Disproportionate minority contact in the U.S. juvenile justice system: a review of the DMC literature, 2001–2014, Part I (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Crime and Justice, 2018
The current study provides a systematic review of 107 studies. Studies were drawn from academic journals, reports, and edited books from January 2001 to December 2014. The main question addressed by the review asks, 'What does recent literature tell us about minority status and juvenile justice processing?' The purpose of this article is to review recent studies that examine the role that race and ethnicity play in the juvenile justice decision-making process. Results illustrate the overall complexity of the issues surrounding DMC. This paper discusses several of the limitations with existing DMC studies, details the overall findings of a quantitative analysis of empirical DMC studies, summarizes policy recommendations and considers future directions for DMC research. Part II presents a matrix of articles identified by the search.
Minorities and the Juvenile Justice System: Research Summary
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 1995
Knis document has been reproduced as eceived from the person or organization originating it. CI Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points ol view ot opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official. OERI position or policy.
Reducing disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system: Promising practices
Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2007
Since 1988, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act required states receiving funding under the act to determine whether the proportion of juvenile minorities in confinement exceeds their proportion in the general population (Public Law 93-415, 42 USC 5601 et seq.). The 1992 Congressional amendments made it a "core requirement" that states demonstrate their efforts to reduce DMC. Despite mandates, little systematic attention has been given to how DMC reductions should be achieved. States and local communities face ongoing challenges to reduce DMC rates in ways that are strategic, effective, and enduring. This article reviews and synthesizes national best practices for successfully reducing DMC in the juvenile justice system. Common practices and emerging strategies for effectively lowering DMC rates include: (a) data review and decision-point mapping; (b) cultural competency training; (c) increasing community-based detention alternatives; (d) removing decision-making subjectivity; (e) reducing barriers to family involvement; and (f) cultivating state leadership to legislate system-level change.
DCL Rev., 2010
Americans comprised: 16% of all youth; 28% of juvenile arrests; 30% of referrals to juvenile court; 37% of the detained population; 34% of youth formally processed by the juvenile court; 30% of adjudicated youth; 35% of youth judicially waived to criminal court; 38% of youth in residential placement; and 58% of youth admitted to state adult prison. Id. Over the \\server05\productn\D\DCR\13-1\DCR101.txt unknown Seq: 2 8-JUN-09 11:03 2 U NIVERSITY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW recent studies have shown, however, is that these disparate outcomes are not solely the product of race neutral factors. Multi-regression research that controls for other causal variables has revealed a statistically significant "race effect" on decision-making at multiple points in juvenile justice courts and administrations across the nation. There is incontrovertible evidence that race bias affects critical decisions leading to detention or confinement. The consequences of this disparate treatment can be devastating to juveniles of color and any community aspiring to make good on the guarantee of equal justice. 3 Efforts to address these disparities have thus far produced little more than a "multi-million dollar cottage industry whose primary activity is to restate the problem of disparities, in essence, endlessly adoring the question of what to do about disproportionate minority contact ("DMC"), but never reaching an answer." 4 In 1992 and again in 2002, in its reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act ("JJDPA" or "the Act"), Congress made clear that it was concerned about DMC and elevated a mandate to address it to a core requirement of the Act. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Protection ("OJJDP") has launched a technical assistance website and database and funneled millions of dollars to states to study and reform their local juvenile juslast thirty years, multiple studies have shown that disproportionate minority contact ("DMC") afflicts nearly every processing point in nearly every juvenile justice system in the country.
Criminology, 1986
Research on race, sex, and social class discrimination in the juvenile justice process has yielded mixed results. These conflicting findings have been attributed to the use of diverse research strategies and various methodological shortcomings. There are, however, two potentially important issues that have not been previously addressed: the need to examine the juvenile justice system as a process, rather than as a series of separate and unrelated decision points, and the failure to control for the impact of administrative factors such as pretrial detention. The purpose of the research reported here is to examine the impact of race, sex, and social class on juvenile court dispositions while controlling for pretrial detention and appropriate legal factors. The analytical strategy employed permits an examination of the impact of these factors over three stages of the juvenile justice process: referral, adjudication, and disposition. Findings indicate that while legal factors and pretrial detention decline in importance as predictors of disposition as one moves from an examination of all referred to adjudicated youth, race and social class become more important. These results are discussed in terms of their methodological significance and their implications for the conceptualization of discrimination in the juvenile justice process. RESEARCH ON DISCRIMINATORY FACTORS AND JUVENILE COURT DISPOSITIONS Research on juvenile court dispositions and the impact of such variables as race, sex, and social class has produced mixed results (Table 1). While some researchers (
Juvenile Justice Processing:The entangled effects of race and urban poverty
Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 1998
The overrepresentation of minority youths in the American juvenile justice system is well documented. Official reports as well as empirical research studies clearly indicate that relative to their proportion in the total juvenile population, minority offenders are disproportionately arrested, referred to court, detained (pretrial), adjudicated, and confined in secure facilities This study addresses the issue of how race and urban poverty affect minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system, using data from 2,003 court cases referred to 13 urban Ohio juvenile courts in 1989. Results of logistic regression analyses show that: I ) minority offenders are more likely to be detained than whites; 2) detention status augments juveniles' chances o f being adjudicated and confined; 3) minority juveniles who are from welfare families are more likely to be confined than their self-sustaining counterparts. A cultural stereotype based on juveniles' race and class constitutes the basis of differential treatment.
Influence of Race in the Deep End of the Juvenile Justice System
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 2020
Racial inequalities pervade U.S. justice systems and are the focus of a growing body of research. However, there are fewer studies on racial disparities in juvenile justice settings, particularly on decisions points at the “deep end” of the system after youth have been adjudicated delinquent. The current study examines racial disparities in length of stay, institutional misconduct, and community program placement for youth admitted to the Virginia juvenile justice system from 2012–2017. We find that black youth have significantly longer lengths of stay and more serious institutional misconduct than white youth. Controlling for legal and extralegal factors eliminates the disparity for length of stay, but it remains significant for serious institutional misconduct. In recent years, youth of all races are placed into community programs rather than traditional correctional centers at similar rates. Disparities for Hispanic youth and other races are difficult to distinguish because few a...