If sins were ranked, failing to keep a promise
to a child would appear high on the list. But according to a new report,
the promise of “equal justice under the law” is yet to be fulfilled
for American’s Latino youth.
The report, “¿Dónde Está la Justicia?” by
the Building Blocks for Youth initiative, shows that Latino youth
receive stiffer penalties than White youth charged with similar offenses
and similar histories. These disparities accumulate the deeper youth go
into the juvenile justice system, with stunning results. For example, in
Los Angeles, while Latino youth were arrested 2.3 times as often as
White youth, Latinos were 12 times as likely to be confined as a White
youth charged with the same type of offense. Latino youth are also
incarcerated longer than White youth. When it comes to drug offenses,
Latino youth are incarcerated for more than twice as long as White
youth.
Disparities based on race or ethnicity may be
the result of bias from judges and probation officers. More often, bias
is built into the system through supposedly objective criteria. Parental
participation, gang involvement, and immigration status are all
considered “objective” standards and may fall more harshly on Latino
youth. Thus, a court may not provide bilingual staff and services to an
English-fluent youth, but that child’s parents may need bilingual
services to get involved in their child’s case, rendering them unable
to advocate for their child.
In addition, most systems fail to assure
cultural competence of those dealing with youth. For example, the report
cites the case of a judge who demanded that an accused Latino youth make
eye contact with him. The youth kept looking down, implying disrespect
to the judge. Instead, in that child’s culture, “staring down” -
making direct eye contact with - authority figures is considered
disrespectful.
While the data are disturbing, they don’t tell
the whole story. States and counties across the U.S. do not use uniform
definitions - Hispanic denotes only Spanish-speaking nations, while
Latino describes people with ties to Latin America and the Caribbean,
including recent and distant immigrants - and governments almost never
separate race and identity. The results can be arbitrary; for example,
California sometimes classifies youth in the justice system according to
“the darkest skin group of [the youth’s] racial heritage.” In many
states, Latino youth are often lumped into the same category as White
youth. Classification problems thus mask the extent of disparity by
over-counting Whites and under-counting Latinos. The numbers we do have
may not be an accurate representation of Latinos’ status: it is
probably far worse.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Several
counties have successfully addressed structural problems facing Latino
youth in their juvenile detention facilities. In Santa Cruz, California,
juvenile justice officials worked hard to create a fairer and more
effective system with the result that Latino youth in detention declined
by 22%. Similarly, after officials in Multnomah County, Oregon focused
for several years on reducing disparities in their juvenile detention
system, the detention rates for youth of different races and ethnicities
are now the same, and the overall detention rate dropped by two-thirds.
Both counties built coalitions to address disparities in juvenile
justice, and successfully worked together to reduce systematic bias.
These results show that built-in bias can be
changed, if the political will exists. We need to stand up for our
children to live up to the promise of equality under the law.
