Shelden and Macallair, Chapter 2

Structural Conditions

·         The two quotes that start this section point to what the Kerner Commission said 40 years ago about America being two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal.

·         Various changes in recent years have resulted in growing inequality within the population, especially devastating for minorities.

·         The Justice Mapping Center is a method used to highlight the geographical distribution of offenders, noting that they are concentrated in just a few neighborhoods

·         A study by the New York Times a few years ago noted that about 80% of those in New York prisons come from 8 neighborhoods in the NYC area

·         Gini coefficient – a common measure of income inequality, used to compare many countries.  In the US it was .464 at the start of the century, compared to .353 in 1970

·         Note the huge differences in net worth by race

Poverty

·         The growth in poverty in recent years stems largely from the decline in manufacturing jobs, typically paying among the highest wages; now most jobs pay less than a “livable wage” and most of those living in poverty work most of the year

·         Note the distribution by race – about two-thirds of minority children live in poverty

·         feminization of poverty – women are more likely to live in poverty if they are single parents and this obviously has an impact on children

Education

·         Note that blacks and Hispanics are far more likely to be without a high school diploma and living in poverty

·         The decline in manufacturing jobs in recent years underscores the point that education is more valuable now than ever

Employment

·         The text noted a study following the Rodney King verdict that between 1981 and 1992 the amount invested in job training fell from $23 billion to $8 billion.

·         The amounts for local economic development fell from $21 billion to $14 billion; “general revenue sharing” went from $6 billion to zero; and federal support for housing was cut by 80%

·         Note the term “marginally attached” and how more often minorities are in this position relative to the labor force

·         Unemployment rates have consistently been highest for black males; not surprisingly their arrest and incarceration rates are 4-5 times greater than white males

o   In fact, of all of those born in 2001, about one-third of black males will someday end up in prison, compared to around 6% of white males, and 17% for Hispanic males

o   This is relevant because of all the minority children growing up with at least one parent in prison

o   Having a parent in prison is the strongest predictor of chronic delinquency

Disenfranchised Communities

·         Most people fail to recognize that most of those who are homeless are women and children

·         They live in communities normally referred to as “skid row”

·         Millions of dollars are spent arresting and processing cases in such areas and the kids are brought into juvenile court and “held accountable”

·         They are there mostly because of the kinds of social conditions we have created for them and we in turn blame them for their plight

Processing Rejected Minority Youth

Race and Arrests

·         Importance of the visibility of the offense regarding the race factor

·         Behavior in urban neighborhoods, where many minority youth reside, is far more likely to take place where it is visible to the police

o   Living in projects and other crowded living areas means that a lot of behavior (legal and illegal) takes place out doors

o   In the suburbs middle class youth (regardless of race) live in larger homes with back yards and private bedrooms (besides, the police do not venture out to these areas as often as the inner cities)

o   Much deviance (esp. drug use) is hidden from view

·         Another factor could be the belief that minority youth are more likely to use illegal drugs

·         This is not to say that individual police officers have any animosity toward black youth and is probably not because of the race of the officer

Race and the War on Drugs

·         The Monitoring the Future Survey in 2006 found that black students in the twelfth grade reported lower rates of usage (whether lifetime, annual, 30-day, or daily) of almost all drugs (legal and illegal) than white or Hispanic twelfth graders.  See table 1 in chapter 2 of the reader.

·         Several studies covering the past 20 years have documented the fact that black and Hispanic youth are far more likely than whites to be arrested on drugs and referred to juvenile court

·         Figure 1 in chapter 2 illustrates the progressive involvement of blacks the further they get into the system

Selection Bias

·         Bias has been found to exist at each stage of the process, most notably at the police arrest stage – this could stem from the already noted greater police resources where black youth are likely to be “hanging” out and the drug war

·         Look at the study of Columbia, South Carolina

o   Blacks < 20% of the juvenile pop. yet are 60% of all juvenile arrests

o   Concentration of patrols in a 12-square block of mostly black residents.

Race and Detention

•         Table 2 – no matter what offense, black kids rank highest, followed by Hispanic, Native American and White

•         Huge discrepancies in some cases

–        Drugs – black detention rate 7x greater than whites (same ratio for violent index crimes)

•         Why the discrepancy?

–        No racial differences in terms of drug use

–        Are they seen as more “dangerous”?

–        Are “alternatives” not as readily available to them?

–        The DDAP study provides some answers, as we shall see in another chapter

Youth in “Correctional Institutions”

·         Trends: % of minorities in training schools: 1950=23%; 1960=32% ; 1970=40%; 2003=62%

·         Rate of incarceration (table 3): black=528; Hispanic=238; white=140

o   Nevada (2003): black=958; Hispanics=332; white= 289

·         1960s saying: “If you’re white, you’re alright; if you’re brown, stick around; if you’re black, stay back

Giving Up on Delinquent Youth: Transfer to Adult Court

·         Three methods of certification

o   Legislative waiver or statutorial exclusion – some offenses automatically excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction, most commonly homicide

o   Judicial waiver – the judge makes the decision

o   discretionary waiver – gives power to the DA

·         Judicial waivers and prosecutorial discretion are often arbitrary, fluctuating from judge to judge and jurisdiction to jurisdiction; they follow no consistent pattern – except that blacks get waived most often

Race

·         LA County study found that blacks were only 13 percent of the juvenile population, they accounted for 95% of the cases waived to the adult court.

·         Rates per 100,000 - Latinos were 6 times more likely and blacks were 12 times more likely than whites to be transferred.

·         South Carolina - during a 10-year period (1985–1994) 80% waived were blacks.

·         Study of four Southern states between 1980 and 1988 found that the number of waivers increased by over 100 percent

o   largest increases were for drug offenses (152% from 1987 to 1991).

·         suggests that the movement to transfer youth was more of a political issue than a public safety issue (only 1% of cases are waived)

Some Negative Consequences of Certification

·         Has it worked?  In a word, no.

·         Perhaps this is why there has been a decline in waivers in recent years

·         Even conservative criminologist John DiIulio warned that “Most kids who get into serious trouble with the law need adult guidance. And they won’t find suitable role models in prison. Jailing youth with adult felons under Spartan conditions will merely produce more street gladiators.”

·         Increases chance of suicide & victimization by adults

·         Higher recidivism rates among those certified

·         Genarlow Wilson’s case illustrates some of the problems with waiver – read it over carefully

·         Then there was the  Jena Six case

o   The three nooses hung from a tree was no laughing matter for blacks, for obvious reasons

o   A school fight is rarely prosecuted as a felony, but in this case we had an overzealous white prosecutor who has warned the students at school “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear.”

·         Martin Lee Anderson was another case, this one centering on an infamous “boot camp”

·         Shaquanda Cotton – sentenced to 7 years for shoving a teacher (white offender convicted for arson got probation); sentenced to a juvenile facility in a Texas town called Pyote (pop. 131) just west of Odessa along I-20

o   Here’s where she was: http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/programs/jackson1/index.html

Girls and New York Juvenile Prisons

·         This section is based upon a study by Human Rights Watch which I have posted on my web site: http://www.sheldensays.com/juvenile_justice_page.htm

·         Briefly put, the findings echo similar studies going back to the very beginning of juvenile “correctional facilities” like houses of refuge

·         As I stated in the first chapter of my book, “same story, different day”

·         Why do such abuses continue and are exposed, over and over again?

·         An answer may be provided by the famous Stanford Prison Experiment: http://www.prisonexp.org/