California  Voter	Juvenile Justice in California
	Dealing with Juvenile Delinquency

In this section... DEALING WITH JUVENILE DELINQUENCY Juvenile Justice System Minorities in the Juvenile Justice System Girls in the Juvenile Justice System Balanced and Restorative Justice Preventing Juvenile Delinquency and Violence TABLE OF CONTENTS

Minorities in the Juvenile Justice System

The federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, as amended in 1988, required that states determine whether the proportion of minorities in confinement exceeds their proportion in the population, and if so, to address the overrepresentation in their state plans. Research has shown that minority youth are overrepresented at each of the major decision points in the juvenile justice system process (e.g., arrest, detention, prosecution, adjudication, transfer to adult court and commitment to secure facilities). A new program called Juveniles Taken Into Custody is designed to record all admissions to and releases from state juvenile correctional facilities by age, sex and race.

Using 1995 data, Dr. Robert E. DeComo of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency has estimated the percentage of young people of each race from 10 through 17 years of age who would be incarcerated in a state juvenile facility.

In California, DeComo estimated that the chance that a white male would be incarcerated in a state juvenile facility was 0.26 percent, while for African American males the possibility was 2.24 percent and for Hispanic young men, it was 4.42 percent. For males of all other races, the chances were 2.48 percent. The likelihood of incarceration for females is less than for males, but it has the same variation according to race.

Juvenile Incarceration in California

Estimated percent chance of incarceration in a state juvenile facility by ethnicity and gender

California has completed the identification and assessment phases. The task is now to implement programs to address this disproportionate representation in the state juvenile justice system.

The California Task Force on Juvenile Crime and the Juvenile Justice Response, in their 1996 Final Report, made the following points: While minorities have arrest rates for serious crimes which are greater than those of white youth, these differences do not fully explain the overrepresentation of African American and Hispanic youth in correctional settings. Minority youths are more likely than whites to be arrested and detained for the same charges. In a recent study in several of the nation's largest counties, researchers found that minority youth, particularly African Americans, were almost twice as likely to be held in secure pretrial confinement as white youth. Higher minority detention rates were observed even when controlling for gender, arrest charge, home living situation and prior offense history. Once securely detained, minorities are confined for longer periods of time than whites.

The Task Force report continued with these findings: A substantial body of research suggests that the greatest disparity in treatment occurs at intake and detention decision points. When racial or ethnic differences are found, they tend to accumulate as young people are processed through the justice system. Also, cases in urban jurisdictions are more likely to receive severe outcomes at various stages of processing than cases in nonurban areas. Because minority populations are concentrated in urban areas, this effect may work to the disadvantage of minority youth and result in greater overrepresentation. Another study noted urban areas, where arrest rates are high, offer fewer community alternatives to incarceration.

Girls in the Juvenile Justice System

Leslie Acoca and Kelly Dedel in their 1998 book, No Place to Hide: Understanding and Meeting the Needs of Girls in the California Juvenile Justice System, note that although girls are now the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice population nationally and in California, there has been little research that illuminates the pathways that lead them into conflict with the law. Even less attention has been dedicated to preventing girls from taking the first step along that pathway and to supporting their development into competent, successful and law-abiding women.

National data released by the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention reveals that the number of juvenile arrests and delinquency cases has increased more rapidly for girls than for their male counterparts in recent years. In 1996 there were 723,000 arrests of girls under the age of 18 nationwide. That year girls comprised just under 25 percent of the 2.9 million arrests of juveniles, a proportion that has been steadily increasing since 1986, when girls comprised 22 percent of all juvenile arrests.

The authors point out that between 1992 and 1996, increases in arrests were greater for girls than for boys in almost every offense category. Between 1992 and 1996, juvenile arrests for Violent Crime Index offenses increased 25 percent for females, while the number of males arrested for these offenses remained relatively constant over the same period. The disparate growth in female arrests for violent crimes is a result of the large increase (28 percent) in the number of arrests for aggravated assault. In addition to serious, violent offenses, arrests of girls for larceny-theft and simple assault also increased significantly.

On the surface, these broad national data seem to indicate dramatic increases in the proportion and seriousness of delinquent acts committed by girls. However, the reality behind the statistics is now hotly disputed by academics and policymakers. Are girls becoming more violent, or are recent trends partially an artifact of the lower base rate of girls' arrests and delinquency cases since the 1970s? What influences do changing and often less tolerant family and societal attitudes towards girls, shifts in law enforcement practices (particularly towards gangs) and the increasing availability of weaponry exert on girls' offending? And finally, are girls, traditionally drawn into the juvenile justice system for less serious crimes than their male counterparts, being penalized twice, once for breaking the law and a second time for transgressing societal definitions of femininity?

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