Racism, Juvenile Justice
and Jim Crow
How the Juvenile Justice System
is a Gate to Racial Discrimination
in Many Forms
Why Race Matters
“The shadow of prison squats
at the corners of, and often
at the center of nearly every
black family’s life in this
nation.”
The Black Commentator July 21,2005
African American Youth as a
Percentage of:
%Incarcerated
in Adult Prison
%Placed
58%
38%
35%
30%
%Waived to
Adult Court
%Adjudicated
37%
30%
28%
%Detained
16%
0%
50%
100%
%Referred to
Court
%Arrested
U.S. Practices in International
Context
(incarceration rate per 100,000)
African American Youth
1018
Latino Youth
515
U.S. Juvenile
371
England Adult
116
Canada Adult
116
Germany Adult
91
France Adult
85
0
500
1000
1500
Confidentiality of Juvenile Justice Hearings
source: OJJDP Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report
Access to Juvenile Records
• All states allow some access to juvenile
records to courts, prosecutors, schools
• Increasing use of fingerprinting of
juveniles
• Increasing storage of fingerprints in
state repository
• Increasing use of school notification
laws
• Increasing media access of juvenile
records
Juvenile Records
Adult Consequences
• Increases arrests: Police targeting
• Affects the “in/out” sentencing
decision
• Contributes to longer sentences
– Used to enhance sentences in
guideline systems
– In some states, a juvenile
adjudication is considered a “strike”
in three strikes
Racialized Justice: Cumulative
Disadvantage
Juvenile
Justice
System
Law
Enforcement
Deployment/
Arrest Arraignment
Alternatives to
Bail/Detention
Incarceration/Reentry
Services
Public
Defense
Parole
Cumulative
Jail/Prison
Disadvantage
Jail
Preadjudication
Probation
Decisions
Sentencing
Pre-Sentence
Report
Jury
Racial Dimensions of U.S.
Incarceration Rates
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
6,838
990
76
White
Females
851
491
White
Males
African
American
Females
African
Ameican
Males
South
African
Black Males
Under
Apartheid
1993
Source: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2000; rate per 100.000 (jail and prison)
US Prison Admissions by Race
800
7
700
6
600
5
500
4
400
3
300
2
200
100
1
0
0
1920
1930
1940
1950
White Rate
1960
1970
Black Rate
1980
1990
Ratio
2000
Black/White Rat
Prision Admission R
source: Pam Oliver,Ph.D. www.ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/RACIAL/RacialDisparities.htm
Explosion of Incarceration & Historical
Context
• Anti war, civil rights protests
• Politicizing Crime: Nixon Law & Order
Campaign
• LEAA increased funding for police
departments
– $63 million in 1969 to $700 million in 1972.
• War on Drugs
• Politicizing Crime: Bush I Willie Horton
MASS CRIMINALIZATION
• 71 million people in the U.S. have a criminal
record
• 5,618,000 – U.S. adult residents who had served
time in state or federal prison by yearend 2001
• Over 2,100,000 African Americans have served
prison 2.6% of black male population
• 8% of the adult male population has a felony
conviction
• 25% of the African American male population
has a felony conviction
Mass Criminalization:
The New Jim Crow
• Jim Crow Practices
– Government enacted or sanctioned
laws, attitudes and actions that
required or permitted acts of
discrimination against African
Americans.
FOUR ASPECTS OF JIM
CROW
1) Racial Segregation & Inequality
2) Voter suppression or
disenfranchisement
3) Denial of economic opportunity or
resources
4) Private acts of violence and mass
racial violence
FELONY DISENFRANCHISEMENT
POLICY IN THE U.S.
• More than 5 million Americans are
banned from voting
• An estimated 1 in 12 African Americans
is disenfranchised, a rate nearly five
times the rate of non-African Americans
• Modern day poll tax – 10 states
explicitly condition the right to vote on
the full payment of fines, fees,
restitution and other cots associated
with conviction
Denial of Economic Opportunity
• 60% of employers unwillingly to hire
person with a criminal record
• Employers paid lower wages and
benefits to people with a criminal record
and 30% lower on future earnings
• Increasing number of state laws bar
people with criminal records from
employment in various professions and
jobs (e.g., home health aids)
Denial of Educational
Opportunity
• Until 2006 year, people with felony drug
convictions were ineligible for federal
college aid and 2006 reforms did not
fully eliminate bars to financial aid.
• Public and private colleges and
universities have policies that exclude
people with convictions from enrolling.
• More young African American men are
in prison in the U.S. than are in college.
SURVEY OF NEW YORK
COLLEGES
N=127
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
N=61
90.0%
N=17
100.0%
Ask About or
Consider Applicant's
Criminal Record as
Part of Admissions
Process
Do No Ask About or
Consider Applicant's
Criminal Record as
Part of Admissions
Process
64.0%
36.0%
10.0%
Private
Colleges
SUNY
Colleges
CUNY
Colleges
A New Discrimination
“(Our organization) does favor
background checks, so that kind of
puts us in the position of favoring
more discrimination, freedom to
discriminate, for universities to set
their own policies and go by their
own policies.”
Catherine Bath, Executive Director, Security on Campus
Source: Inside Higher Ed February 14, 2007
“While the growth in imprisonment
was propelled by racial and class
division, the penal system has
emerged as a novel institution in a
uniquely American system of social
inequality.”
Bruce Western, Ph.D.
Punishment and Inequality in America