SACRAMENTO/LOS ANGELES, CA - California civil rights leaders and children's advocates will release a new study February 2 that shows that African American, Latino and Asian American youth are significantly more likely to be transferred to adult court and sentenced to incarceration than white youths who commit comparable crimes.

At Sacramento and Los Angeles news conferences Wednesday, civil rights groups will demand that Governor Gray Davis investigate the report's findings and take measures to address racial disparities in juvenile transfers.

"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," said Beatriz Lopez-Flores, Vice President of Community Education and Public Policy for MALDEF."A justice system that displays such blatant bias is a system in dire need of reform. We're calling on Governor Davis to send a clear message that discrimination is unacceptable in California's justice system and we hope the Governor will do whatever it takes to ensure that youth of color receive fair treatment, whether they are tried as juveniles or adults."

Though past studies have documented that minorities are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system, this study by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), a San Francisco, CA- and Washington, DC- based think-tank on criminal justice, is the first to document the cumulative effect of racial bias when youths are transferred to the adult system.

"The imbalances this study reveals are stark, vast and deeply disturbing," said Dan Macallair, associate director of JPI and co-author of The Color of Justice. "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 report focuses primarily on data from Los Angeles County, which accounts for 40 percent of cases transferred to adult court in the state. L.A. is also the only county that keeps a detailed record regarding its transfers.

The study found that:

• After transfer to the adult system, African American youth offenders are 18.4 times more likely, Asian youth offenders are 4.5 times more likely, and Latino youth offenders are 7.3 times more likely than white youth offenders to be sentenced by an adult court to CYA confinement.
• Compared to white youths, minority youths are 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for a violent crime, 6.2 times more likely to wind up in adult court, and 7 times more likely to be sent to prison by adult court.
• Compared to white youths accused of similar crimes, minority youth offenders are somewhat more likely to be sentenced to CYA facilities by juvenile courts (minorities constitute 77.0 percent of violent crime arrestees and 84.5 percent of CYA sentencings). But minority youth are much more likely to be sentenced to CYA facilities after transfer to adult courts (77.0 percent of arrests, but 91.1 percent of CYA sentencings).

JPI researchers conducted the study using data from 1993 to 1999 collected from the Los Angeles County Probation Department Research Division, Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, California Youth Authority Research Division, California Department of Justice Criminal Justice Statistics Center, Department of Finance Demographic Research Division and the U.S. Census Bureau.

"The juvenile justice system was founded 100 years ago with the idea that youth offenders can be rehabilitated," said Mark Soler, President of the Youth Law Center, a San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC- based child advocacy group. "Yet today, even though youth crime is dropping steadily, record numbers of juveniles are being transferred to the adult court and thrown behind bars. As this study shows, these policies are hitting minority kids the hardest."