Examining Racial Disparities in Juvenile Justice

[摘要] Decades of research have focused on understanding and addressing racial disparities that occur at every stage of processing in the juvenile justice system. Leaders in the field have raised concerns about the differential treatment and selection of youth based on race. Taking into consideration Sussman and colleagues' results regarding the use of manifest injustice in Washington State, we review briefly the legislative changes that have occurred nationally to address the problem of disproportionate minority contact. We also consider data and hypotheses that have increased our understanding of why and how these racial disparities occur. The idealistic principle that justice should be administered blindly in criminal matters arguably has no better place than within the juvenile justice system, where a focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment might positively alter the life course of a minor. However, research has documented the existence of racial disparity in the treatment of youth involved in the juvenile justice system for several decades. Studies from the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that black juveniles were detained and confined at higher rates compared with white youth, ¹ and that black youth were more likely to be sent to correctional facilities compared with white youth, who were more likely to be sent to psychiatric hospitals. ² Additionally, recent studies have documented the continued trend of overrepresentation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system. ^{3 , – , 5} Such studies have prompted national leaders to enact changes in the requirements imposed on local and state agencies in charge of youth involved in the justice system.

[学科分类] 儿科学