Saturday, May 23, 2009
New York Rethinks Juvenile Justice
Listen to Public Radio's coverage of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice's Symposium on Racial Disparities, including statements from members of the NYC Task Force on Racial Disparity. Featured on this interview are Mishi Faruqee of the Children's Defense Fund, Tamara Steckler of the Legal Aid Society, and Tshaka Barrows of the W. Haywood Burns Institute. Listen to the audio file here.
Officials, advocates look to reform juvenile justice
May 22, 2009
By Cara Matthews
Albany Bureau
ALBANY - Advocates for improving juvenile justice in New York claimed Thursday that the state is not fully complying with a federal law that requires it to address the disproportionate number of minority youth in the system.
The Children's Defense Fund of New York, the Legal Aid Society and other organizations said that to help turn that around, state and local agencies need to do a better job of reporting information on the racial and ethnic makeup of children who are arrested, placed in detention or incarcerated.
Armed with all the data, communities could tailor specific programs and strategies to reduce the disparity, members of the groups said. They want the state to crack down on non-compliant agencies, require that all the information be made public, and work with communities on solutions.
"It's really only by reporting that data that we get a clear picture of what's going on and can actually pinpoint where racial disparity is happening," said Ruben Austria, director of Community Connections for Youth in New York City.
New York's system serves nearly 1,900 children at an annual cost of about $200,000 per child, and more than 75 percent of the youth are black or Hispanic, according to Gov. David Paterson's administration, which formed a task force last fall to look at possible improvements.
State Office of Children and Family Services statistics show that minority youth are arrested 1.76 times more than white youth, detained at a rate of 6.31 compared with whites and placed in confinement 4.62 times more often than whites.
Federal law passed in 1988 says states can jeopardize a portion of their funding if they don't address racial disparities in their juvenile-justice systems.
The state Department of Criminal Justice Services, which collects data from police, courts and other agencies involved with juvenile justice, recognized that some of the information reported to the department appeared inconsistent or incomplete and has been reviewing all the data and working with agencies to improve reporting, department spokesman John Caher said.
Racial disparity in juvenile justice was one of the topics addressed in a seminar Thursday that was sponsored by the Division of Criminal Justice Services, other state agencies and lawmakers. The department created the position of juvenile- justice director about a year ago, and Thursday's event was part of a series of forums the director organized on reforming the system, Caher said.
Youth of color are over- represented in juvenile-justice systems nationwide, Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, said at the symposium. They are more likely to be arrested, detained and committed; more likely to receive harsher sentences; and disparity worsens at deeper levels of the system. Some of the reasons are cultural, and a lot of it comes down to who has better legal representation.
In New York City, there is a "crisis of racial disparity," with black children and teens 31.8 times more likely to be incarcerated then their white peers, Austria said. Hispanic youth are 16.4 times more likely.
"For many years, a lot of folks who run agencies and make decisions just look at it as this is just sort of the way things are, this is just an intractable problem," Austria said.
Young people of color in cities commit the same types of offenses that all youth do, but for them the "response tends to be punitive and tends to be criminalization" rather than alternatives to being in the system, he said.
The top nine charges for children who are clients of the Legal Aid Society in New York City and go through the Family Court system are misdemeanors, said Tamara Steckler, attorney-in-charge for the society's Juvenile Rights Practice in New York City. The charges are for offenses like shoplifting, graffiti, having a school fight and trespassing by visiting a friend in a housing project, she said. Almost all the clients are minorities.
Kids take risks, they don't often see consequences and they get in trouble, Steckler said. "As adults, we are here to teach them and help them grow and be productive adults, and that's in their communities, with their families' support, not incarcerated. It's our responsibility," she said.
In wealthier, white communities, children are much more likely to be released to their families, and parents are expected to discipline them, she said.
The New York City groups have organized a task force on racial disparity in the system.
By Cara Matthews
Albany Bureau
ALBANY - Advocates for improving juvenile justice in New York claimed Thursday that the state is not fully complying with a federal law that requires it to address the disproportionate number of minority youth in the system.
The Children's Defense Fund of New York, the Legal Aid Society and other organizations said that to help turn that around, state and local agencies need to do a better job of reporting information on the racial and ethnic makeup of children who are arrested, placed in detention or incarcerated.
Armed with all the data, communities could tailor specific programs and strategies to reduce the disparity, members of the groups said. They want the state to crack down on non-compliant agencies, require that all the information be made public, and work with communities on solutions.
"It's really only by reporting that data that we get a clear picture of what's going on and can actually pinpoint where racial disparity is happening," said Ruben Austria, director of Community Connections for Youth in New York City.
New York's system serves nearly 1,900 children at an annual cost of about $200,000 per child, and more than 75 percent of the youth are black or Hispanic, according to Gov. David Paterson's administration, which formed a task force last fall to look at possible improvements.
State Office of Children and Family Services statistics show that minority youth are arrested 1.76 times more than white youth, detained at a rate of 6.31 compared with whites and placed in confinement 4.62 times more often than whites.
Federal law passed in 1988 says states can jeopardize a portion of their funding if they don't address racial disparities in their juvenile-justice systems.
The state Department of Criminal Justice Services, which collects data from police, courts and other agencies involved with juvenile justice, recognized that some of the information reported to the department appeared inconsistent or incomplete and has been reviewing all the data and working with agencies to improve reporting, department spokesman John Caher said.
Racial disparity in juvenile justice was one of the topics addressed in a seminar Thursday that was sponsored by the Division of Criminal Justice Services, other state agencies and lawmakers. The department created the position of juvenile- justice director about a year ago, and Thursday's event was part of a series of forums the director organized on reforming the system, Caher said.
Youth of color are over- represented in juvenile-justice systems nationwide, Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, said at the symposium. They are more likely to be arrested, detained and committed; more likely to receive harsher sentences; and disparity worsens at deeper levels of the system. Some of the reasons are cultural, and a lot of it comes down to who has better legal representation.
In New York City, there is a "crisis of racial disparity," with black children and teens 31.8 times more likely to be incarcerated then their white peers, Austria said. Hispanic youth are 16.4 times more likely.
"For many years, a lot of folks who run agencies and make decisions just look at it as this is just sort of the way things are, this is just an intractable problem," Austria said.
Young people of color in cities commit the same types of offenses that all youth do, but for them the "response tends to be punitive and tends to be criminalization" rather than alternatives to being in the system, he said.
The top nine charges for children who are clients of the Legal Aid Society in New York City and go through the Family Court system are misdemeanors, said Tamara Steckler, attorney-in-charge for the society's Juvenile Rights Practice in New York City. The charges are for offenses like shoplifting, graffiti, having a school fight and trespassing by visiting a friend in a housing project, she said. Almost all the clients are minorities.
Kids take risks, they don't often see consequences and they get in trouble, Steckler said. "As adults, we are here to teach them and help them grow and be productive adults, and that's in their communities, with their families' support, not incarcerated. It's our responsibility," she said.
In wealthier, white communities, children are much more likely to be released to their families, and parents are expected to discipline them, she said.
The New York City groups have organized a task force on racial disparity in the system.
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