This is pathetic (see below). And so many people want us to believe that discrimination has disappeared or "gotten better". I used to agree with Gil Scott Herron, but times have changed and the revolution must be televised. Please tell your sons and daughters that the struggle must continue. I see too many young folk resting on the laurels about issues like this. What's worse, the zero tolerance policies in our schools and the criminalization of youth in our society have taken away just about every avenue they have to protest, e.g., have a sit in, get expelled for a year or more; take over the administrative offices at the high school, get kicked out, arrested, fined, and when you can't pay the fine, spend 30 days or more in juvenile detention or adult jail where you are robbed of your spirit every day; write letters to the press and seek assistance from our growing comfortable cadre of washed out, self described former activists, and get consumed by frustration from the apathetic response you get. Beyond that, most young people seem to have little concern for or knowledge of all the B.S. that goes on around them. Every major positive change that has occured in this country has in some way been facilitated through or with our youth. Where are they now? Where is your child right now? Are we proud because they are working at IBM or getting a Ph.D.? Cool, but what are they doing to give back and make this world a better place?
How many of us have instilled in our children the spirit of JUSTICE? I we fail to root this within them, then we can forget about them thinking about us after we pass the mantle. How many of our elder activists and leaders have some young folk in training right behind them? Without the thirst for JUSTICE, the passion for equality, and the compassion for human suffering seething through their blood, its no wonder so many of us young folk choose to go to the party instead of plan...for the movement and the change. Think about this as you read about the next tragedy that's happened to our young. Peace.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kaleem M. S. Caire
Special Projects Director
Wisconsin Center for Academically
Talented Youth (WCATY)
-----Original Message-----
From: Jane Ahlstrom [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 10:49 AM
To: Beth Lewis
Subject: Gee, here's a surprise...
February 3, 2000
Discrepancy by Race Found in the Trying of Youths
By TAMAR LEWIN
Minority youths are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be transferred out of California's juvenile justice system and tried as adults, according to a study made public
yesterday by the Justice Policy Institute, a criminal-justice research center.
"The imbalances this study reveals are stark, vast and deeply disturbing," said Dan Macallair, the associate director of the institute who is a co-author of the study. "Discrimination against kids of color
accumulates at every stage of the justice system and skyrockets when juveniles are tried as adults. California has a double standard: throw kids of color behind bars, but rehabilitate white kids who commit comparable crimes."
The study, "The Color of Justice," is believed to be the first to examine which youthful offenders are being transferred into the adult court system under recent laws making it easier to try juveniles as adults.
Although the study is based entirely on California data, criminal justice experts say the issue is a national one.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Gray Davis said yesterday afternoon that Mr. Davis had just received a report on the study and had not yet had time to review it.
All 50 states have laws allowing juveniles to be tried as adults. And over the last six years, as part of a move to get tougher on youthful offenders, 43 states have adopted laws making it easier to transfer
children charged with crimes to adult courts.
"Racial bias anywhere in the legal system is not a surprise," said Jeffrey Fagan, director of the Center for Violence Research and Prevention at Columbia University. "But we don't know much about who is
getting transferred under the new laws because most states have multiple pathways to transfer kids, so it's very difficult to study. California is among the few states that are relatively easy to examine."
Mr. Fagan added: "Juvenile transfers are particularly important because the consequences of moving a kid to the adult system are so severe."
In Los Angeles, the new study found, about 12 percent of the slightly more than 24,000 juveniles arrested for felonies in 1996 were white, 56 percent were Hispanic, 25 percent were black and 6 percent
were Asian. But the proportion of those tried as adults were quite different: Of the 561 cases transferred to adult court, only 5 percent were white, 6 percent were Asian, 30 percent were black and 59 percent were Hispanic.
Los Angeles County, which accounts for 40 percent of the juvenile court cases transferred to California's adult courts, is the only county in the state that keeps detailed records on transfers. In examining
the arrest categories of the county's youthful offenders, the study found no evidence that the racial disparity in transfer rates could be explained by a pattern of more violent or more heinous crimes by minority youths than by white youths.
Once a minority youth enters the adult court system, the study found, the racial disparities widen. At each step of the process, the proportion of white youths drops while the proportion of minority youths
rises.
Once transferred to the adult system, young African-American offenders were 18.4 times more likely to be jailed than were young white offenders, Hispanic youths 7.3 times more likely to be imprisoned than whites, and Asian youths 4.5 times more likely, the study found.
"Even at a time of heightened public awareness of racism in the criminal justice system, it's shocking to find such huge discrepancies in the way Latino and African-American kids are treated," Beatriz
Lopez-Flores of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund said in a statement prepared for a news conference yesterday to announce the study and to press Governor Davis to address the disparities.
Research cited in the study suggest that minority youths are overrepresented at every stage of the justice system. In Texas, for example, one study found that minorities made up half the state's youth population but 80 percent of its juveniles in correctional institutions and 100 percent of the juveniles held in adult jails.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
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