriate decision-making
-Criteria used to make decisions is not
applied consistently across all groups
-Implicit bias
-Preference for a social category that
operates outside our awareness
Federal policy responses chart
Five ongoing phases of the RED/DMC mandate attempt to examine
racial/ethnic disparities throughout each
stage of the juvenile justice system. These phases include:
(1) Identification (identifying DMC)
(2) Assessment/diagnosis (assessing the
potential causes of DMC)
(3) Intervention (implementing DMC intervention and delinquency prevention strategies)
(4) Evaluation (evaluating DMC intervention and prevention initiatives)
(5) Monitoring (continuously examining DMC rates, trends, and reduction strategies)
