DMC and DSO are Priorities for GA

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Disproportionate minority contact and detention of status offenders are the core issues for Georgia’s juvenile justice system, according to Joseph Vignati, Justice Programs Coordinator at the Governor’s Office for Children and Families.  Vignati will testify at a hearing on reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in Washington D.C. this week.  He speaks with a loud voice, because he’s also the National Juvenile Justice Specialist for the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, representing 56 states and territories. Vignati says the JJDP Act requires states to focus on four core issues:

Removing juvenile offenders from adult jails
Separating juveniles from adults if they are held in the same lockup
Disproportionate minority contact
Minimizing the detention of status offenders

He believes the first two issues are less significant now than they were 20 years ago, because Georgia and other states have laws against housing children with adults, and separate detention centers for kids.  Vignati points out, “In FY 2009 we had only 23 juveniles locked up as adults across the state, and 20 of them lied about their age.

Disproportionate Minority Study

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African American teens are 2.3 times more likely to get arrested in Georgia than Caucasian teens, and 5.5 times more likely to land in adult court, according to the latest numbers from the Governor's Office for Children and Families.  This level of disproportionate minority contact  (DMC) is not unique to Georgia.  It’s a problem across the country.   The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is launching a study to reduce the number of minorities in contact with the juvenile justice system.  The agency has awarded a 3-year grant to Development Services Group, Inc., a Maryland consulting company.  The mission is to compare the rates of contact with the justice system for white and minority teens. Researchers will study what happens at nine different points of contact from arrest, to diversion, to detention, imprisonment or transfer to adult court.  They hope to identify promising programs that states like Georgia can use to end the DMC problem.