TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword / Barry A. Krisberg
Introduction - Darnell F. Hawkins, Kimberly Kempf-Leonard
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0001
[ethnic differences, juvenile justice system, social forces, race, social class]
This chapter introduces a book that provides a state-of-the-science examination of the extent and causes and correlates of racial and ethnic differences in the processing of youths within the juvenile justice system. This effort has been undertaken during a period when the juvenile court and its assorted institutional appendages have come under increased scrutiny and criticism from both within and without. Much recent public discourse regarding how children are cared for and disciplined appears quite reminiscent of the debates occurring in the decades leading to the establishment of the United States' first juvenile courts and correctional facilities. Public attitudes toward youths, juvenile law, and the administration of justice in the country have always reflected a myriad of interacting and often competing social forces. Public perceptions of race, ethnic, social class, and place-of-birth differences and their relevance for criminal involvement have always figured prominently in that ideological, political, and socioeconomic array of forces. (pages 1 - 20)
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Part 1: Racial and Ethnic Differences in Juvenile Crime and Punishment: Past and Present
The Role of Race and Ethnicity in Juvenile Justice Processing - Donna M. Bishop
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0002
[African Americans, Hispanics, juvenile justice system, differential offending, differential treatment]
Nationally, African Americans and Hispanic youths are arrested in numbers greatly disproportionate to their representation in the general population. Despite decades of research, there is no clear consensus on why minority youths enter and penetrate the juvenile justice system at such disproportionate rates. Both public and academic discourses have tended to highlight two explanations: (1) minority overrepresentation reflects race and ethnic differences in the incidence, seriousness, and persistence of delinquent involvement (the “differential offending” hypothesis) and (2) overrepresentation is attributable to inequities—intended or unintended—in juvenile justice practice (the “differential treatment” hypothesis). This chapter reviews the research literature bearing on the second of these claims and, more specifically, explores the mechanisms through which race and ethnicity influence juvenile justice system responses. (pages 23 - 82)
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Racial and Ethnic Differences in Juvenile Offending - Janet L. Lauritsen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0003
[youth homicide, firearm deaths, African American youth, juvenile homicide]
Analyses of recent trends in youth homicide show that juvenile murder rates were relatively stable from 1980 through 1987, followed by a significant increase through the early 1990s, and then an equally significant decrease through the first decade of the new millennium. Nearly all of the increase in youth homicide was due to increases in youth firearm deaths. Over the past two decades, the risk of homicidal death for 14- to 17-year-old African-American youths has been between six and ten times greater than for white youths. In 1997, the known juvenile homicide offending rates for racial groups (as classified in the U.S. arrest data) were approximately 30 (per million youth ages 10–17) for whites, 34 for American–Indians and Alaskan Natives, 44 for Asian and Pacific Islanders, and 194 for African Americans. These national rates describe the average differences in youth homicide offending for these racial subgroups. (pages 83 - 104)
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Degrees of Discretion - David S. Tanenhaus
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0004
[American juvenile justice, Americanization, Johnson–Reed Immigration Act, Congress]
This chapter analyzes the foundational principles of the American juvenile justice system. It examines how the court was created by child savers primarily to divert all juvenile offenders from the criminal justice system and to speed up the Americanization process for the “foreign” children, who were the vast majority of the court's early clientele. Concerns about Americanization, however, gradually diminished after Congress's passage of the Johnson–Reed Immigration Act of 1924, which limited immigration to 150,000 annually, established quotas for the number of “new immigrants” from southern and eastern Europe, and banned entirely the entrance into the country of persons who were ineligible for citizenship. This provision, in effect, banned Asians—half the world's population—from coming to America. (pages 105 - 121)
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Race and the Jurisprudence of Juvenile Justice - Barry C. Feld
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0005
[European immigration, race, juvenile justice, Warren Court, Gault]
More than three-quarters of a century ago, World War I curtailed European immigration and created a demand for African-American southern laborers to work in northern factories in the United States. The issue of race has had two distinct and contradictory influences on the juvenile justice theory and practice during the second half of the twentieth century. Initially, the Warren Court's due process revolution and Gault attempted to enhance civil rights, protect minority citizens, and limit the coercive powers of the state. But Gault's provision of procedural rights at trial legitimated punishment and fostered a procedural and substantive convergence with criminal courts. Three decades of judicial decision, legislative amendments, and administrative changes have converted the juvenile court into a scaled-down, second-class criminal court that provides neither therapy nor justice for young offenders. (pages 122 - 164)
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Part 2: Understanding Race Differences in Offending and the Administration of Justice
Suburban Sprawl, Race, and Juvenile Justice - Paul A. Jargowsky, Scott A. Desmond, Robert D. Crutchfield
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0006
[African-Americans, Hispanic youths, poverty, criminology literature, juvenile criminal activity]
This chapter addresses the increasing concentration of poverty in the United States, a trend that leads to more and more children and young adults growing up in economically devastated and socially isolated neighborhoods, particularly African-American and Hispanic youths. A central cause of the increased isolation of the poor, greater concentration of poverty, and crime has been the growth of joblessness in many American cities. The chapter also examines the metropolitan development process that contributes to the increasing concentration of poverty and goes well beyond the normal scope of the criminology literature into the areas of suburban sprawl, zoning, and growth management. The contention, however, is that public policies in these areas have important implications for understanding the origins of juvenile criminal activity. (pages 167 - 201)
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Race and Crime - Alex R. Piquero, Terrie E. Moffitt, Brian Lawton
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0007
[race, crime, urban communities, African Americans, race-specific models, antisocial behavior]
This chapter provides some initial evidence that may be used as a starting point in studying the race–crime link. The chapter describes how contextual-, familial-, and individual-level models attempt to account for patterns of antisocial behavior in urban communities. The argument presented is that individual and familial risks are exacerbated in the most disadvantaged communities, especially those disadvantaged communities in which African Americans are overrepresented. Race-specific models are examined to determine if the constellation of contextual-, familial-, and individual-level risk factors predict antisocial behavior differently for whites and African Americans, as well as across distinct neighborhood contexts. The chapter begins with a vignette of three teenagers, each residing in the same underclass neighborhood, whose developmental trajectories are unique. (pages 202 - 244)
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Explaining Assessments of Future Risk - Sara Steen, Christine E. W. Bond, George S. Bridges, Charis E. Kubrin
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0008
[probation officers, low-risk youths, racial differences, African-American youths]
This chapter describes how probation officers explain and assess the future risk of offending. Probation officers use qualitatively different kinds of attributions and explanations and rely on explanations about the immediate causes of the present offense. The analysis in the chapter presents three striking results. First, in the assessments of low-risk youths, there is no evidence that the internal/external dichotomy of attributions explains racial differences in the officers' perceptions of the offenders. Probation officers were not more likely to draw on internal attributions for African-American youths, or external attributions for white youths. Second, explanations mirroring the internal/external distinction between African-American and white youths were much more likely to be seen in the assessments of moderate-risk youths. Finally, the characterizations that probation officers used in high-risk assessments are not easily categorized into a theoretical framework of internal and external attributions. (pages 245 - 269)
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“Justice by Geography” - Timothy M. Bary, Lisa L. Sample, Kimberly Kempf-Leonard
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0009
[Abraham Blumberg, race, ethnicity, social class, racial disparity]
Several years ago Abraham Blumberg commented that efforts to understand disparities in case processing and court decisions had focused too narrowly on race, ethnicity, and social class. To better understand racial disparity, therefore, it is important to understand what it is about cross-court differences that give rise to that disparity. This chapter examines prior research on cross-court variation to determine how best to proceed with the investigation of justice by geography as it may relate to racial disparities. Most past inquiries have attempted ad hoc theorizing to speculate about statistically significant findings associated with an “urban/rural” variable. In addition, no research on this topic has addressed concerns about the need to pursue multilevel data, although any differential treatment by race would occur within the court environment. (pages 270 - 299)
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Race, Ethnicity, and Juvenile Justice - Paul E. Tracy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0010
[disproportionate minority confinement, Texas, juvenile justice system, race]
This chapter investigates the issue of disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) in the Texas juvenile justice system. Investigations of the extent to which minorities are disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system, given their underlying percentage distribution in the youth population, are an important area of scholarly inquiry. The essence of the issue is whether members of certain races or ethnic groups receive differential (biased) handling across the various stages of the juvenile justice system. In many ways, the DMC issue is reminiscent of the debate that began in the 1960s concerning the “dark figure of crime” and the “real” relationship surrounding race and involvement in delinquency. However, the DMC issue and inquiry into its possible causes are more complicated than should be the case because of the highly politicized and often ideological manner by which the issue arose and has been pursued. (pages 300 - 348)
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Part 3: Toward Remedial Social Policy
Disproportionate Minority Confinement/Contact (DMC) - Carl E. Pope, Michael J. Leiber
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0011
[disproportionate minority confinement, juvenile justice system, selection bias, Congress]
The traditional explanations for understanding disproportionate minority confinement/contact (DMC) in both the criminal and juvenile justice systems emphasize differential offending and/or selection bias. Selection bias generally refers to disparate treatment, discrimination, and the like. The sponsors of the DMC initiative and the intent of the requirement focus on selection bias with a specific emphasis on the inequitable treatment of minority youths relative to white youths within the juvenile justice system. This chapter provides an historical background for the systems approach to the disproportionate confinement of minority youths. The intentions of those involved in bringing the issue to the attention of Congress and their reliance on statistics indicating increasing minority youth confinement, findings from self-report surveys suggesting a few differences in delinquent behavior, and studies reporting the presence of racial bias within juvenile court proceedings are discussed in detail in the chapter. (pages 351 - 389)
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Mental Health Issues among Minority Offenders in the Juvenile Justice System - Elizabeth Cauffman, Thomas Grisso
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0012
[minority confinement, juvenile justice system, minority youths, mental health, ethnicity, minority]
Disproportionate levels of minority confinement combined with high rates of mental health problems among confined youths have created negative images about the role of the juvenile justice system in meeting the rehabilitative needs of minority youths with mental health problems. This chapter addresses the mental health issues among offenders in the juvenile justice system and examines mental disorders among minority offenders in particular. It begins with a review of mental health definitions and moves to issues of measurement and evidence of mental disorders among juvenile justice youths, examining issues of ethnicity at each turn. The chapter uses the term “ethnicity” or “minority” when referring to race and/or ethnicity. The potential consequences of redefining delinquency as a problem of mental illness are profound, especially for African-American and Latino youths, who disproportionately constitute the population of youths in the juvenile justice system. (pages 390 - 412)
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Minimizing Harm from Minority Disproportion in American Juvenile Justice - Franklin E. Zimring
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0013
[American juvenile courts, minority youths, legal policies, juvenile justice]
This chapter identifies some of the key policy choices that must be made in reducing injustices found in American juvenile courts. A clear definition of goals and priorities is absolutely essential to intelligent policy planning. Reducing the hazards of juvenile court processing may be a better approach to protecting minority youths than just trying to reduce the proportion of juvenile court cases with minority defendants. The chapter presents the conceptual equipment necessary to assess the impact of legal policies on minority populations and discusses whether it is best to consider the minority concentrations in juvenile justice as a special problem in the juvenile justice system or as part of the generally higher risk exposures found in criminal justice and other state control systems. Harm reduction is proposed as the principal criterion by which policies designed to respond to minority disproportion should be judged. (pages 413 - 427)
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Conclusion: Our Children, Their Children - Kimberly Kempf-Leonard, Darnell F. Hawkins
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226319919.003.0014
[ethnic disparities, juvenile offending, American society, juvenile justice system]
The juvenile justice system reforms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century followed a period of enormous progress and change. Reflecting that impetus and precedent, the book Our Children, Their Children summarizes what social scientists currently know about the reasons for racial and ethnic disparities in juvenile offending and in the administration of justice in the United States, and about effective mechanisms to reduce those differences. This has been a vexing social and legal problem in American society for a long time. During the current period of otherwise rapid societal change, racial and ethnic disparities in American crime and justice persist and raise questions about how far the nation has come during the past half century toward reaching its much-heralded goal of achieving fairness and equal opportunity in American society and in its systems of justice. (pages 428 - 448)
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Contributors
Subject Index
