Minority Youth Over
Representation in the Juvenile
Justice System: An Overview of
the Issue and Federal and State
Responses
Michael J. Leiber, Ph.d.
Virginia Commonwealth University
mjleiber@vcu.edu
Presented at the Youth Violence Prevention Conference – University
of Missouri-St. Louis
April 8, 2010
Background
• In 1989, the disproportionate minority
confinement mandate (DMC) was passed as part
of the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974
(Public Law 93-415, section 223[a][23].
Background
• States receiving funds from the federal
government are to develop a comprehensive
approach to the disproportionate minority youth
presence in the juvenile justice system
- Formula Grant Funds
Background
• In 2002, the DMC mandate was amended as part of the
reauthorization of the JJDP Act:
“address juvenile delinquency prevention efforts and system
improvement efforts designed to reduce, without
establishing or requiring numerical standards or quotas,
the disproportionate number of juvenile members of
minority groups, who come into contact with the juvenile
justice system.”
• Changed from confinement to contact
DMC - History
The purpose of the DMC Core Requirement
remains the same: to ensure equal and fair treatment
for every youth in the juvenile justice system, regardless of
race and ethnicity.
DMC mandate
DMC mandate
Interrelated and Ongoing Stages
Identification – extent of presence
Assessment – search for causes/
contributing factors
Interventions – reduce DMC
Evaluation – see if interventions working
Monitoring – assess over time
Extent of Presence
• Nation wide
From 2002 to 2004, African Americans were:
16% of 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.
58% of youth admitted to state adult prison.
Latest stats - 2005
• See Table 1
DMC assessment phase
• The purpose of conducting an assessment study
is to provide policy makers and system
practitioners with precise information upon
which interventions can be developed and
implemented to reduce DMC
• A search for causes, contributing factors to
DMC
DMC
To understand DMC
– Differential offending
minorities commit more crime and more
serious crime
Tracy – some studies that find evidence of bias,
discover minorities commit more crime
DMC
• Arrests suggest race differences in delinquent
behavior or differential offending; however,
problems with arrests- police deployment
patterns, race profiling, biased
decision-making, data itself
DMC BACKGROUND
Additionally,
some self-report survey data indicate few race
differences in the commission of delinquency
(e.g., Piquero & Brame, 2008).
Or Huizinga and colleagues (2007) found that the extent
of self-report differential offending did not solely
account for differences in police referrals to juvenile
court
DMC BACKGROUND
• Second explanation for DMC, selection bias
This is where the system focus comes into play
DMC BACKGROUND
Bias has many forms
Direct = intentional, overt, conscious
Subtle = unintentional, indirect, unconscious –
tied to legitimate factors but racially
tainted, just as harmful, disadvantaged
DMC
Subtle = unintentional, indirect – tied to legitimate and extralegal factors
e.g., assessments about family – Pope and Feyerherm
secure detention – Leiber and Fox
Assessment studies need to be conducted with this in mind
DMC - Other Examples of Subtle
Bias
• Bridges and Steen’s (1998) analysis of predisposition reports written by juvenile probation
officers provides powerful evidence of racial
stereotypes and their influence on
recommendations at disposition. In these
accounts, race was correlated with attributions
about the causes of crime and to perceptions of
the risk of re-offending and harsher
dispositions.
DMC BACKGROUND
• That is, probation officers more often attributed
offending among whites to external and alterable causes
(e.g., delinquent peers, problems at school), while
crimes committed by African American youth were
more often attributed to internal and enduring
character traits (e.g., aggressiveness, lack of remorse).
• These causal attributions corroborated beliefs that
minority offenders are more dangerous than whites,
which in turn provided the basis for more punitive
recommendations (see also, Steen et al. 2005).
DMC BACKGROUND
• Graham and Lowery (2004) also found
attributions about the causes of crime to be
linked to racial disparities in punishment
responses among juvenile court probation
officers and police officers.
DMC assessment
Studies of Juvenile Justice System
• Pope and Feyerherm (1993)
• Pope and colleagues (2003)
• Bishop (2005)
• Engen and colleagues (2005)
• Pope and Leiber (2005)
Conclude – most studies find evidence of overt and
subtle bias even after considering influence of legal and
extralegal factors
DMC BACKGROUND
• Appears Both Differential Offending and
Selection Bias play a role in DMC
DMC mandate
DMC BACKGROUND
• If differential offending as a reason for DMC
Interventions focus on crime prevention:
family dysfunction
drugs
negative peer influences, associations
lack of quality education
lack of access to meaningful employment
DMC BACKGROUND
If bias accounts for DMC
Example Solutions:
structure decision making at detention
and intake (race neutral)
cultural sensitivity training
advocates
diversity in hiring
education
DMC
• Recently, Bishop (2005), Kempf-Leonard (2007)
and Piquero (2008)
have argued that there is a need to examine
factors that may be linked to both differential
offending and selection bias
e.g., impoverished communities, heavy
emphasis on crime control, high crime rates, etc.
DMC mandate
Evaluations/Monitoring
Overall, there are only a few interventions that have been
evaluated (e.g., detention diversion advocacy program
or DDAP, Alternatives for Youth’s Advocacy initiative
or AFY, detention reform in Multnomah county)
These have shown some success at reducing DMC.
DMC mandate
• Given that twenty years have passed since the
passage of the DMC mandate, this is a
significant limitation since there are relatively
few known evaluations of strategies created and
implemented to reduce minority
overrepresentation.
DMC mandate
Success or Failure?
On one side of the continuum,
Tracy (2005; 2002) views as a failure, wrong
focus, should be on crime prevention
DMC mandate
Another view but seen as failure:
Bell and Ridolfi (2008) of the W. Haywood Burns
Institute critique of the DMC mandate centers
on the lack of benchmarks and the failure to
change procedures that result in bias and
minority youth overrepresentation in the
juvenile justice system
DMC mandate
Leiber and Rodriguez are in the middle of these 2 views some problems, some room for improvement
but also see advances
not a zero sum situation. Bringing about change within
organizations is often slow, complex and evolutionary.
It is a process involving forward movement, backward
movement, and at times, no movement.
DMC mandate