JJIE Hub: Reform Trends — Racial & Ethnic Fairness

A number of states have improved their juvenile justice data collection efforts. Below is a sampling:

• • Connecticut
    • • In 2009, the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee recommended that state juvenile justice data systems be improved so that the juvenile justice data needed to study racial and ethnic disparities was consistently entered and tracked.^[7]
      • In 2012, Connecticut’s probation department, the Court Support Services Division, developed a system modeled on the DMC Action Network’s data template, in order to collect data on youth at various points in the juvenile justice system on a quarterly basis.^[8]

• • Hawaii 
    The Office of Hawaiian Affairs recommended that data be used to regularly evaluate the effects of current policies and practices on racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems and to determine the impact of subsequent modifications to those policies and practices.^[9]

• • Iowa
    In the last decade, Iowa researchers and specialists have tracked data from each decision point in several juvenile justice systems around the state, in an effort to identify and address racial and ethnic disparities. They also developed a resource center to provide intensive technical assistance to locations struggling with racial and ethnic disparities.^[10]

• • Louisiana
    Rapides Parish installed a new data system in its detention center and standardized data collection among six local law enforcement agencies. These data improvements helped the county reduce disparities. Data showed that a large number of youth of color were entering the system due to school issues and probation revocations, allowing county officials to target their reforms.^[11]

• • North Carolina 
    Union County adopted a number of strategies to reduce racial and ethnic disparities, such as improved data collection. Their reforms contributed to a 67 percent decline in the number of youth admitted to detention for probation violations over a nine month period, with a 50 percent drop in admissions of youth of color for that reason.^[12]
  • Pennsylvania
    Lancaster County collected data with the Burns Institute Level One data collection tool and used the information to reduce racial and ethnic disparities through methods such as opening an evening reporting center to reduce the number of youth of color securely detained.^[13] Additionally, the state of Pennsylvania made changes to its state juvenile justice data system to disaggregate race and ethnicity in its data collection.^[14]

Below are examples of legislative strategies for improving data collection:

• • Illinois
    Illinois passed legislation in 2011 establishing a Racial and Ethnic Impact Research Task Force tasked with determining a practical method for the standardized collection and analysis of data on the racial and ethnic identity of arrested individuals.^[15]
  • Indiana
    Indiana passed legislation in 2009 creating a Board for the Coordination of Programs Serving Vulnerable Individuals to oversee the implementation of the recommendations made by Indiana’s Commission on Disproportionality in Youth Services. ^[16] Among other duties, the Board was charged with creating “a central data warehouse to serve as a statewide system for standardized, disaggregated, race-specific data collection.”^[17]
  • Minnesota
    Minnesota passed legislation in 2009 requiring that a study group produce a plan to determine how to best collect data on race, ethnicity, gender, geography, and offenses in the juvenile justice system. In 2010, the study group’s report detailed recommended strategies to improve Minnesota’s juvenile justice data collection and analysis.^[18]

•  Louisiana
  Rapides Parish improved its data collection by moving to a two-question approach regarding race and ethnicity.^[21]
• North Carolina
  Union County changed its data collection to the two-question approach for race and ethnicity, and added a question at intake about a youth’s language preference. These reforms helped the county to count the number of Hispanic youth in its juvenile justice system more accurately, and they used the data to better target their limited resources. ^[22]
• Pennsylvania
  Pennsylvania separated its race and ethnicity data to get a more accurate measurement of disparities.^[23]

Washoe County, Nevada collected data on girls in its juvenile justice system in 2006 and learned that 40 percent of the girls being detained were held for technical violations of probation or status offenses, while only 25 percent of the boys were detained for these types of offenses. County administrators used this information to eliminate probation sentences for status offenders and reduce the use of probation for misdemeanors, addressing these cases through voluntary services to the youth and family instead. From 2006 – 2010, Washoe County reduced the use of secure detention for girls by 50 percent.^[26]

Police Training

• • Connecticut
    The Connecticut Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee has trained 1,400 police officers since 2007 on youth development and issues related to racial disparities.^[31] The “Effective Police Interactions with Youth” training curriculum provides patrol officers with information to better understand youth behavior and with practical strategies for interacting with young people in positive ways.^[32] A 2008 evaluation found that this training had a lasting positive impact on participating officers’ knowledge and attitudes about "youth development and issues related to racial disparities.”^[33]

• • Hawaii
    The Hawaii County Police Department implemented a law enforcement training program that includes training in cultural competency, crisis intervention, homelessness, and mental illness.^[34]

• • Massachusetts
    The non-profit organization “Strategies for Youth” provides a training program for police officers that involves community-based youth-serving organizations and local youth. The program teaches officers about adolescent development, strategies for working with compromised teens, cultural issues affecting adult/youth interactions, and recognizing and addressing implicit bias.^[35] In Cambridge and Everett, Massachusetts the juvenile arrest rate decreased by 50 percent following the training.^[36]

• • Pennsylvania
    Philadelphia leaders developed a training curriculum for new law enforcement cadets called the Philadelphia Minority Youth Law Enforcement Curriculum. It trains cadets on adolescent development, youth culture, and youth coping strategies, and engages police in a dialogue with youth. The curriculum is being expanded for other police departments to use.^[37]

Juvenile Justice Staff Training

• • California
    Santa Cruz hired a consultant to provide multicultural training for the juvenile justice staff that was tailored to working with Latino youth and families. The consultant helped them to alter their treatment approaches and to include families in the treatment process.^[38]

• • Illinois
    The Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission recommended that cultural competency and adolescent development education/training be mandated for juvenile justice professionals, with an emphasis on its relevance to racial and ethnic disparities, particularly focusing on “OJJDP decision points, specific data collection tools and the appropriate uses of discretion.”^[39]

• • Kansas
    Sedgwick County Department of Corrections (which encompasses juvenile justice) made staff diversity a goal throughout the department and made a 5-phase, forty-hour cultural competency diversity training program mandatory for all employees in order to provide them with the training and tools to actively contribute to a positive and inclusive work environment, and to improve cultural competency with their clients. Language interpreter services were also implemented in all areas of the Department.^[40]

• • Oregon
    The Oregon Youth Authority’s (OYA) Juvenile Policy Committee developed and adopted a set of protocols in May of 2000 to assist OYA in becoming a culturally competent agency. To help OYA facilities provide effective, culturally competent treatment services, OYA’s Office of Minority Services provides training, technical assistance, and program development.^[41]

Culturally Competent Youth Programs

• • California
    The Mexican American Community Services Agency, a community-based organization in San Jose, California, provides culturally and linguistically competent educational and social services programs throughout Santa Clara County. One example is its gang intervention program, Ollin:

• • “Ollin . . . emphasizes the cultural heritage of its Latino participants. It teaches youth about the values of their ancestors and the meaning of palabra—keeping one’s word and living with integrity—to help youth leave gangs or prevent them from joining one. As part of their gang prevention and intervention efforts, MACSA also educates parents, many of whom are overworked or unfamiliar with gang culture, about gang prevention.”^[42]

• • Oregon
    The Oregon Juvenile Crime Prevention Advisory Committee adopted a policy requiring counties to ensure that services are culturally appropriate and gender-specific. The committee commissioned the Office of Minority Services within the Oregon Youth Authority to design training and technical assistance for counties on cultural competency and gender-specific programming.^[43]
  • South Dakota
    The Sovereign Tribal Nation of Sicangu Lakota, located in Rosebud, South Dakota, incorporated Lakota cultural practices such as archery, beadwork, and outfit-making, and promoted indigenous practices, such as peacemaking and family group decision-making, to repair harm caused by youthful offending and keep cases out of the court system.^[44]

• • Washington
    Pierce County developed a culturally competent Functional Family Therapy (FFT) program to better engage African-American youth. While studies have found FFT to be effective in reducing recidivism, few African-American youth in Pierce County responded to the program until they found a provider who could effectively relate to African-American youth and their families. After the development of this specialized caseload, the engagement rates for African-American youth jumped from 45 percent to a 100 percent completion rate for the program.^[45]

•  California
  In Santa Cruz County, the probation office is aiming to have a Spanish-speaking staff member for every stage of the juvenile justice process and partners with a community-based agency to provide services explaining court processes and expectations to families of Latino youth.^[48]
•  Nevada
  Washoe County worked with the Youth Law Center to improve its data collection methods and now include language proficiency as a component in its data collection system. Additionally, the youth detention center now identifies students with limited English proficiency (LEP), has instituted English language development classes for them, and trained detention center teachers in instructional strategies to meet the language needs of LEP students.^[49]

• Pennsylvania
  Localities in Pennsylvania working with the Models for Change DMC Action Network made efforts to improve linguistic competency in a number of ways. Some jurisdictions worked with community stakeholders to translate court forms and information for members of color in their communities. Some increased the Spanish-language proficiency of their staff.^[50]

• Texas
  Travis County worked with the Youth Law Center to improve its data collection methods; youth now identify their primary language as “American Sign Language, Braille, Chinese/Mandarin/Cantonese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Vietnamese, or other.”^[51]

Recipients of federal funding must take reasonable steps to accommodate individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.^[52] In 2010, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division issued new guidance to help state courts meet federal language access requirements:^[53]

• courts must provide meaningful language access in all court and court-related proceedings, whether civil, criminal, or administrative;
• courts must provide interpreters free of cost to [all] parties;
• courts must make reasonable accommodations for services conducted outside the courtroom; and
• courts must ensure that parties with limited English proficiency and witnesses can communicate with court-appointed or supervised personnel.

Detention Assessment Instruments

• • Louisiana
    Rapides Parish developed and implemented a detention screening instrument in 2008 to ensure that law enforcement was making objective determinations regarding whether to detain youth. It was often a challenge to convince officers of the value of completing a standardized screening instrument, but a validation study in 2010 found that using the tool significantly reduced the proportion of African-American youth detained.^[57]

• • North Carolina
    The Department of Juvenile Justice piloted a detention assessment instrument in four districts from January through June of 2012. It resulted in a 22 percent overall reduction in admissions from the previous year, which included a 24 percent reduction for African-American youth, and a 16 percent reduction for Latino youth. This meant that 125 fewer youth of color were securely detained over a six-month period in those four counties.^[58]

• • Pennsylvania
    Several jurisdictions implemented detention assessment tools for probation officers to use in determining when to detain newly arrested youth and those who have violated probation. The tools provide risk scores based on objective criteria, such as current charges, previous failures to appear in court, and violations of conditions of release.^[59] Subsequently, a statewide committee created a detention risk assessment tool for use across the state, with common scoring and definitions. Eight counties are piloting the common tool.^[60]

Objective Assessment Tools

• • Wisconsin
    • • Kenosha and Outagamie Counties integrated the Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument (YASI) into their case planning process. The screening instrument was adopted to help them make decisions regarding confinement that were race-, culture-, and gender-neutral.^[61]
      • Rock County also implemented the YASI to make objective assessments of the appropriate level of supervision for youth under juvenile justice supervision.^[62] Through use of the YASI and a program of graduated responses for probation violations, placements of youth in state correctional facilities dropped 88 percent between 2007 and 2009, and detention of youth of color for probation violations also declined.^[63]

 Probation Violation Tools

• • Connecticut
    Connecticut’s probation department adopted a system of graduated sanctions and incentives, effective July 2012. The new system is intended to reduce the number of youth of color being detained for technical probation violations by implementing a wide range of alternative sanctions to use instead of detention, and rewards for youth who go beyond basic compliance with their supervision terms. In the nine months after implementation, the number of African American youth taken into custody for violations fell by 30% in Hartford. ^[64]

• • Louisiana
    • • In Rapides Parish, officials enhanced objective and consistent decision-making by requiring a supervisor and two additional probation officers to review and approve all probation revocation requests. In addition, probation officers now use a service referral matrix to help determine whether youth can remain safely in the community. These policies helped cut probation revocations 61 percent overall from 2010 to 2011; revocations specifically for African-American males dropped 60 percent, while revocations for African-American females were cut in half.^[65]
      • Jefferson Parish implemented a graduated sanctions “ladder” to support objective decision-making by probation officers as they respond to probation violations, with the goal of reducing inappropriate use of secure detention.^[66]
  • North Carolina
    The Department of Juvenile Justice incorporated graduated sanctions, which take into account the seriousness of a specific probation violation and the risk to public safety. The strategy also rewards youth who build skills that will help them to be more responsible.^[67]

• • Oregon
    Multnomah County developed a “sanctions grid” – a structured approach to responding to probation violations which takes into account the seriousness of the violation and the youth’s risk of recidivism. It has significantly reduced the “idiosyncratic” use of detention by individual probation officers in response to violations.^[68]

• • Wisconsin
    Rock County adopted a graduated sanctions program for youth on probation; youth cannot be sent to detention without the approval of a sanctions committee. The program also provides incentives to reward positive behavior.^[69]

Diversion Programs

• • Louisiana
    The Rapides Parish District Attorney’s Office developed a neighborhood accountability board program as an alternative to formal processing of youth. The board, composed of neighborhood citizens, hears the facts of minor offenses committed by youth and crafts dispositions, such as restitution, community service, letters of apology, and/or school counseling. Youth must comply with the terms of their disposition within 90 days.^[71]

Detention Alternatives

• • Maryland
    Baltimore’s Pre-Adjudication Coordination and Transition (PACT) Center provides support services to youth so that they do not have to be detained pending adjudication. The PACT Center ensures that youth attend scheduled court hearings, avoid re-arrest, and undergo a comprehensive needs assessment and individualized plan that identifies community resources to help prevent future delinquency. A University of Maryland evaluation found that 99 percent of the youth served between July 2007 and March 2010 were African American; of the more than 400 youth served, 98 percent appeared for their scheduled court hearings and 92 percent did not reoffend while participating in the program.^[72]

• • Pennsylvania
    Pennsylvania has encouraged jurisdictions to adopt community alternatives, such as evening reporting centers, by reimbursing counties 90 percent of the cost of these programs, compared with 50 percent for the cost of using a secure detention bed.^[73] This has increased the use of programs such as the ones below:

• • • Berks County developed an evening reporting center in 2008 to serve both pre-adjudicated and adjudicated male youth. It is a short-term program (average of 30 days) that provides youth with a mix of life skills development, educational assistance, group counseling, recreational activities, and meals.^[74] The committee overseeing RED reduction efforts in the county worked with the provider to ensure that the staff reflected the race and ethnicity of the youth being served, and that the programming would be culturally responsive and community-focused. Since these changes were put in place, all youth have attended every scheduled court appearance and 96.4 percent did not reoffend while in the program.
    • Additionally, Berks County has reduced its out-of-home placements by expanding the use of evidence-based programs in the community, such as Multisystemic Therapy (MST); and using a bilingual-capable service provider for Latino youth. In 2011, 80.4 percent of the youth who had completed the MST program had not reoffended, and 82 percent were not placed outside the home.
    • These reforms, and implementation of a detention assessment instrument, reduced the county’s use of secure detention sufficiently to allow it to close its detention center in 2012 and reduce its out-of-home placement costs by $2.4 million in 2009, with a further drop in 2010.^[75]
    • Lancaster County opened an evening reporting center in 2010 capable of serving ten male youth at a time; its director and staff are bilingual, in order to serve the county’s significant Latino population.^[76]
  • In Pennsylvania seven counties have recently established teams to execute Capstone projects focused on advancing racial equity within their juvenile justice systems through pre and post arrest diversion programs. This report from the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University provides a comparative analysis of data gathered from the Capstone teams and task forces operating within the state.

Probation Violation Programs

• • California
    In Ventura County, probation violations were a leading cause of high detention numbers, and the majority of youth detained were Latino. The county engaged organizations based in communities where the majority of youth being detained lived, and developed an evening reporting center. Probation officers refer youth who would otherwise be detained to the center. The center helps connect youth to a variety of services, including tutoring, education, career development, leadership courses and health/life skills.^[77]

• • Kansas
    Sedgwick County developed a weekend program for low-risk youth as an alternative to secure detention. Of the 123 youth it served in the first six months after it opened in January 2010, 33 percent were African-American and 25 percent were Latino.^[78] The program led to a 6 percent reduction in 2010 in the use of secure detention for sanctions, a 33 percent reduction in 2011, and a 42 percent reduction at the half-year point in 2012 compared to 2011.^[79]

• • Texas^[80]
    Travis County data demonstrated that Latino youth were detained for probation violations more often, and for longer periods of time, than White youth. The probation department developed a “sanction supervision program” providing case management and programming through a community-based provider. The program was designed to help youth and families identify and access services they needed to prevent probation violations.

• • Wisconsin^[81]
    In addition to adopting a system of graduated responses for probation, a policy that restricts the use of detention for probation violations without the approval of a sanctions committee, and incentives to reward good behavior, Rock County also developed a broad range of community-based alternative services and programs so that it would rely less on secure detention for youth violating probation. The programs include Aggression Replacement Therapy, substance abuse services, and a weekend and evening reporting center that has an 84 percent completion rate. From 2002-2010, the county implemented six new community-based supervision programs, saw a 35 percent reduction in the youth of color locked up for probation violations, and a 30 percent reduction in the average daily population of African-American youth in secure detention.

• Hawaii
  The Office of Hawaiian Affairs recommended that Hawaii establish a committee to work on reducing the disproportionate contact of Native Hawaiians with the justice system. It further recommended that this committee or “governing collaborative” include traditional stakeholders such as judges, prosecutors, defenders, law enforcement officers, and probation officers, as well representatives of local organizations, community members, schools, family members, and youth.^[83]
• Illinois
  • • The Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, which is the Illinois state advisory group on juvenile justice, requested a comprehensive analysis of disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in the Illinois juvenile justice system. The Center for Prevention Research and Development (CPRD) at the University of Illinois performed the qualitative analysis and recommended that the Commission “advocate at state and local levels for the involvement of community members, organizations, and coalitions in local DMC prevention efforts.”^[84]

• • • The Cook County DMC Workgroup includes many non-system stakeholders, including community-based service providers, grassroots leaders, and community residents.^[85]

• Kansas
  Sedgwick County has an active stakeholder group of sixteen juvenile justice professionals and community representatives known as “Team Justice” that advocates for local juvenile justice services and needs. The group analyzes data on racial and ethnic disproportionalities at each meeting, and has met for the past ten years. The group helped to spearhead school interventions to lessen zero tolerance policies that greatly reduced school-based arrests.^[86]

• Pennsylvania
  • • The DMC subcommittee of Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Committee initially included judges, prosecutors, defenders, and probation staff. Individual counties then added youth and families formerly involved in the system, clergy, police, schools, members of community organizations, mental health service providers, and mentoring groups to work alongside other stakeholders on local reforms. The new partners helped the youth-serving agencies to create more culturally competent services, attract new service providers to work with juvenile justice-involved youth, coordinate more closely with other agencies serving children, and work collaboratively on long-standing challenges.^[87]
    • Community members in Lancaster County developed the DMC Interfaith Community Network to organize people of faith to help young people and decrease racial and ethnic disproportionality in the juvenile courts. They recently developed an interfaith program that will match youth who have committed first time, low-level offenses with mentors connected with several churches in Lancaster County.^[88]

• Washington
  Benton-Franklin Counties’ DMC coordinator and colleagues have engaged the community in identifying causes of racial disparities and developing solutions. They helped to facilitate a sixteen-member Latino community leaders’ group, which includes the head of the Latino chamber of commerce and the local community college’s director of diversity and outreach. They have also helped to facilitate numerous meetings of African-American community leaders.^[89]

• Wisconsin
  Kenosha and Outagamie Counties both formed stakeholder groups to work on racial and ethnic fairness in juvenile justice. In Kenosha, the stakeholder group includes the school district, the public defender, and the chief judge. In Outagamie, the stakeholder group has also formed strong relationships with tribal officials, law enforcement, and the county’s deputy district attorney.^[90]

• Minnesota
  Though not required by law, in 2006 Minnesota became the first state to begin providing the legislature with racial impact notes. The Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission prepares the notes on proposed crime bills when it anticipates there will be a disparate impact.^[96]

Three states require racial impact statements by law: Connecticut, Iowa, and Oregon. Lawmakers in additional states -- including Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Texas -- have also introduced racial impact bills.^[97]

• • Connecticut
    Connecticut passed legislation in 2008 requiring that racial and ethnic impact statements be prepared for bills and amendments that had the potential to increase or decrease the pretrial or sentenced population in the state.^[98]

• • Iowa
    In 2008, Iowa passed the first legislation in the country requiring racial impact statements. At the time, Iowa’s black-to-white incarceration ratio of 13.6 to 1 was the highest in the country.^[99] Iowa’s legislation provides that any bill that creates a new criminal offense or modifies existing offenses, sentencing, parole, or probation procedures, must contain information on “the impact of legislation on minorities” in the correctional impact statement attached to the bill prior to floor debate.^[100]

• • Oregon
    • • In July of 2013, Oregon passed SB 463, a racial impact statement bill. It provides that:
        • • If asked by any two legislators from different parties, the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission must prepare an “impartial, simple, and understandable” statement on the expected impact of the proposed legislation or ballot measure on racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal or juvenile justice system.^[101]
          • Additionally, state agencies awarding grants must require that each grant applicant include a racial impact statement in its application that discloses “any disproportionate or unique impact of proposed policies or programs on minority persons in this state.”^[102]

Strategies: Administrative"]

From Clayton County, Georgia to Denver, Colorado, localities have begun to clarify the role of the police in school discipline, in order to block the school-to-prison pipeline.^[119] See below for information on these and other reforms being initiated in the states.

• • Colorado
    The Denver Public Schools and the Denver Police Department signed an intergovernmental agreement in 2013 that limits the role of police in schools, mandates community stakeholder involvement, requires comprehensive training, and highlights student due process rights.^[120]

• • Connecticut
    • • Nine Connecticut school districts have signed memoranda of understanding with local police that limit when police can make arrests on school property. By the spring of 2012, arrests and expulsions in the school district for the town of Manchester had fallen by more than 60 percent from the year before.^[121] In Hartford, school-based arrests were down 78 percent between March and June of 2012, when compared to the previous year, and in Bridgeport they were down almost 40 percent during this time period.^[122]
      • In 2011, juvenile courts began rejecting cases of youth arrested and referred to court for minor misbehavior; more than half of the first 211 cases rejected involved school arrests.^[123]

• • Florida^[124]— In 2011, more than 1,000 students were arrested in Broward County schools – the sixth-largest school district in the country. This ranked it number one for school-based arrests in Florida. The school district entered into a Collaborative Agreement on School Discipline with local law enforcement, the juvenile justice department, and civil rights groups like the N.A.A.C.P. to overhaul its disciplinary policies. The agreement made the following changes to reduce arrests:

• • • Students caught for the first time committing any of 11 non-violent misdemeanors are not arrested and sent to court. Instead, they are handled through alternatives such as counseling and community service.
    • Students are no longer suspended for minor infractions. Instead, they attend a program called Promise for three days or more, which includes a counseling component that involves the students’ parents. They are also given more chances to change their behavior.
    • Since initiating the changes, school-based arrests in 2012 were down by 41 percent, and suspensions were down by 66 percent, compared to the same period in 2011.

• • Illinois
    Peoria County officials, working with the W. Hawyood Burns Institute and Models for Change, determined that a significant number of African-American boys were being detained in the juvenile justice system for incidents arising from school fights or due to arrests resulting from zero tolerance policies at schools. The group piloted the Peoria County Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Project to address school fights internally, at the school, instead of through law enforcement. When fully implemented, the new school-based policy resulted in a 35 percent reduction in school referrals to detention.^[125]

• • Kansas
    Sedgwick County developed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for schools and police to handle disruptive behavior without automatically arresting youth.^[126] The county also hired a juvenile justice liaison to assist with individual school cases and help develop MOUs with more county schools to address school referrals to juvenile court. The county was able to reduce school-based arrests for disorderly conduct by 37 percent and reduce arrests at Wichita public schools by 50 percent during the period from 2009 to 2010.^[127]

• • Louisiana
    • • In Jefferson Parish, 84 percent of youth arrested at school in 2006 were youth of color. To combat the problem, parish officials engaged in training for school staff and law enforcement.
        • • To teach school staff how to intervene more effectively with students posing disciplinary problems and reduce referrals to law enforcement, the Jefferson Parish Public School System’s Director of School Safety and Discipline, with funding support from the Models for Change initiative, held a special training in 2008 on Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools, a component of School-Wide Positive Behavior Intervention and Support. Jefferson Parish Public Schools was able to reduce school-based arrests in 2009-2010 by approximately 16 percent from the year before.^[128]
          • In the summer of 2010, the Models for Change initiative provided funding for all of Jefferson Parish’s school police to participate in Crisis Intervention Team training, an approach that helps law enforcement develop intervention, counseling, and de-escalation skills in responding to emergencies.^[129]

• • • • Under a protocol developed by Rapides Parish, school officials cannot refer a youth to court unless they have documented their efforts to address the behavior on an “exhaustion form,” met with caregivers regarding their concerns, and referred youth to a behavioral strategist or school counselor. Since adopting these reforms, there has been a 24 percent drop in school cases filed in court due to a youth’s disruptive behavior. Officials are still working to make these reductions uniform across race and gender.^[130]

• • Maryland^[131]
    Maryland education officials approved new regulations in January of 2014 ending zero tolerance policies and requiring local school boards to adopt discipline policies that allow for discretion and adopt a rehabilitative approach to discipline, with suspensions and expulsions used only as a last resort. By fall of 2014 they must inform the state board how they have changed their policies to reduce long-term suspensions and to reduce the disproportionate suspensions of students of color.

• • Missouri
    In Cole County, African-American youth were referred to court almost ten times more often than white youth in 2009. In 2011, the County revised its school referral policy eliminating school referrals of minor offenses to juvenile court. This revision cut the rate of referrals of African-American youth to court almost in half.^[132]

• • Oregon
    In June 2009, Portland Public Schools– Oregon’s largest urban school district – committed to pilot projects in ten schools to reduce racial disparities in school discipline and reduce the use of suspension and expulsion. The district also established a new policy that explicitly stated its commitment to eliminating disparities in discipline practices.^[133]

• Colorado
  Colorado passed legislation (HB 12-1345) in 2012 to reduce school-based arrests and out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. Among other features, the law:^[134]
• • • recognizes that “the use of inflexible ‘zero tolerance’ policies as a means of addressing disciplinary policies in schools has resulted in unnecessary expulsions, out-of-school suspensions, and referrals to law enforcement agencies;”
    • discourages reliance on the justice system for minor misbehavior and requires every school district to implement “proportionate” discipline that reduces arrests and out-of-school suspensions and expulsions;
    • requires school districts to implement prevention strategies such as restorative justice, peer mediation, and counseling;
    • improves collection of data on school-based arrests, tickets, and court referrals; and
    • enhances training of school police.
• Connecticut
  After Connecticut schools issued 77,000 out-of-school suspensions to youth in the 2005-06 school year, the legislature passed a law in 2007 (which went into effect in 2010) that severely limited schools’ ability to suspend youth. ^[135] Many schools used the delayed implementation period in the law to begin exploring disciplinary alternatives to out-of-school suspensions so that the number of out-of-school suspensions declined 30 percent even before the law went into effect in 2010.^[136]
  
  By the 2011-12 school year, the total number of in-school and out-of-school suspensions and expulsions had decreased approximately 14 percent and out-of-school suspensions were down 39 percent.^[137]
  
  Despite this progress, 2011-12 school data still showed disciplinary overrepresentation of African-American and Hispanic students: African-American students were suspended/expelled at 3.8 times that of White students and Hispanic students were suspended/expelled at 2.8 times that of White students.^[138]

• California^[139]
  The United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigated whether African-American students were being disciplined more frequently and harshly than white students in the Oakland Unified School District. In 2009-10, African-American male students were five times more likely to be suspended than White students, and this disparity in suspension rates had remained constant for several years. The issue was resolved through an agreement with the school district prior to OCR making findings of fact.^[140] The agreement required that the school district take a number of actions, including:
• • • continue to consult with experts to prevent discrimination against African-American students with respect to the use of school discipline;
    • address misbehavior without removal from school;
    • provide at-risk students with support services to decrease behavioral problems;
    • review and revise disciplinary policies and train staff on the policies;
    • develop and implement programs to teach students and parents about the new policies and behavioral expectations, and their right to raise concerns and file complaints concerning discipline; and
    • improve its discipline data collection system.

• Delaware^[141]
  The United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights initiated an investigation of the Christina School District in 2010 and established that African-American students were disciplined more harshly and frequently because of their race than similarly situated white students. They reached a resolution agreement with the school district requiring it to take a number of actions to ensure that students receive equitable treatment, including:

• • • address misbehavior without removal from school to the maximum extent possible;
    • provide students engaging in disruptive behavior with support services to reduce behavior difficulties;
    • collaborate with experts on research-based policies to develop policies and practices that promote equity in school discipline; and
    • improve disciplinary data collection.

• Florida^[142]
  The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division began investigating the School District of Palm Beach County in 2011 for complaints regarding its practices of administering school discipline. The department entered into a settlement agreement with the school district to prevent discrimination in school discipline practices, reduce exclusionary discipline and referrals to law enforcement, and promote positive school discipline practices and strategies.

• Kentucky^[143]
  The Fayette County Public School System and the Kentucky Department of Education were both sued for disciplining students in a disparate manner based on their race and disability. Fayette County entered into a settlement agreement [MG53] with the Equity Council and the Children’s Law Center in December of 2010; and eight school districts entered into settlement agreements in 2011 that included a number of provisions designed to end disparities in the district and reduce referrals from the schools to the court. These provisions included revising the districts’ codes of conduct, creating compliance committees comprised of community members and school personnel, and cultural and racial bias training.

• Mississippi^[144]
  • • In the case of Barnhardt and U.S. v. Meridian Municipal School District, a federal court entered a desegregation order in 1969 permanently enjoining the District from discriminating on the basis of race or color in the operation of the Meridian schools.
    • In 2010, as part of efforts to enforce the desegregation order, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division began investigating complaints that the district’s discipline policy was racially biased, resulting in the disproportionate suspension, expulsion, and school-based arrest of African-American students.

• • • On May 30, 2013, the Court adopted a consent order requiring that the school district take steps to create safe and inclusive learning environments in all Meridian schools, including:
      • • providing students with supports and interventions before excluding them from school;
        • limiting the use of discipline measures that remove students from the classroom;
        • ensuring that discipline consequences are fair and consistent;
        • establishing clear guidelines for when law enforcement intervention is appropriate;
        • providing training to give teachers and administrators the tools necessary to manage their schools in a safe, effective, and positive manner; and
        • building data-driven monitoring and accountability systems.

A. Removing Youth from Adult Jails and Prisons

Youth being tried as adults can be held in adult jails and prisons in most states while awaiting trial and after sentencing.^[149] On any given night, an estimated 10,000 youth in this country are locked up in adult jails or prisons.^[150] Youth face very dangerous situations in adult facilities, including great risk of sexual victimization and suicide.^[151] Since 2005, however, ten states have all enacted laws to either permit or require that youth in the adult system be placed in juvenile facilities rather than adult facilities: Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. ^[152]

B. Juvenile Court Jurisdiction

In most states, youth who are under the age of eighteen and get in trouble with the law are processed by the juvenile justice system because they come under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. However, a small number of states place youth as young as 16 or 17 under the jurisdiction of adult court, no matter how minor the charge.^[153] Since 2005, four additional states have raised the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to 18 (meaning that youth under 18 are no longer automatically tried in adult court) -- Connecticut, Illinois, Mississippi, and Massachusetts.^[154] New Hampshire is currently considering a bill to raise the age.^[155]

C. Reducing the Prosecution of Youth in Adult Courts

Most states now have multiple ways to transfer youth to adult court. The most traditional way historically has been for a judge to make a determination that a youth is “unfit” for rehabilitation after consideration of a variety of factors. The changes states made to their transfer laws in the 1990s, however, often limited or removed judicial review and made it easier to transfer youth through other processes, such as: ^[156]

• • automatic transfer or statutory exclusion – which provides that youth charged with certain offenses are automatically tried in adult court;
  • “direct file,” or prosecutorial discretion statutes, which allow prosecutors to decide whether to try youth in adult court, generally without a court hearing and without standards to guide their determinations; and
  • “once an adult, always an adult” laws, provide that youth previously transferred to adult court must be tried as an adult for any future offenses.

Since 2005, twelve states have made changes to these transfer laws – or set up commissions to consider changes – to limit the transfer of youth to adult court through the following types of legislation:^[157]

• • Arizona, Colorado, Ohio, and Utah passed legislation either enabling or making it easier for youth tried as adults to get a “reverse waiver hearing” – a hearing where a judge is empowered to decide whether a youth transferred to adult court should be returned to juvenile court.
  • Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada raised the minimum age at which youth can be tried as adults.
  • Indiana, Virginia, and Washington placed limits on their “once an adult, always an adult” laws.
  • Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, and Nevada passed legislation narrowing the circumstances under which youth could be automatically transferred to adult court or tried in adult court at the discretion of prosecutors.
  • Colorado narrowed the age and offense requirements needed for prosecutors to try youth in adult court.
  • Maryland and Nevada passed legislation creating task forces to consider reforms to their transfer statutes, particularly the issue of automatic transfers.
  • The Missouri Juvenile Justice Advisory Group, together with the Missouri Department of Public Safety, performed a comprehensive analysis of racial and ethnic disparities in the transfer or “certification” of youth to adult court in Missouri. They found that African-American youth were disproportionately certified to adult court compared to White youth, and made numerous recommendations for legislative changes to help address the problem.

D. Sentencing Reform

In the wake of several U.S. Supreme Court cases that have severely restricted extreme sentences for youth tried as adults,^[158] several states have reformed their sentencing statutes. Eight states – California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and Washington – have enacted sentencing reforms for youth sentenced as adults, such as changing mandatory minimum sentencing laws to require judges to take into account the developmental differences between youth and adults, and enacting laws allowing for post-sentence review hearings for youth sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.^[159]

New York developed a Probation Assessment Tool (PAT) in 2003 for probation officers to use in recommending delinquency dispositions to the court. ^[164]

• • The PAT assessed the youth’s risk of reoffending by assigning an “asset score” based on factors associated with future offending.
  • Girls were awarded extra points based on their gender due to their generally lower likelihood of reoffending compared to boys with similar offenses.
  • While this approach was criticized by one New York family court judge as discriminating against boys, studies of the New York youth in their first eighteen months living in the community after disposition found that 56 percent of the boys were rearrested, compared to only 22 percent of the girls.