Black Youths Treated More Harshly By Juvenile Justice System Than Whites: Report

A Black youth is six times more likely to be locked up than a White peer, even when charged with a similar crime and when neither has a prior record, says a new civil rights report contending racial bias exists at every step of the juvenile justice process.

Many policies and practices have led to a "cumulative disadvantage" for Black and Latino youth, civil rights leaders and youth advocates said as they released the report by the Youth Law Center. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a criminal justice think tank, did the research.

Minority youth are more likely than White youth who commit comparable crimes to be referred to juvenile court, be detained, face trial as adults and be jailed with adults, the report said.

"It is astounding our nation can tolerate such gross inequality," said William Spriggs, director of research and public policy for the Urban League. "We cannot have a justice system that works this way."

The report comes at a time when high-profile violence is driving harsher juvenile punishment even as the rate of crime by young people decreases.

Since 1992, 47 states have expanded their laws to punish more juveniles as adults not only for murder but also for drug crimes, weapons possession and burglary. The report calls for states to stop incarcerating young people with adults, noting three in four youths imprisoned with adults are minorities.

"We're taking youngsters, children, and putting them in the worst location," Spriggs said. "It reverses a long trend in American policy not to have children imprisoned with hardened adult criminals."

Researchers used data from state and federal arrest records, juvenile court actions, detention, waivers to adult court and incarceration.

They found, for example, that Black youth are 15 percent of the population under 18 but comprise one-third of youth referred to, formally processed by and convicted in juvenile court.

Blacks also account for 40 percent of the youths sent to adult courts and 58 percent of the youths sent to adult prison, said the report, "And Justice For Some." The Urban League and other civil rights groups joined in its release.

Figures for Latino youth may be understated because most state court and prison records reportedly designate them as White.

The groups nonetheless praised the comprehensive report--which followed several recent juvenile justice studies--as hard evidence of something they've long suspected: minority youth are victims of racial bias built into the justice system.

Even when types of crime were considered, minorities were more likely to go to jail or prison. Among youth with no prior record arrested for violent crimes, including murder, rape and robbery, 137 out of every 100,000 Blacks were incarcerated, compared with 15 out of every 100,000 Whites.