Why the Unexplained Racial Disparities??

Crime Report July 2020

In this moment, our nation is facing a multitude of viruses.

We are battling not just COVID-19, but the diseases of racism and injustice.

A new report from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, for example, shows that overall, youth incarceration has decreased by almost 60 percent between 1997 and 2017.

Those gains, however, have been primarily to the benefit of white children

The report notes that 67 percent of youth in placement in 2017 were Black, though Black youth only make up 13 percent of the general population. The national detention rate for Black youth, the report stated, was six times higher than for their white peers, despite similar rates of engaging in delinquent behavior.

The same is true of jail removal. There are more than 3,200 children every night who sleep in adult jails, and more than enough space in youth facilities to hold them. An adult jail is no place for a child; and the overwhelming majority of youth housed in adult jails are youth of color.

Seventy percent of children who are incarcerated are behind bars for low-level offenses like loitering and public nuisance offenses, or for technical violations of probation. None of these children belong in secure care. They (and we) would be much better off wrapping services around the child and their family in the community. Black children deserve the benefits of these interventions as much as their white counterparts.

https://thecrimereport.org/2020/07/17/ending-the-virus-of-bigotry-in-youth-justice/

Ed note: Does this make sense?

Others have documented that the cost of incarceration averages over $100,000 per youth per year.