Interview: Minorities get more than fair share of juvenile justice system
Angela N. White
Issue date: 2/13/04 Section: Features
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At the YLC, Schindler works to improve the conditions of confinement for institutionalized children. Prior to joining the YLC, he served as an assistant public defender in Baltimore, where he represented children in juvenile delinquency proceedings. He previously chaired the juvenile law committee of the Baltimore City Bar Association, and currently is a member of the ABA Juvenile Justice Committee.
Schindler is teaching a course this semester at WCL entitled, "Juvenile Law: Children's Legal Rights."
White: This issue's topic is Race and Law, and I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the presence of minority teenagers in the juvenile justice system. There appears to be a disproportionate number of minorities arrested and incarcerated. Just how bad is it?
Schindler: The data does show that a disproportionate number of youth of color are in our juvenile justice systems throughout the country. In just about every state, data shows that youth of color are represented in far greater numbers than their numbers in the general population.
White: Are there any particular crimes that minorities are arrested and/or convicted of more frequently?
Schindler: By and large, a great majority of all youth are arrested and charged with nonviolent offenses, despite what you might hear from the media. A small percentage - approximately 6 percent - are charged with violent offenses. Youth of color aren't any more likely to be arrested for violent offenses. What we do see is that for certain types of offenses - like drug offenses - we see greater disparities in youth of color being incarcerated than white youth being charged with similar offenses.
White: Are minority juveniles actually committing crime in higher percentages?
Schindler: That's a good question. What we know, actually, is a couple of things. One is that youth of color do self-report a slightly higher rate of crime than white youth. There are reasons we can look at as to why that's so. [Youth of color may be] more likely to live in concentrated areas of poverty [and] more likely to attend schools that don't perform as well as schools in suburban areas attended by white youth. Their communities may create an environment that is more likely to result in crimes being committed.
But what we also know is that police deployment, police tactics and other factors go into who is going to be arrested. What we see, for instance, in the drug area is that youth of color are more likely to be arrested for drug possession and dealing than white youth, despite the fact that we know that white youth use drugs at a higher rate than youth of color.
But the fact that youth of color are more likely to be in inner cities [and] in open drug markets than white youth means that they are just more likely to be arrested for that similar type of behavior.
White: You mentioned police participation. How does the legal system in general contribute to this trend of disproportionate minority arrests/confinement?
Schindler: In a number of ways. Police deployment does have something to do with how youth of color are treated in the system and [the fact that they] are arrested at higher rates.
We also see that there are certain policies and criteria that are used that may be race neutral on their face, but they may play out in different ways. For example, what we see in many jurisdictions is a criterion that requires or allows a youth to only be released to a biological parent. This criterion, while neutral on its face, will have a disparate impact on youth of color being detained.
The reason is that generally youth of color in families of color tend to live with extended relatives more often than white youth. So a youth who may live with a grandmother, aunt or uncle - who is a perfectly reliable, caring adult that can make sure the youth can get back to court and supervise the youth in the interim, which are the purposes of why a youth should be released to the relative - [that scenario] plays out differently when a biological parent is required.
So just tweaking that language [of the law] can have an impact in terms of whom is actually locked up. And there are similar policies and requirements in the system - It really takes a hard look at what criteria decision-makers use in order to get at these issues.
White: Are minority teenagers more likely to be transferred to the adult criminal system?
Schindler: They are. At each point in the system, youth of color are more likely to get hit hardest by these policies. So we know, for instance, that nationally youth of color are about 70 percent of the kids that end up getting transferred to the adult criminal justice system. And we know that [youth of color] are more likely to be transferred to the adult system even when charged with similar types of offenses.
White: In your experience, have you noticed any non-legal; i.e. social factors that may contribute to [minority youth's] disproportionate representation in the criminal justice system?
Schindler: There are a number of things that play into this. Race is clearly a factor, but it's also connected with class issues. So we have communities of color that are more likely to live in areas of concentrated poverty than poor white families, less educational opportunities, less job opportunities - all those things create an environment where it is just more likely that crime will occur. So these social factors can't be totally disconnected from the issue.
An example of where class issues also play out is in legal representation. Youth of color are more likely to be represented by public defenders than white [youth]. Research does show, for instance, that those youth who are represented by private attorneys are less likely to be transferred to the adult system and less likely to be incarcerated once they are in the adult system than youth represented by public defenders.
[Research] also shows that white youth are more likely to be represented by private attorneys than youth of color. This isn't to say that public defenders are not good attorneys trying to do a good job. But what we know about many public defense systems is that resources are an issue. So when we have a public defender who is handling an extremely high case load, those clients just don't get the same level of attention they may [receive] if they were represented by a private attorney who doesn't have the same challenges.
White: What remedies would you propose to fix this situation?
Schindler: It's a very complex issue - there are no easy remedies. But we have learned some things in recent years about how to get at these racial disparities. We need to make sure that youth - particularly youth of color - have good representation in court. That means that public defenders need more resources to lower their caseloads; they need social workers and other support to make sure that they are able to provide, not only a good defense, but also a good presentation in court [of] alternatives to detention or incarceration.
We also know that in communities of color, different types of programming may be necessary, and we may need to take a fresh look at who is providing the programming and whether it is having an impact. For example, in a community with a large Latino population, we've seen that over the years, groups who were being contracted to provide services in that community were not able to provide viable services, such as bilingual programming.. Just the type of services - and how they are provided - can have an impact in making sure that kids do not end up in locked facilities when they don't need to.
So there are a range of things that we can do to try to get at these issues. One that may be the most important is to work intentionally to address these racial disparities, [to evaluate] the system at each point with a very careful and intentional look to see whether [legal] decisions are having a disparate impact on youth of color - which may have nothing to do with public safety - to make sure that the criterion being used are not only race neutral but also do not have a disparate impact on youth of color.
Related Links:
Youth Law Center
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