Black youth were more than four times as likely as white ones to be detained or committed to a juvenile facility, according to a report released this month by The Sentencing Project, which also noted that the Black-white disparity in detention and incarceration declined since it last analyzed the data. The newest report is based on the 36,479 youth in a total of 1,510 detention centers, youth prisons, residential treatment centers and youth homes as of October 2019; the prior analysis was conducted in 2015.
Latinx youth were 28% and Native American youth were more than three times as likely to be detained or committed to juvenile facilities as their white peers, according to The Sentencing Project.
These were among the additional findings of those three separate reports, which also detailed which states had the highest racial disparities among justice-involved youth:
- In the 11 states with at least 8,000 Native American youth, in general, there was a 10% spike in the disparity between Native American versus white juvenile detentions and commitments.
- In North Carolina and California, the Native American-white juvenile detention and commitment gap widened.
- In Montana, New Mexico and Texas, the Native American-white gap narrowed.
- Latinx youth had an 80% higher incarceration than their white peers.
- In Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Washington, which are among the 42 states where Latinx youth live, those youth were 50% more likely to be detained or committed than their white peers.
- Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island narrowed their Latinx-white gap.
- The Black-white juvenile detention and commitment gap grew by 10% in 11 states and fell by 10% in 23 states.