Juvenile Justice System - Campaign for Youth Justice

Willi Rivera was 16 in 2005 when he was charged and incarcerated as an adult in a DC jail, and transferred to Lewisberg Federal Penitentiary, a Pennsylvania maximum-security prison. A first time juvenile offender, he wasn't supposed to be there, but it happened. In fact, it happens often, particularly if you are a Latino or African American youth. A 2008 policy brief from the Campaign for Youth Justice entitled America's Invisible Children, it reports that "Latino youth are treated more harshly by the justice system than white youth, for the same offenses, at all stages in the justice system including police stops, arrests, detention, waiver to the adult criminal justice system, and sentencing." Why is this? These disparities don't occur because of different juvenile crime rates. Self report surveys conducted by the Campaign for Youth Justice indicate that Latino youth and white youth commit roughly the same levels of crime. Yet the justice system responds in much more punitive ways to Latino youth than white youth. The most severe disparities occur in the adult system, where Latino children are 43% more likely than white youth to be waived to the adult system and 40% more likely to be admitted to adult prison.

So why has the system failed Latino children in this way? If we are to assume that the purpose of the juvenile justice system is to care and treat our children, then we should be alarmed that kids are being adjudicated into the adult system and that the justice system itself does not really meet those care and treatment functions; instead and seemingly by design, it is centered primarily on the punishment and correction of criminals. Furthermore there's something to be said about perpetuating racial stereotypes and inappropriately categorizing typical adolescent behaviors as 'gang' activities. Consider this for a moment: young people, Latinos to be precise, are particularly vulnerable to prosecution under gang-related laws. "As police stop groups of youth and photograph them, and a youth doesn't have to commit a crime to be entered into the [gang] database in California, for example, many youth could mistakenly be identified as gang members by mere association and with disastrous legal consequences if they were ever caught for unrelated misbehavior. This provides pause for reflection as Neelum Arya, Director for the Campaign For Youth Justice (CFYJ) Center, explains "...a significant majority of incarcerated youth are non-violent offenders who only become 'chronic offenders' after serving time behind bars...with one out of every four incarcerated Latino children held in an adult prison or jail even though youth in adult facilities are in significant danger of suicide and rape." Latino youth are incarcerated with adults at four times the rate as other groups. Four times the rate. Are you shocked yet? Congress is currently considering legislation that could help correct this problem. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act, S.678, is pending in the US Senate Judiciary Committee, and if passed, would provide federal funding to states that comply with a set of best practices aimed at avoiding the incarceration of young people in adult facilities.