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Reflections on the Impact of Race and Ethnicity on Juvenile Court Outcomes and Efforts to Enact Change

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Abstract

There are persistent racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system. The current paper reviews how and whether public and private strategies have effectively reduced such disparities and bias within the juvenile justice system. The review initially provides a description of the overrepresentation and continuous presence of racial and ethnic minority youth in the juvenile justice system. Next, two traditional explanations for these juvenile justice disparities are discussed (i.e., differential offending perspective, selection bias perspective). The current paper then focuses on reviewing three primary initiatives aimed at reducing racial/ethnic disparities in juvenile justice settings, discussing barriers and successes to each practice. These include the Federal Disproportionate Minority Contact mandate of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative model, and the Models for Change initiative. Overall, our review indicated that efforts to reduce racial and ethnic minority youth overrepresentation and selection bias are often ineffective, though some practices do have mixed support. Finally, our review concludes with an integrated discussion of how the politico-legal environment can impact both racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system and the ability to enact change.

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Notes

  1. Where the youth lives is another factor that might contribute to youth involvement in the juvenile justice system. That is, youth in urban settings may be more susceptible to court intervention than those in other localities. Urban courts are often offense-driven and rely less on social characteristics than those in rural areas. As a result, cases move deeper into a system that ultimately works to the disadvantage of individuals who identify as Blacks (who more often reside in urban areas). Simply by virtue of urban residence, then, Black youths are more likely than White youths to be involved in the court system (Feld, 1991; 1995).

  2. It is important to note that official data tend to reveal greater racial and ethnic disparities compared with self-report data, and that this discrepancy may be the result of police bias and/or arrest practices (Huizinga et al., 2007). Self-reports ask high school and other samples of youth to report anonymously any offenses they have committed, whether or not they were apprehended. But self-reports may not be equally valid for all racial and ethnic groups. Some researchers suggested Black youth tend to underreport serious misconduct (Hindelang, Hirschi, & Weis, 1981; Huizinga & Elliot, 1987; Thornberry & Krohn 2000), while others have found no differences in the accuracy of reporting across racial and ethnic groups (Farrington, Loeber, Stouthamer-Loeber, Van Kammen, & Schmidt, 1996).

  3. Due to space limitations, neither theories nor perspectives of why racial and ethnic minority youth may commit more crime nor explanations of the selection bias position will be discussed. For greater coverage, refer to Unnever and Gabbidon (2011), Peck and Leiber (2017), Leiber and Peck (2013, 2015a, 2015b), and Leiber, Mack, & Featherstone, 2009).

  4. In 1992, in addition to disproportionate minority youth confinement (DMC) being included as a core requirement of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency, Prevention Act of, 1974, as amended, other mandates were the deinstitutionalization of status offenders, the removal of juveniles in adult jails, and the separation of juveniles from adults in institutions (Federal Register, 1991; Hsia, 1999). The JJPA has not been reauthorized since 2002.

  5. For more specifics on the DMC mandate and the internal structure of OJJDP as pertains to DMC, refer to Leiber (2002), Leiber and Rodriguez (2011), and Spinney, Cohen, Feyerherm, Stephenson, Yeide & Hopps, (2014).

  6. It must be disclosed that the lead author has partnered with OJJDP since the early 1990s by: conducting studies of race and ethnicity and juvenile court outcomes; writing of DMC Technical Assistance Manuals; presenting at DMC conferences, acting as a consultant to states and localities; and providing training to DMC Coordinators, Juvenile Justice Specialists, and OJJDP personnel.

  7. The appropriation for Tittle II Formula Grants was $75 million in 2010, $40 million in 2012, and $55 million in 2015. Although in 2015, there was an increase in funds, the complementary funding source, Juvenile Accountability Block Grant, was cut to zero (Kelly, 2015).

  8. In a recent essay, Rodriguez (2018) discusses the role of science and the Federal government in reducing racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system.

  9. It is interesting to point out that for the first decade or so, OJJP informed states that there is no “cookbook” formula to address the problem of DMC and the “overriding advice to planners is to provide the best information possible under existing state and local conditions and then to document carefully the sources and limitations of that information” (U.S. Department of Justice, 1990, p. 5). Accordingly, individual states had to come up with innovative approaches to meet the DMC mandate (Leiber, 2002). Over the years, OJJDP attempted to provide more specific guidelines and instruction because states and localities were either not tackling the DMC issue at all or were often at a loss as to what to do. With the recent changes put forth by the OJJDP Administrator, it appears OJJDP is going back and to some degree even more so to what was practiced almost 30 years ago (Harp, 2018; for criticisms see again, Marshall et al., 2018; Smith, 2018).

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Acknowledgements

We want to thank William Feyerherm, Marvin Krohn, Nancy Rodriguez, and Elizabeth Spinney for their helpful comments on an early draft. The opinions expressed therein are those of the authors.

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  1. Department of Criminology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Michael J. Leiber

  2. Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Rebecca Fix

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Leiber, M.J., Fix, R. Reflections on the Impact of Race and Ethnicity on Juvenile Court Outcomes and Efforts to Enact Change. Am J Crim Just 44, 581–608 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-019-09479-3

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