ADDRESSING DISPROPORTIONATE MINORITY REPRESENTATION WITHIN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM
Judith A. Cox
Assistant Chief Probation Officer
Santa Cruz County Probation
Santa Cruz, California
September 2000
INTRODUCTION
It is broadly recognized that the over-representation of minority youth in juvenile institutions is caused by many factors, which exist in multiple domains: the Juvenile Justice System, socio-economic factors; the educational system and the family. In recognition of the complexity created by the multi-systemic aspect of the problem, it is generally recommended that many stakeholders be engaged in a broad-based effort to address the issue. In Santa Cruz County, the work done by the Probation Department to reduce Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) was, in fact, initiated within the context of a Task Force which was co-convened by Chief Probation Officer, John Rhoads and the County’s Latino Strategic Planning Collaborative and Latino Affairs Commission. The Task Force recognized that multiple systems impact detention rates of minority youth, and, therefore, a system by system review was conducted, and recommendations made. However, among the Justice agencies participating in the Task Force; the Probation Department elected to engage in a departmental effort to address Disproportionate Minority Confinement with remarkable results. This is an account of the work being done by Santa Cruz Probation Department and is offered as a resource for other Probation Departments wishing to engage in similar efforts.
BACKGROUND
Santa Cruz County, California is located on the Monterey Bay, 85 miles south of San Francisco. The County is bordered by Monterey County to the south, Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) to the east, San Mateo County to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the west. With a population of approximately 250,000, Santa Cruz is considered a mid-sized county in California. The county has a substantial Latino population, with 33% of the youth, ages 10 through 17, being Latino. In the past decade youth referred to the Juvenile Justice System have suffered from a high rate of gang involvement and heroin use as compared to youth from other California communities of similar size.
Although Latino youth comprise 33% of the population, ages 10 through 17, Latino youth represented nearly 64% of the youth detained in the county’s secure juvenile detention facility (juvenile hall) on any given day.
PRIOR TO TAKING ACTION
The Probation Department’s willingness to take a close look at itself was not a state that was arrived at easily. The people who are the Santa Cruz County Probation Department were not unlike justice practitioners all over the United States. We knew about Disproportionate Minority Confinement. We could see the racial disparity in our detention facility. We had gathered and read research on the topic. We had even studied the problem a bit, but that’s where we stopped. Our "study" basically supported what we already knew–that the minority youth who were brought to the department by local law enforcement, and detained by the court were in the Juvenile Hall because they had more serious offense histories and presenting offenses than their cohorts. In other words, there were justifiable reasons why they were detained. We were also able to document that minority youth suffered from more risk factors than others did and, therefore, we concluded that the problem could only be solved by improving economic and social conditions. We, of course, had very little control over these aspects of their lives. The conclusions drawn from our studies were not entirely inaccurate; however, they presented only a narrow view, and prevented us from taking in the entire landscape of the issue. We found ourselves in a defensive bunker. However, at some point along the way, we simply stepped out of our foxhole and had a look around. We realized that by examining our policies, procedures, practices and programs we could identify things over which we did have control. When we looked for clients who experienced barriers to service or lack of access, we found them. When we looked for points of subjective rather than objective decision making, we found them. When we looked for examples of cultural insensitivity, we found them. When we looked for unnecessary delays, which contributed to longer lengths of stay in detention, we found them.
The examination has now become an on-going effort directed towards continuous improvement, rather than a defense of the status quo. While it remains true that there are societal issues, which make minority youth vulnerable to the risk factors for delinquency, our work has taught us (and research supports this) that individual justice agencies can exacerbate the disparity at each decision point. A close examination of the data and practices at each decision point can create a positive effect.
The following is a step by step account of how the Santa Cruz County Probation Department addressed DMC at the departmental level.
TAKING IT STEP BY STEP
I. ADMINISTRATIVE EMPHASIS, SUPPORT AND LEADERSHIP
The first step in getting started at the agency level is that the administration must embrace the reduction of DMC as a key organizational objective. Accordingly, departmental resources; personnel practices (recruitment, hiring and training); outcome indicators; and service and program strategies must all support the effort. The agency administrator, him/herself, must play a leadership role in the development and direction of the work. A cultural competency plan for the agency should be developed and a cultural competency coordinator should be appointed to oversee progress. (See attachment 1, Cultural Competence). Placing a general emphasis on cultural competency creates a foundation for the working group, which is responsible for developing and overseeing a work plan to address DMC. (See attachment 2, Work Plan Checklist).
In Santa Cruz, we were able to benefit from the expertise and experience of others. James Bell, staff attorney at the Youth Law Center in San Francisco and Dr. Juan Sanchez, Executive Director, the Southeast Key Program, Inc. gave us a valuable perspective regarding the work being done nationally, as well as raising our level of cultural awareness. Mr. Bell is engaged in ground breaking work on DMC and was, therefore, able to present not only historical information, but inspire a direction and pathway for our work.
Many of the steps we took are closely related to the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative which is supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and is described in the Foundation’s publication, "Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform, Building a Better Juvenile Detention System." We are grateful to Bart Lubow of the Foundation for his support.
We also benefited from the support of Sue Burrell (along with James Bell), staff attorneys from the Youth Law Center, San Francisco, for their technical expertise and support of our work on detention reform and overcrowding which is sponsored by The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). We also found OJJDP’s material on DMC helpful and informative.
All of the above mentioned individuals and organizations provided an opportunity for us to view the entire landscape and created a context and foundation for the work. An administrator who can provide these types of learning opportunities will find the effort well rewarded.
II. DECISION POINT MAPPING AND DATA REVIEW
The second step in the departmental effort to address DMC is to map the key decision points effecting decisions to arrest, book, detain, release and place. (See attachment 3 Map of Decision Points). There must then be a determination regarding the availability of data, by ethnicity, for each decision point. If data by ethnicity is not available, a data development agenda must be created. As data becomes available a trend-line must be kept for each decision point and reviewed regularly to either mark progress or identify problem areas.
Additionally, creating and tracking outcome indicators for detention alternatives and dispositional programs is an effective way to monitor issues of equal access and program effectiveness.
In Santa Cruz, we are measuring arrests, bookings, detentions and program placements by ethnicity, quarterly.
III. OBJECTIVE CRITERIA FOR DECISION MAKING
Once the key decision points have been identified, objective criteria for the decisions made at each point must be developed and monitored. For example, the decision that an intake officer at Probation makes to hold a minor in the Juvenile Hall pending a detention hearing should be based on a quantifiable set of risk factors. This instrument must be free of criteria that may create an unintended racial bias. If, for instance, extra risk points are added for gang involvement or lack of employment the scale may cause a higher number of minority youth to be detained for the same offenses for which other youth are released. The development of the objective criteria for decision making should involve all the stakeholders.
It is also important to base the assignment to intensive supervision caseloads and removal from these caseloads on clearly stated risk-based criteria. For example, a Latino youth who is assigned to an intensive gang caseload based on the label of "gang member" rather than his/her offense history will be subjected to a level of scrutiny that could result in longer periods of incarceration. Several studies have demonstrated that intensive services have minimal impact on recidivism, and may even cause increases in recidivism, when applied to low risk offenders. In spite of this, youth with non-violent and minor offense histories are often placed on high intensity service plans.
IV. THE STAFF
The goal of insuring that staff in key positions are culturally competent and have bilingual capacity is essential. It is necessary to establish guidelines that ensure that staff have the skills and abilities to provide services to a diverse client population. An inventory of caseloads and clients should be conducted to determine cultural and language profiles. Staff assignments should place bilingual personnel in key positions. All staff should receive on-going training in cultural sensitivity, cultural competency and understanding the dynamics of DMC. (In Santa Cruz, our client base on the juvenile caseloads is 46% Latino and therefore 44% of the juvenile probation officers are bilingual. Thirty-three percent of our Officers are bicultural).
V. ELIMINATE BARRIERS TO FAMILY INVOLVEMENT
It is useful to conduct customer surveys to determine what barriers to service and family involvement exist. For example, if parents do not understand the role of the intake officer and the importance of their ability to supervise their child; they may appear to be less than cooperative, thus increasing detention rates for minority youth. This dynamic can be particularly acute when ethnic, cultural, socio economic and language differences create communication challenges. Programs and services may exclude families or may not address their needs, thus resulting in high failure rates. Ensuring that barriers to family involvement and court or program access are eliminated can have a positive impact on reducing DMC. Family conferencing and parental involvement at all levels can reduce these barriers.
VI. DEVELOP ALTERNATIVES TO FORMAL HANDLING, AND INCARCERATION
Research has shown that a lack of diversion options or inadequate alternatives to detention can result in increases in DMC. Going hand in hand with risk-based detention criteria, jurisdictions must create two or three tiers of community-based alternatives to detention. Involving community-based organizations and parents in these supervision programs can help ensure cultural competency and parental support. Programs that provide crisis response, strength-based work and wrap around services, in addition to tracking and supervision, are particularly successful. Establishing and tracking the outcomes of these alternatives can help ensure that only those youth who do not pose a public safety risk are released. If youth make their court appearances, and do not re-offend while in the community, the Court and District Attorney can confidently utilize these alternatives without compromising public safety. Utilization of these programs should be tracked by ethnicity. Additionally, more than one level of supervision should exist so that the court has an escalation option as a response to technical violations short of return to confinement. For post-dispostional youth, stakeholders should agree on a continuum of court approved administrative sanctions that could be imposed by the Probation Officer prior to arrest for probation violations. Since beginning this work in Santa Cruz, we were able to more than double the number of youth diverted by adding four new diversion programs. We also improved and modified our detention alternatives to include electronic monitoring with a wraparound service component.
VII. DEVELOP A FULL CONTINUUM OF TREATMENT, SUPERVISION AND PLACEMENT OPTIONS
A lack of post dispositional options, and particularly culturally sensitive programs, can result in an over-reliance on secure detention by the courts. Stakeholders must carefully define and develop the local continuum of services and ensure that minority youth have equal access at each level. Once again, it is important to review each program for cultural competency. The attached Standards of Accessibility can be used as assessment instrument. (See attachment 4). As documented by research, best practices must be utilized at each step in the continuum. (See attachment 5, Elements of Successful Programs).
The ability of the system to quickly move youth out of secure detention to detention alternatives and/or placements and programs will reduce juvenile hall bed days. Calculation of length of stay data by ethnicity can illustrate the need for the development of additional placement and/or supervision programs, or indicate that the programs that are in place are not effective in preventing recidivism. In Santa Cruz the addition of a family preservation program, school-based day treatment and a culturally competent residential drug treatment program has helped reduce DMC by eliminating gaps in our local continuum of services.
CONCLUSION
The results of the work in Santa Cruz have been astounding. As was stated previously, the Latino population in the Juvenile Hall on any given day in 1997 and 1998 was 64% as compared to 33% in the general population. In the calendar year 1999 that percentage dropped to 53% and for the first half of 2000, the percentage went to 46%, a reduction of 18%. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) developed a standard equation for assessing the relationship between the proportion of minorities in the juvenile justice system and in the overall juvenile population. The index is calculated by dividing the percentage of minority juveniles detained (or involved in the system at which ever point is being measured) by the number of minority juveniles in the overall juvenile population. An index value of more than one indicates over-representation and one represents proportional representation. Expressing the Santa Cruz results in the OJJDP index, prior to beginning the work on DMC the Santa Cruz index value for Latino youth in detention was 1.9 (similar to the national figures on DMC). The index is currently 1.4.
The work of reducing DMC is an on-going process, which is never entirely complete. It is recognized that the work of one agency, or even the efforts of the entire juvenile justice system may not eliminate DMC, however, we have demonstrated that one agency can make a difference. This is particularly true of Probation Departments, which are responsible for many of the key decisions points in the Juvenile Justice continuum.
Permission is given to copy and distribute this material as long as the materials are maintained unchanged and no fee is charged to the recipient. Judy Cox can be contacted at Santa Cruz County Probation, P.O. Box 1812, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1812; email: judy.cox@co.santa-cruz.ca.us
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