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JUVENILE JUSTICE & DISPROPORTIONALITY:
Patterns of Minority Over-Representation in
Washington's Juvenile Justice System*
December 1997
Bernard C. Dean
* NOTE: On-line version may differ from original report. This on-line document does not contain report footnotes, proper formatting, select appendices, or other items that are contained in the original document. Please do not cite, quote, or distribute without the express consent of the author or the Sentencing Guidelines Commission. For an original hard copy of the report, contact the Commission office.
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State of Washington
Sentencing Guidelines Commission
P.O. Box 40927
Olympia, WA 98504-0927
(360) 956-2130
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS†
The author wishes to thank the many individuals who gave generously of their time and provided assistance in the completion of this report. I am particularly thankful to Michael Curtis and Virginia Neal with the Office of the Administrator for the Courts for all of their help in providing appropriate juvenile justice data; Bonnie Jacques and John Yoachim of the Department of Social and Health Services; Dr. John Steiger with the Office of Financial Management, Dr. Nicholas Lovrich with the Washington State University Political Science Department and Division of Governmental Studies and Services, and Dick Van Wagenen, Dr. Polly Phipps, and other Sentencing Guidelines Commission staff for their suggestions and editing of earlier draft versions of this report. I especially thank Dr. Phipps for her contribution in summarizing individual county reports on disproportionality.
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iv
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY v
INTRODUCTION 1
Background 1
Literature Review 3
Review of
Disproportionality Research in Washington 6
STATEWIDE MINORITY
REPRESENTATION AT VARIOUS STAGES IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM: 1995-96 9
Methodology and Study Data 9
Analysis 12
SUMMARY OF COUNTY REPORTS
ON DISPROPORTIONALITY 25
DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 38
Possible
Causes of Disproportionality 38
Limitations of the Findings 38
Suggestions for Future Research 39
REFERENCES 42
APPENDIX A: RCW
9.94A.040 45
APPENDIX B: RCW 72.09.300 48
APPENDIX C: Juvenile Justice
System Flow Chart for Criminal Offenses 50
APPENDIX D: Number and Percent of
Youth Processed by Jurisdiction 51
Table 1: Percentages of Youth at Various Stages of the System 14
Table 2:
Number and Percent of Referrals by Race/Ethnicity and Offense 18
Table 3:
Extent of Disproportionality in Selected Process Stages by Index Score 18
Table 4: Number and Percent Departures by Race/Ethnicity 23
Figure 1:
Percentages of Youth in Washington's Juvenile Justice System 13
Figure 2:
Juvenile At-Risk Population by Race and Ethnicity 15
Figure 3: Juvenile
Arrests by Race and Ethnicity 16
Figure 4: Comparative Rates of Referral Per
1,000 Youth 17
Figure 5: Comparative Rates of Prosecution Per 1,000 Youth 20
Figure 6: Juveniles Sentenced to Local Confinement 21
Figure 7:
Juveniles Committed to JRA 22
This is the Sentencing Guidelines Commission's first biennial report on
disproportionality in juvenile sentencing, as required by RCW 9.94A.040. The
report examines the racial and ethnic composition of youth processed at various
stages of the juvenile justice system and measures the extent of over- or
under-representation of these groups in relation to their proportion in the
general population. Included within this report are a review of previous
research on disproportionality, descriptive statistics on juveniles referred and
sentenced in Washington's juvenile justice system, a summary of reports
submitted to the Commission for 1995 by local law and justice council advisory
committees on proportionality, and a discussion of disproportionality as it
relates to state juvenile justice policy.
Data on juveniles referred and
processed in juvenile court were obtained from the Office of the Administrator
for the Courts' (OAC) statewide juvenile court information system (JUVIS) and
compared with at-risk youth population estimates. The resulting analyses
contained in the report were based upon data compiled by OAC and may under- or
over-estimate the actual number of youths processed in the juvenile justice
system due to jurisdictional differences in JUVIS usage. However, for the
purposes of the report, these data were the best available figures on which to
base analyses on youth processed in Washington's juvenile courts.
The
report indicates that minority youth were disproportionately represented at
virtually every stage of the juvenile justice system. These disparities
increased and became more acute as youth were processed through intermediary
decision points in the system (i.e., as one moved from the arrest and referral
stage to pre-adjudication detention and final case dispositions, or sentencing),
although there was significant variation in the extent of disproportionality
among individual minority racial and ethnic groups. For instance,
African-American youth were particularly more likely to be proportionately
over-represented throughout the juvenile justice system, whereas Asian-American
youth were generally under-represented in most stages of the system.
Native-American and Hispanic youth were also over-represented in several
juvenile justice process stages. However, White youth were consistently
under-represented in the juvenile justice system as compared with their
proportion in the general population.
Upon examining the racial and
ethnic composition of youth referred to juvenile court, youth detained prior to
adjudication, and those youth sentenced to secure placement with county
detention centers or the state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (JRA), the
following patterns emerged:
Findings Regarding Youth Referred
Findings Regarding Pre-Adjudication Detention
Findings Regarding Youth Sentenced
Due to the variety of responses that the Commission received pursuant to the
submission of reports on proportionality by local law and justice council
advisory committees, the Commission is submitting the following
recommendations:
1. Local law and justice
councils should continue to work with their advisory committees on
proportionality and furnish reports in a timely fashion.
2. County proportionality reports should be
disseminated to a wider audience which includes, but is not limited to the
following:
3. The Washington State Law and Justice Council should
convene a group of interested parties, including legislators, representatives of
local and state agencies, and minority communities to develop a more uniform and
consistent format for reporting on disproportionality. The Commission would
gladly participate in such an effort.
The problem of juvenile justice disproportionality-the over-representation of
minority youth in the juvenile justice process-has manifested itself in the
legal systems of nearly every state in the Union. Hence, most states, including
the State of Washington, tend to have an over-representation of youth of color
in the juvenile justice system as compared with the number of minority youth in
the general population. Although this disproportionality may appear at different
stages of the process, these disparities are often attributed to biased
treatment of minority youth by law enforcement and the juvenile courts, legally
relevant variables (e.g., offense seriousness and prior criminal history),
higher levels of minority involvement in crime (e.g., arrest rates), unfavorable
community characteristics, and various disadvantaging socio-economic factors.
This report focuses on the official processing of youth in various
stages of the juvenile justice system by racial/ethnic group and compares
proportions of these offenders with their percentages in the at-risk population.
Included within the study are a review of the disproportionality literature and
pertinent research, analyses of data detailing minority representation in
Washington's juvenile justice system, a summary of county reports on
disproportionality for 1995, suggestions for future study, and a discussion of
the policy implications of disproportionality as it relates to Washington's
juvenile justice system.
In 1988, the United States Congress amended the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 to promote strategies to reduce
disproportionality. In particular, the Act sought to remedy disproportionate
confinement of minority youth by requiring states to make substantive efforts to
reduce the proportion of minority juveniles detained or confined in secure
detention facilities, jails, and lockups if such proportion exceeds the
proportion such groups represent in the general population. Beginning with
Fiscal Year 1994, states failing to address disproportionate minority
confinement could be denied up to 25% of their federal formula grant allocations
for state and local juvenile justice programs.
In the ensuing period,
the Washington State Legislature enacted a series of measures to examine the
problem of disproportionality and solicit solutions or strategies to address the
over-representation of minorities in the juvenile justice system. One such
measure was Engrossed Substitute House Bill (ESHB) 1966, which directed several
state agencies to conduct studies on racial disproportionality, provide cultural
diversity training to juvenile justice personnel, expand data collection on
juvenile offenders, develop uniform prosecutorial standards for juveniles, and
provide juvenile court information to families in an alternative non-English
format. In addition, ESHB 1966 added racial minority populations to the criteria
for distributing funds under the Consolidated Juvenile Services program funding
formula. Finally, the Juvenile Disposition Standards Commission (JDSC) was
directed to review the application of sentencing standards and guidelines for
potential adverse impacts on the sentencing outcomes of racial and ethnic
minority youth.
In 1994, the Legislature directed local law and justice
councils to establish advisory committees on juvenile justice proportionality.
These advisory committees were to monitor and report to the JDSC on citizen
complaints regarding bias or disproportionality and the proportionality,
effectiveness, and cultural relevance of various state and county rehabilitative
services. Reports detailing findings were to be submitted to the JDSC on an
annual basis.
In 1996, the Legislature enacted Senate Bill 6253. This
measure dissolved the Juvenile Disposition Standards Commission and transferred
its powers and duties to the Sentencing Guidelines Commission (SGC). In addition
to increasing SGC responsibilities to include juvenile matters (i.e., assuming
responsibility for monitoring and reviewing juvenile disposition standards), the
SGC was directed to report to the Governor and the Legislature on racial
disproportionality in juvenile sentencing and review juvenile sentencing
standards and guidelines for potentially adverse impacts upon minority youth.
Local law and justice councils were re-directed to submit annual reports on
juvenile justice proportionality to the SGC through their advisory committees. A
summary of county reports, for 1995, have been included within this publication.
Under statute, the local law and justice council advisory committees on
juvenile justice proportionality were directed to submit an annual report
on:
These reports were to be submitted to the SGC by September 1 of each year.
Findings from a large body of research literature suggest that the
over-representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system tends to
occur throughout the country. Approximately two thirds of national studies found
that minorities were "treated disproportionately" in the juvenile justice system
(Pope and Feyerherm, 1992). One third of the literature found no evidence of
disproportionate treatment. Of those studies which observed disproportionate
minority treatment, half attributed such disparities to an overall pattern of
disparity, whereas the remaining studies only found disparities in selected
stages of the juvenile justice system or only under certain circumstances (i.e.,
particular types of offenses/offenders).
Many of
the inconsistencies in the disproportionality literature have been ascribed to
methodological flaws. In particular, the validity of any disproportionality
study may become questionable when it fails to consider multiple decision points
in the juvenile justice system (Bishop and Frazier, 1988, 1996; Bortner and
Reed, 1985; Bridges and Crutchfield, 1988; Conley, 1994; Crutchfield, Bridges,
and Pitchford, 1994; Gibbons, 1997; Leiber, 1994; Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, 1990; Pope and Feyerherm, 1992). For instance, the
cumulative effects of bias or disparate treatment at multiple or single points
in the system may indirectly influence the final case disposition. Consequently,
when research is restricted to a single decision point (e.g., disposition or
sentencing) the effects of race may be underestimated or lost due to
correlations between race and earlier decision points which predict later stage
outcomes (Bishop and Frazier, 1988, 1996; Blumstein, 1982; Bortner and Reed,
1985).
This "masking effect" is further explored in Bortner and Reed
(1985). Bortner and Reed maintain that there is an interdependence between
process variables and juvenile characteristics which may become obscured at the
final decision point. Eventually process variables incorporate social
characteristics and mask the impact which these may have upon subsequent
decisions. Again, the investigation of multiple decision points is emphasized as
a methodologically sound way to measure the impact that selected variables such
as race have upon initial and end stage decisions. Thus, the most prevalent
indicators of disposition, such as offense severity and criminal history, may in
turn be influenced by previously biased process variables.
Another
manifestation of the "masking effect" may be observed in the aggregation of
juvenile justice data across jurisdictions. This variant on the masking
phenomenon cautions that differences between jurisdictions or regions may become
obscured when investigating aggregated data (Crutchfield, Bridges, and
Pitchford, 1994). Thus, differences in the treatment of minority youth become
muted as one moves from the neighborhood level to the city, county, state and
national levels.
In addition to considering the effects of multiple
decision points, the literature suggests that empirical research which fails to
control for legally relevant variables, such as offense seriousness and prior
criminal history, may result in incomplete findings. Generally when studies
detected disproportionality in the disposition (sentencing) stage of the justice
process, disparities were explained by such legally relevant variables (Arnold,
1971; Bailey and Peterson, 1981; Bishop and Frazier, 1996; Pope and Feyerherm,
1981).
In these cases, much of the severity of the disposition (i.e.,
sentence or punishment) was accounted for by the seriousness of offenders
current offense and their prior history. However, various other factors have
been found to explain dispositional outcomes. For example, Blumstein (1982)
found that 80 percent of the actual racial disproportionality in adult
incarceration rates was attributed to differential involvement in criminal
activity. Thus, racial differences in crime and arrests accounted for most of
the disproportionality in imprisonment rates among adult Black offenders
(Blumstein, 1982).
Contrary to this finding, subsequent research in
Krisberg et al. (1987) argued that the high number of minority youth arrested
for violent crimes cannot by itself account for the over-representation of
minorities among the incarcerated juvenile population. Krisberg et al. examined
data on arrests and self-reported delinquency and found that given similar rates
of delinquency, minority youth were more likely to be arrested than White youth.
Furthermore, high incarceration rates for youth of color were not found to be as
great a function of their greater involvement in serious or violent crime as
previously suggested. The analysis in Krisberg et al. tentatively concluded that
post arrest decisions increased the likelihood of incarceration for Black and
Native-American youth as compared with their White counterparts. Rather than
theorizing that minority youth involvement in crime drives the disproportionate
incarceration of minority youth, the Krisberg study highlighted research that
emphasized the role which offender demeanor, police surveillance and
apprehension practices, and charging procedures may have upon these
disparities.
Previous research by Huizinga and Elliot (1987) also found
that higher incarceration rates among minorities may be attributable to bias in
justice agency decision making. In this study, "minorities appeared to be at
greater risk for being charged with more serious offenses than Whites involved
in comparable levels of delinquent behavior…[resulting] in higher incarceration
rates among minorities". Thus, prosecutorial charging practices, were found to
have a significant influence upon incarceration decisions.
Yet, others
also attribute racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system to
socio-economic factors (Duster, 1987; Joe, 1987). These researchers point to
labor force conditions such as unemployment rates and poverty, as great drivers
of criminal activity. Thus, since minorities tend to be disproportionately
represented among the poor and disenfranchised, they are also more likely to
engage in criminal activity and be over-represented in the criminal justice
system.
Wordes, Bynum, and Corley (1994) attributed juvenile justice
disproportionality to a direct pattern of racial and socio-economic influences.
In a study of one state's juvenile justice system, Wordes, Bynum, and Corley
found that African-American and Latino youth were consistently more likely to be
placed in secure detention, independent of legal factors. Though socio-economic
factors played an important role in the detention decision, race was found to
have a significant and independent effect upon detention. Although, many
investigations attributed differences among dispositions to a successive
combination of variables, including race (Bishop and Frazier, 1988, 1996;
Bortner and Reed, 1985; Fagan, Slaughter, and Hartstone, 1987; Leiber, 1994;
Pawlak, 1977). For example, Fagan, Slaughter and Hartstone (1987) found racial
disparities across various juvenile justice stages. After controlling for a wide
variety of legally relevant variables, minorities were repeatedly more likely to
be processed and receive harsher penalties than White youth. Race had a direct,
indirect, and interactive effect on a variety of decision points.
The
most common racially influenced variable that has been found to influence and
predict disposition has been pre-adjudication detention (Bishop and Frazier,
1988, 1996; Bortner and Reed, 1985; Bridges et al., 1993, 1995; Conley, 1994).
The decision to detain a juvenile, subsequent to arrest, was found to increase
the likelihood of formal processing, prosecution, and the probability of
receiving a more severe disposition (e.g., those involving longer periods of
incarceration). Moreover, Bortner and Reed (1985) found that regardless of
offense or number of prior referrals, Black juveniles were more likely to be
detained prior to adjudication than White juveniles. Therefore race, operating
through detention status, may be observed to have an indirect effect upon later
stage processes and final stage outcomes (sentencing).
In sum, the
literature seems to indicate that disparate treatment of minority youth may
occur at any stage of the juvenile justice system and that such disparities may
take place concomitantly, accumulate as one moves through the system, or become
incorporated into other later stage process variables (i.e., "masking effect").
Therefore, although race may have a negligible impact on decision-making in any
particular stage, minority status may still have a significant cumulative impact
on overall juvenile justice system outcomes (e.g., sentencing).
Review of Disproportionality Research
in Washington
Previous studies within the State of Washington have confirmed the existence
of disproportionality, or minority over-representation, in the State's juvenile
justice system (Bridges et al., 1993, 1995; Conely, 1994; Juvenile Justice
Racial Disproportionality Work Group, 1994). These studies found that minorities
were over-represented in virtually every stage of the juvenile justice process
and that youth of color tended to receive more severe punishments than White
youth, even when controlling for legally relevant factors such as offense
seriousness and extent of prior criminal history.
The most comprehensive
studies of minority over-representation in the State's juvenile justice system
were conducted by the University of Washington on behalf of the Department of
Social and Health Services and the Commission on African-American Affairs
(Bridges et al., 1993, 1995). Bridges et al. (1993) found that youth of color
were more likely to be referred, detained prior to adjudication, prosecuted,
adjudicated guilty, and sentenced to secure confinement facilities than Whites.
African-American youth were particularly more likely to be over-represented in
these process stages than any other racial or ethnic group. While being
over-represented in the aforementioned stages, youth of color were less likely
to be diverted from prosecution than Whites.
Racial and ethnic
disparities at the sentencing stage were found to be associated with differences
in the likelihood of receiving detention prior to adjudication. In other words,
pre-adjudication detention was found to have a direct effect upon the
disposition stage of the juvenile justice process. The former stage was more
prone to racial and ethnic bias since the decision to detain a juvenile offender
prior to adjudication is largely discretionary. Given comparable offender
characteristics, minority youth were more likely to receive pre-adjudication
detention than similarly situated Whites.
There was significant variation
across counties and processing stages, in the level of disproportionality.
Urbanized counties with larger concentrations of minority youth and higher crime
rates tended to experience higher levels of disproportionality in juvenile
justice processing.
Bridges et al. (1995) evaluated minority
representation in individual juvenile court jurisdictions and assessed the
implementation of county-level measures to reduce disproportionality. Findings
indicated that minority youth were consistently less likely to be diverted, more
likely to be prosecuted, and more likely to receive sentences involving Juvenile
Rehabilitation Administration (JRA) supervision than White youth. Youth of color
were also found to be over-represented at virtually every stage of the juvenile
justice system. In addition, the proportion of minority youth in the
post-referral stages of the system tended to be increasing relative to White
youth over time (1990-1994). Policies aimed at reducing these disparities did
not yield any significant results within the limited time period studied. Though
the effects of these policies were inconclusive, many were found to neglect
important decision-making stages of the juvenile justice system which had an
impact on later stage processes. For example, the expansion of risk assessment
procedures was recommended since uniformity in the application of
pre-adjudication detention could potentially eliminate bias at this crucial
stage of the juvenile justice process. Similarly, racial and ethnic disparities
in prosecutions were less in counties that adopted prosecutorial guidelines than
in those without such standards (Bridges et al., 1993; Juvenile Justice Racial
Disproportionality Work Group, 1994).
Although minority youth were more
likely to be arrested, referred, detained, prosecuted, and sentenced to
confinement than White youth, few studies examined the influence which police
discretion may have upon youthful offenders. Many scholars have stated that law
enforcement represents the "front gate through which most children enter the
juvenile justice system" (Pope and Feyerherm, 1992; Arnold, 1971; Bortner and
Reed, 1985; Gibbons, 1997; Wordes, Bynum, and Corley, 1994). One in-state study
reviewed the role of police in arresting, detaining, and introducing juveniles
to the justice system. Conely (1994) found that both law enforcement and
minority community members concluded that police placed communities of color
under heavier surveillance than White neighborhoods. Interviews and focus groups
with youth of color and law enforcement officials found that police discretion
and informal procedures often led to harassment without formal processing, or
the misuse of laws to effectuate an arrest. Conely also alluded to the adverse
impacts that media coverage and suspect demeanor may have upon police discretion
and arrest decisions.
This section of the report provides an assessment of disproportionate
minority representation in Washington's juvenile justice system (including
various sentencing outcomes and process stages). Since early stage decisions
often have a cumulative effect on subsequent decision points, the analysis
follows the progression of juveniles through the system. However, the findings
reported here do not provide an estimate of the odds of moving from one decision
point to another, nor do they account for legally relevant criteria in
decision-making. Therefore, the analyses are only intended to illustrate
patterns of decision-making in the juvenile justice system. Findings should not
be interpreted as either confirming or refuting the presence of discriminatory
practices, rather they should be seen as being indicators, which identify
high-risk process categories (potential situations) in which discrimination may
be present.
The data and analyses were based upon an analytic model that
examines process decisions by comparing the proportions of minority and majority
youth present at various stages of the juvenile justice process. Proportions of
youth processed in the juvenile justice system are also compared with their
percentages in the at-risk population. Included in this section of the report
are indices which allow for comparison of the extent of over-representation of
minorities in the justice system. Comparative rates of certain selected outcomes
by race and ethnicity are also provided. The methodology and data studied are
detailed below.
To effectively measure the proportion of minority and majority youth
processed in the juvenile justice system, the study utilized a standardized data
collection format that would detail juvenile populations at various stages of
the process by race and ethnicity. This "juvenile justice system process review"
allows the researcher to investigate multiple points in the juvenile justice
system rather than solely examining the disposition or sentence alone. The
importance of this approach was repeatedly emphasized in a review of the
disproportionality literature.
In addition to comparing proportions of youth
processed at various stages of the judicial process, this section compares the
representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system with their
percentages in the general population, presents minority representation indices,
and provides data on rates of selected outcomes by racial and ethnic group. The
study examines grouped summary data by non-Hispanic racial categories (i.e.,
White, African American, Native American, Asian American) and includes a
mutually exclusive Hispanic category. Analyses were facilitated by the use of
the following analytic formulas.
Disproportionate Representation Index
(DRI)
Indices based upon this model, allow for a comparison of the
extent of over-representation of minorities at selected stages of the juvenile
justice system. The model is based on the formula provided
below.
DRI = Proportion of a specific racial group
processed in a given category/decision pt.
Proportion of this group within the at-risk
youth population
A quotient value of 1.0 indicates that a given
group of youth in a selected category or decision point are represented at a
proportion which corresponds to their presence in the at-risk population. Index
values greater than 1.0 indicate over-representation. Values less than 1.0
indicate under-representation. The DRI is a fairly straight forward method for
identifying and measuring disproportionality in juvenile justice process stages
(e.g., pre-adjudication detention) and has been employed in similar studies in
several other states (Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, 1995, 1996, 1997;
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1990, 1996; Oregon
Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, 1997; Pope and Feyerherm, 1992).
Outcome rates
The rate of any particular occurrence
was calculated by computing the total number of youths in any given racial or
ethnic group for a selected outcome, and dividing the sum by the total number of
youths in the general population (for that particular racial/ethnic group). The
total for any selected group is then multiplied by a factor of 1,000. The
resulting value or rate would represent the total number of youth (in each
grouping) receiving an outcome, per every 1,000 corresponding youth in the
at-risk population.
Study Data
Data were extracted from the Office of
the Administrator for the Courts' (OAC) statewide juvenile court information
system (JUVIS) and compared with at-risk youth population estimates for 1995 and
1996. For the purposes of the study, "at-risk youth" were defined as those
juveniles between 10 and 17 years of age. JUVIS data were utilized for the study
since data collected from individual counties was often inconsistent and/or
incomplete. In addition, most counties used JUVIS data in reporting on
disproportionality in their respective jurisdiction. The study followed the
progression of youth referrals, through juvenile justice system, by primary
offense. The data included the number and percent of delinquent juveniles by
race and ethnicity, in the following juvenile justice process categories and/or
decision points:
In addition to the above process categories and stages, juvenile arrest data were examined for 1995 and 1996. These data were obtained from the Washington State Uniform Crime Report (Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, 1996, 1997). Proportions of youth arrested were compared with other juvenile justice stages and their percentages in the at-risk population.
In 1996, youth of color accounted for approximately 21 percent of
Washington's juvenile at-risk population. Yet minority youth represented 23
percent of juvenile arrests, 33 percent of all juvenile court referrals, and 40
percent of commitments to JRA and county detention facilities (i.e., secure
placements). Thus, in general, minorities tended to be over-represented
throughout the juvenile justice system and were represented in increasing
proportions as one moves through the various process stages. In other words,
disproportionate representation increased substantially from the arrest to the
pre-adjudication detention stage and remained high through the sentencing stage
of the juvenile justice process.
Percentages of Youth in Washington's
Juvenile Justice System (1996)
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Observe that the proportion of minorities adjudicated and placed
into secured lockups is approximately twice that of their percentages in the
general population. This "amplification effect" has been reported in previous
research and was also observed in subsequent analyses of the data. Also note
that the proportion of minority youth receiving pre-adjudication detention
(after 24 hours) corresponded to the proportion of minorities being placed in
secured detention facilities. Although the relationship between offense severity
and the decision to detain a youthful offender may explain the associated
similarities among proportions of youth committed to secure placement and those
receiving pre-adjudication detention, analyses conducted for this report did not
assess the influence (or correlation) of such legally relevant criteria upon the
juvenile justice process.
Table
1
Percentages of Youth at Various Stages of the
System (1996)
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The percentages of minority youth processed in 1996 appear to
be consistent with previous calendar years. The analyses of statewide data for
1995 and 1996 indicated that African-American youth were particularly more
likely to be over-represented throughout the juvenile justice system as compared
with other racial or ethnic groups. The analysis further demonstrated that the
pattern of over-representation is less pronounced and more sporadic for these
other racial and ethnic groups. Following African-American youth, Native
Americans and Hispanics showed the most extensive over-representation in the
juvenile justice system. Asian-American and White youth tended to be
under-represented at virtually every stage or offense category. Notably, with
the exception of Option B case dispositions, Asian-American youth were the most
under-represented group in the juvenile justice process.
Detailed analyses for individual and aggregated racial and
ethnic groups were conducted for youth arrested, referred to juvenile court,
represented in selected process stages, and sentenced. These analyses compared
proportions of youth in the aforementioned process areas with proportions of
youth in the at-risk population and are described in the following overview of
minority representation in the juvenile justice system.
Juvenile At-Risk Population
During 1995 and 1996, youth of color represented approximately
21 percent of Washington's juvenile at-risk population (i.e., population between
the ages of 10 and 17). Racial and ethnic distributions are illustrated in
Figure 2.
Figure 2
Juvenile At-Risk Population by Race and Ethnicity
(1996)
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Juvenile Arrests
In 1996, youth of color represented 23 percent of juvenile
arrests. Roughly 77 percent of arrestees were White, 9 percent were of Hispanic
origin, 7 percent were African American, 3 percent were Native American, and 3
percent were Asian American. Although these proportions closely correspond to
the percentages of at-risk minority youth in the State of Washington (21%), they
mask vastly disproportionate arrest rates among the individual minority racial
and ethnic groups. For instance, 142 African-American juveniles were arrested
for every 1,000 African-American youths in the at-risk population. Among other
groups the arrest rates were, 126 arrests per 1,000 Native-American youth, 89
arrests per 1,000 Hispanics, 77 arrests per 1,000 Whites, and 34 arrests per
1,000 Asian Americans. In sum, African-American youths were 1.8 times as likely
to be arrested as White youths. Similarly, Native-American juveniles were 1.6
times more likely to be arrested than White youths. Conversely, White youth were
slightly more than twice (2.3 times) as likely to be arrested as Asian-American
youth.
Comparative measures of disproportionality are illustrated in
Figure 3. Index scores were based on the DRI, and measure the extent of
disproportionality in the arrest stage of the juvenile justice system.
Figure 3
Juvenile Arrests by Race and Ethnicity:
1996 Comparative Index Scores
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Note: Percentages of arrests
by race and ethnicity divided by percent of at-risk youth population ages 10-17.
Values greater than 1.0 indicate over-representation;
values less than 1.0 indicate under-representation
While African-American, Native-American, and
Hispanic youth tended to be over-represented among juvenile arrestees, Asian
Americans exhibited much lower rates of arrest and were vastly under-represented
in proportion to their percentages in the at-risk youth population. White youth
were arrested in proportion with their number in the general population.
Racial and Ethnic Distributions for Primary Offense
Referrals (1996)
The percentage of referrals for youth of color tended to be
higher for violent and more serious offenses (i.e., felonies or category C
through A+ offenses) than their ratio among less serious misdemeanor and gross
misdemeanor offenses. Moreover, youth of color were referred to juvenile court
at a rate almost twice that of White juveniles. Minorities were referred at a
rate of 187 per 1,000 youth of color, whereas 99 White juveniles were referred
for every 1,000 White youth. Figure 4 displays referral rates for individual
racial and ethnic groups per 1,000 corresponding juveniles in the at-risk youth
population.
Figure 4
Comparative Rates of Referral Per 1,000 Youth (1996)
_files/IMG00007.gif)
A disproportionate number of
African-American, Native-American, and Hispanic youth were referred to juvenile
court in 1996. The greatest disparities were noted among the most serious
offenders (i.e., violent felonies). In particular, African-American juveniles
were between 4.45 and 5.58 times as likely to be referred for category A+ and A
offenses as their numbers in the general population would predict.
Native-American and Hispanic youth also exhibited a slight proclivity towards
being referred for more serious offenses, although disparate referral rates
tended to be more uniform throughout offense categories. Asian-American and
White youth were under-represented in each referral category, although Whites
represented 67 percent of total referrals to juvenile court. Table 2 provides
the number and percent of referrals by primary offense referral
category.
Table 2
Number and Percent Referrals by Race/Ethnicity and
Offense (1996)
_files/IMG00008.gif)
Racial and Ethnic Distributions in Selected Process
Stages
Levels of disproportionality were readily apparent in the
process stages of pre-adjudication detention, diversion, deferred adjudications,
and guilty adjudications. The following DRI index illustrates the extent of the
over-representation of selected minority groups in these process stages or
outcomes.
Table 3
Extent of Disproportionality in Selected Process
Stages by Index Score (1996)
_files/IMG00009.gif)
Note: Percentages of process referrals at each stage divided by percent of at-risk youth population ages 10-17.
Values greater than 1.0 indicate
over-representation; values less than 1.0 indicate
under-representation.
As indicated in Table 3, African-American youth
were particularly more likely to be detained prior to adjudication, formally
prosecuted in juvenile court, and adjudicated guilty. In 1996, approximately 59
percent of those youth detained prior to adjudication (24 hours) were White, 15
percent were African American, 13 percent were Hispanic, 4 percent were Native
American, and 4 percent were Asian American. Notably, the proportion of White
offenders detained prior to adjudication decreased by 4 percentage points from
1995. The percentage of Native Americans also declined slightly. However, the
proportion of African-American youth increased by 5 percentage points. Asian
Americans also witnessed a minimal increase. Nonetheless, although minorities
comprised 21 percent of the total at-risk population, they made up 41 percent of
those juveniles detained prior to adjudication. Youth of color were
approximately 2.6 times as likely to receive detention prior to adjudication as
Whites. Rates of pre-adjudication detention were particularly high among African
Americans, who were roughly five (4.9) times as likely to be detained at this
stage of the juvenile justice process as White youth.
The percentage of minority youth receiving alternatives to
formal prosecution was substantially smaller. In 1996, 28 percent of youth
diverted were of minority status. Among those, 8 percent were Hispanic, 6
percent were African American, 4 percent were Asian American, and 3 percent were
Native American. Consequently, for those youth receiving diversions from formal
court processing, Asian Americans tended to be under-represented while African
Americans and Native Americans were over-represented. Youth of White or Hispanic
descent were slightly under-represented.
Similarly, of those youths receiving a deferred adjudication
in 1996, 71 percent were White and 29 percent were youth of color. Although the
proportion of minority youths increased by 4 percentage points from the previous
year, racial and ethnic proportions appeared similar to those found in
diversions. In fact, with the exception of Hispanics, the percentages of White,
African-American, Native-American, and Asian-American youth receiving deferred
adjudications mirrored the proportions of youth receiving diversions. However,
whereas Hispanic youth comprised 8 percent of the diverted youth population,
they made up only 3 percent of deferred adjudications.
There were more severe disparities among youth prosecuted and
adjudicated guilty. Roughly 39 percent of juveniles prosecuted in 1996 were of
minority status. Approximately, 13 percent were African American, 10 percent
were Hispanic, 4 percent were Native American, and 4 percent were Asian
American. African-American youth were 3.4 times as likely to be prosecuted as
their numbers in the general population would predict. On average, 164
African-American juveniles were prosecuted for criminal offenses per 1,000
African-American youth. Comparatively, the rate of prosecution was 84 per 1,000
Native-American youth, 61 per 1,000 Hispanic youth, 37 per 1,000 White youth,
and 30 per 1,000 Asian-American youth.
Figure 5
Comparative Rates of Prosecution Per 1,000 Youth
(1996) _files/IMG00010.gif)
As evidenced by the data displayed in Figure 5,
African-American youth were 4.4 times as likely to be prosecuted as White youth.
Some of the disparity between racial and ethnic groups in rates of prosecution
may be linked to arrest rates, pre-adjudication detention, a lack of uniform
prosecutorial guidelines, and offense severity.
Youth of color made up 38 percent of juveniles adjudicated
as guilty. Likewise, as in the case of prosecutions, African-American youth were
more likely to be adjudicated guilty than any other racial or ethnic group. In
fact, they were 4 times more likely to be adjudicated guilty than White youth.
Also note that Native Americans and Hispanics were twice as likely to be
adjudicated guilty than White juveniles. Both White and Asian-American youth
were proportionately under-represented among guilty adjudications.
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Sentencing (Disposition
Outcomes)
In 1996, minorities comprised approximately 40 percent of
secure placements (to JRA and local county detention facilities). Of those youth
sentenced to local confinement, 61 percent were White, 12 percent were African
American, 12 percent were Hispanic, 4 percent were Asian American, and 4 percent
were Native American. For JRA committed youth, 55 percent were White, 17 percent
were African American, 11 percent were Hispanic, 5 percent were Asian American,
and 5 percent were Native American.
Overall, youth of color were confined at disproportionately high
rates compared to Whites. Minorities were roughly three (2.65) times as likely
to be placed into a secured facility as Whites. Odds of being placed into a
secure facility were more disparate among individual racial and ethnic groups.
For example, African-American youth were 4.7 times as likely to be confined as
White youth. Rates of confinement were 57 per 1,000 African-American youth, 33
per 1,000 Native-American youth, 24 per 1,000 Hispanic youth, 12 per 1,000 White
youth, and 11 per 1,000 Asian-American youth. Asian-American and White youth
were proportionately under-represented as compared with their percentages in the
at-risk youth population.
Figure
6
Juveniles Sentenced to Local Confinement
1996 Comparative Index Scores
_files/IMG00011.gif)
Note: Percentages of youth
sentenced to local detention by race and ethnicity divided by percent of
at-risk youth population ages 10-17. Values greater than
1.0 indicate over-representation; values less
than 1.0 indicate under-representation
Figure 6 illustrates the extent of over- and
under-representation of minority and majority youth sentenced to local
confinement-county detention facilities-by individual racial and ethnic groups.
Figure 7 presents similar index scores for youth sentenced to JRA.
Figure 7
Juveniles Committed to JRA
1996 Comparative Index Scores
_files/IMG00012.gif)
Note: Percentages of youth
sentenced to JRA by race and ethnicity divided by percent of at-risk
youth population ages 10-17. Values greater than 1.0
indicate over-representation; values less
than 1.0 indicate under-representation
As noted previously, the proportion of
minority youth being placed into secure facilities (40%) tended to resemble the
percentages of youth being prosecuted (39%), receiving pre-adjudication
detention (41%), and committing more serious offenses (39% among category C
through A+ offenders). One could argue that legally relevant criteria may have
influenced the proportion of minority youth represented in these processes,
although there were no data available in the study to assess that
possibility.
Youth of color comprised 46 percent of those youth receiving
a sentence which constituted a departure from the standard range. Departures
from the standard range included those dispositions in which a juvenile was
sentenced under Option B, the Special Sex Offender Disposition Alternative
(SSODA), or received a manifest injustice above or below the standard sentencing
range.
Number and Percent Departures by Race/Ethnicity
(1996)
_files/IMG00013.gif)
Youth of color accounted for 35 percent of those juveniles receiving a manifest injustice above the standard range. African-American and Native-American youth were over-represented among offenders sentenced to county detention or JRA with a manifest injustice above the standard range. Hispanics were over-represented among JRA committed youth receiving a manifest injustice above the standard range, while Asian Americans tended to be under-represented among this group. White youth were under-represented among JRA commitments with an upward departure (manifest injustice) and were generally proportionately represented among youth sentenced to county detention and receiving a manifest injustice above the standard range.
Approximately 67 percent of juvenile offenders receiving a
manifest injustice below the standard range were of minority status. African
Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans were over-represented among those
youth committed to JRA with a manifest injustice below the standard range.
Hispanics were over-represented among youth sentenced to local detention with a
manifest injustice below the standard range, while Whites were under-represented
in this category. There were no Asian Americans sentenced for a manifest
injustice below the standard range in 1996.
Minorities comprised one quarter (25%) of SSODAs and one half
(50%) of Option B case dispositions. African Americans were particularly
over-represented among youth receiving the latter disposition option. In fact,
they were 11 times more likely to receive an Option B case disposition than
White youth. Hispanic youth were also over-represented among Option B cases.
Asian-American youth were, more or less, represented proportionately among
Option B dispositions. Whites and Native Americans were under-represented in
this group.
For SSODA sentences, youth of color were markedly
under-represented. Whites made up the majority of SSODA dispositions (75%) and
were 3.7 times as likely to receive the alternative as Asian Americans, 3.3
times more likely than African Americans, and slightly more likely than
Hispanics (1.4 times) and Native Americans (1.2 times) to receive the
alternative. The disparities were even more evident when examining SSODA
sentence rates among referrals only. Whites referred for offenses were 10 times
(9.7) more likely to receive the disposition alternative than African Americans
and were roughly twice as likely to receive the alternative as other minority
groups.
Note that although minorities were less likely to receive the
alternative, the analyses did not examine SSODA sentence rates among eligible
sex offenders. However, previous research indicated that White youth make up a
significantly larger proportion of JRA admitted sex offenders, than in the
general JRA committed population (Steiger and Ploeger-Dizon, 1991). Similarly,
Whites were represented in larger percentages among youth arrested for Part II
sex offenses in 1996 (Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs,
1997). Thus, while constituting a larger proportion of SSODA sentences, White
youth may also represent a larger percentage of sex offenders in
general.
This section includes a summary of 1995 disproportionality reports to the
Sentencing Guidelines Commission (SGC) from local law and justice council
advisory committees on juvenile justice proportionality. State law requires each
advisory committee on proportionality to submit an annual report to the SGC that
summarizes their findings in three major areas. These areas include:
The Commission requested reports from the local law and justice council
committees and received a range of responses-from nothing submitted at all, to
tabulations of statistical data, to reports of minimum to maximum detail on the
statutorily required topics and/or other subject matter. Counties submitting a
report include: Adams, Benton/Franklin, Chelan/Douglas, Clallam, Clark,
Columbia/Walla Walla, Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, King, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lewis,
Lincoln, Mason, Okanogan, Pacific/Wahkiakum, Pend Oreille/Stevens/Ferry, Pierce,
San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish, Spokane, Whitman and Yakima. Counties sending
tabulations and no report include: Asotin/Garfield, Skamania, Thurston and
Whatcom. Counties providing no report or data to the SGC include: Grant, Island,
Jefferson, and Kitsap.
County reports varied in a number of ways. First,
some counties chose to focus on race/ethnicity statistics at varying points of
juvenile justice processing (e.g., Benton/Franklin, Clark, Cowlitz, Klickitat,
Snohomish and Spokane). Several of these counties provided a detailed analysis
and conclusions on disproportionality. Other counties simply reported that they
did not detect disproportionality, with little description of what led them to
that determination. Second, some counties focused on describing and assessing
their general and rehabilitative services in relation to disproportionality and
cultural relevance, while others simply described programs in general. Third, a
large number, but not all counties described their efforts to develop a diverse
staff and train staff and volunteers in cultural awareness issues. Fourth, most
counties reported on citizen complaints regarding bias or disproportionality, of
which there were few. One county, King, described its efforts to collect
systematic data on citizen complaints to law enforcement, while other counties
focused on making citizens aware of the committees role in receiving complaints
or developed procedures to process and investigate complaints.
The
variety of topics and detail in the reports, and their focus or lack of focus on
disproportionality and cultural relevance, make it difficult to determine common
problems, possible solutions, and effective programs. A consistent format for
the report would be useful to compare programs and findings on
disproportionality across counties. All parties involved, including legislators,
local officials, and representatives of minority communities, should work
together to determine a uniform format and content for this report. The
Commission would gladly participate in such an effort. Consistent information
across counties would give the most comprehensive view in understanding the
forms and extent of disproportionality, common problems and solutions, and
useful innovations.
The 1995 proportionality reports are briefly
summarized by juvenile court jurisdiction and topic below. The topical areas
included in this summary are those that a large number of counties reported on
with some uniformity, that focus on disproportionality, and that involve
specific actions that occurred during 1995. This summary does not to include
information on committee process, committee membership details, or
recommendations for the next year. Statistical findings and conclusions on
disproportionality are summarized only when the local committee did so in their
report. The number and percentage of majority and minority youth processed in
each juvenile court jurisdiction are listed in Appendix D. Full county reports
are available from the SGC or the specific
county.
Adams
Juvenile Court Staffing
The Adams
County Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee reports that half of its juvenile
staff are Hispanic and bilingual.
General Services
The
juvenile court has interpreters available for meetings, counseling, and court
hearings, and many of the juvenile court forms are in the Spanish language. The
Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee finds that services provided for their
families are culturally
relevant.
Benton/Franklin
Juvenile Court Staffing
The Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee of Benton and Franklin Counties
reports an increase in the racial/ethnic diversity of the staff, meeting one of
their 1995 recommendations. In 1995, juvenile staff was comprised of 9 bilingual
employees: 4 Counselors in Community Intensive Supervision, 1 Work Crew
Assistant in the Community Work Program, 1 Assistant Surveillance Office in the
Predisposition Intervention Program, 1 Tracker in the Option B Program and 2
full-time Counselor's in the Family Support Program.
Training
A two-day cultural awareness training at juvenile court for all court
volunteers was conducted by the Court Appointed Special Advocate/Guardian Ad
Litem (CASA/GAL) Program.
General Services
The juvenile court
has interpreters available for meetings, counseling, and court hearings, and
many of the juvenile court forms are in the Spanish language.
Each unit
within the juvenile court implemented a plan to collect information and keep
track of the ethnic background of each youth served by the unit. This resulted
in much more extensive information to assess disproportionality, meeting the
1995 recommendation for comprehensive and easily accessible data on
race/ethnicity.
Rehabilitative Services
The Benton-Franklin
Juvenile Court received funding from the Governor's Juvenile Justice Advisory
Committee (GJJAC) to evaluate their deferred adjudication process. The
evaluation focused on potential bias in who receives deferred adjudications and
found that certain factors were associated with its receipt, including criminal
history (less), age (older), race (Caucasian), and attorney behavior (request
for deferred adjudication). The author also found that Caucasians and youth of
color have indistinguishable criminal history. The author suggests that
association between criminal history and deferred adjudication reflects rational
decision-making on the part of the court, while the associations between age,
race and attorney behavior may reflect bias in decision making. Further
statistical analysis of the data is planned.
The juvenile court recently
received $132,835 from the JRA for an early intervention accountability project
that is a home- and family-based, intensive, culturally relevant (providing
tailored services to minority offenders) program designed to keep first-time
offenders from re-offending.
Citizen Complaints
The Committee
received no citizen complaints regarding bias or disproportionality in
1995.
Chelan/Douglas
Training
The Chelan/Douglas
Counties Juvenile Court Advisory Board on Proportionality reports that juvenile
court staff attended a two-day retreat, part of which involved cultural
awareness training.
Rehabilitative Services
The probation
department sponsored a Hispanic Leadership Conference, which involved
motivational speakers from the Anglo and Hispanic communities. Approximately 100
youth attended--drawn from several groups, including those on probation or
parole, and high school youth identified as leaders by the school
administration.
Citizen Complaints
The Advisory Board received
no citizen complaints regarding bias or disproportionality in
1995.
Clallam
Statistical Review
A review of the
1995 Annual Statistics by the Clallam County Disproportionality Committee found
no concern that programming or referrals were disproportional for any minority
group.
Training
Cultural diversity training was accomplished
and ongoing for all staff.
General Services
The committee
reports progress towards collaboration with Native American groups and service
sensitivity to minority populations.
Rehabilitative Services
The juvenile court contracts with the Lower Elwha Tribe for drug and alcohol
counseling.
Citizen Complaints
The Committee received no
citizen complaints regarding bias or disproportionality in
1995.
Clark
Statistical Review
The Juvenile
Court Administrator provided a detailed report on disproportionality at each
stage of juvenile processing in Clark County, including referrals, diversions
and outcomes, guilty pleas, youth declined to adult court and commitment. The
report indicates that a disproportionate number of referrals involve youth of
color. At the point of diversion, the report suggests that the existing
disproportionality may be attributable to the greater number of misdemeanor
referrals involving European American (White) youth. A disproportionate
percentage of diversion cases involving African-American and Hispanic youth
resulted in unsatisfactory case outcomes, possibly due to a high occurrence of
risk factors associated with recidivism and/or other compliance issues among
these youth. At the stage of decline to adult court and commitment, the report
suggests that the greater proportion of youth of color as compared to their
representation in the population is likely attributable to referrals for serious
and/or violent offenses.
Rehabilitative Services
Forty-one
percent of youth participating in the Re-Entry Program are youth of color. The
purpose of this program is to provide alternative education for high-risk
students; its goal is to build resilience through life skills training to
develop a sense of belonging and empowerment to successfully reintegrate young
persons into their home school district.
Columbia/Walla
Walla
Juvenile Court Staffing and Training
The Department
of Court Services for Columbia/Walla Walla Counties employs 18 staff
members-three are Hispanic, one is African American, and fifteen are Caucasians.
The Department reports that they strive to maintain a balance of diverse staff
and to provide culturally sensitive training.
Complaints
The
Department of Court Services for Columbia/Walla Walla Counties received no
citizen complaints regarding bias or disproportionality in
1995.
Cowlitz
Statistical Review
The Juvenile
Justice Advisory Committee provided a detailed report on disproportionality at a
number of points in juvenile justice processing, including diversions, early
intervention program, detention and commitments.
General Services
Flyers on the juvenile court process provided by the Office of the
Administrator for the Courts in a number of languages are given to parents of
offenders to assist them in understanding the juvenile justice
system.
Rehabilitative Services
The Diversion unit and Early
Intervention Program officers use the services of the Ethnic Support Council to
assist in working with families where English is a barrier. The juvenile
department prefers not to use the youth him/herself to interpret for the parent
due to concerns about manipulation or deception on the part of the
youth.
The Early Intervention Program is for more serious offenders on
community supervision or deferred adjudication and is designed to maximize
intervention services and lessen recidivism. As part of this program probation
officers meet with youth and family to identify ethnic and racial issues that
need to be addressed as part of the supervision contract or that may play a role
in success during supervision. Data for 1995 indicate that minority youth are
entering this program at levels consistent with or higher than their percent of
the at-risk population.
Grays Harbor
Statistical
Review
The report indicates that an examination of juvenile justice
system stages in Grays Harbor County does not indicate disproportionality.
Juvenile Court Staffing
The juvenile court staff includes 18
males and 14 females, with one African American employee and one staff member
who speaks Spanish.
Training
Cultural awareness training for
the juvenile court staff included a multi-cultural community training program
and a workshop on counseling strategies for troubled youth. The latter included
building cultural proficiency.
General Services
The Juvenile
Department disseminates the Washington State Juvenile Court Process brochure in
Cambodian, Korean, Laotian, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese. A bilingual
Spanish-speaking interpreter is under contract and is used as necessary in court
or detention.
Rehabilitative Services
The Juvenile Department
disseminates a brochure on the Grays Harbor County Juvenile Court in Spanish,
which includes a description of all rehabilitative services. Professional
service contracts are used for counseling, which emphasize cultural and ethnic
backgrounds and education. One contracted therapist has Native-American
ancestry.
King
General Services
The Committee
held four community meetings to discuss the cultural relevance of services
offered. A graduate student at the University of Washington surveyed seven
community agencies on the services provided and their cultural
relevance.
Citizen Complaints
The Juvenile Justice Advisory
Committee surveyed 35 county law enforcement departments regarding processes for
receiving and acting on individual complaints of racial/ethnic
bias/disproportionality in service delivery. Fifteen departments responded with
details of their processes for receiving and evaluating citizen complaints. One
of the responding departments received two complaints of bias in 1995 (out of
eleven internal affairs investigations). The committee surveyed the Prosecuting
Attorney, the Department of Youth Services (DYS), and four public defender
agencies in King County on the same topic. The Prosecutor's office reported that
a process for complaints is in place, and DYS reported no bias complaints in
1995. Two out of four public defender offices responded to the survey. One
reported no complaints, the other reported their process for handling complaints
and mentioned the receipt of complaints from clients about bias by police and
jail officers.
Kittitas
Training
Juvenile staff
are trained to ensure they are sensitive to application of service to diverse
populations. Training resources that offer culturally relevant counseling and
process techniques have been identified. Volunteer training is currently
scheduled to include a cultural awareness section.
General
Services
Office of the Administrator for the Courts brochures in a
variety of languages are used.
Citizen Complaints
The Juvenile
Justice Advisory Committee received no citizen complaints regarding bias or
disproportionality in 1995.
Klickitat
Statistical
Review
The Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee reported on statistical
findings, with a caution towards making conclusions using the small number of
offenders. They also discuss other problems in interpreting the statistical
data. The Committee reports they detected no disproportionality
problems.
Juvenile Court Staffing
The six juvenile court staff
are equally divided between male and female, with one African-American staff
member.
General Services
The juvenile court provides
interpreters to all diverted or formally adjudicated youth. The court is
committed to working with tribal authorities and using tribal resources with
Native American youth whenever possible.
Citizen complaints
The Commission did not receive any citizen complaints regarding bias or
disproportionality in 1995.
Lewis
Training
A
video on "Cultural Diversity in Corrections" is used in juvenile court staff
training.
General Services
Interpreters are available, if
needed, at court hearings, diversions, and programming for non-English speaking
youth and parents. A contract is in place with a certified interpreter to
translate court documents into Spanish. The juvenile court has a program on hate
crimes. New policies were developed addressing proportionality and cultural
diversity issues
Citizen Complaints
Neither the Lewis County
Law and Justice Committee or Juvenile Justice Committee received citizen
complaints regarding bias or disproportionality in
1995.
Mason
Statistical Review
The Committee
reviewed statistical data and found that it did not seem to be discriminatory on
the basis of race.
Juvenile Court Staffing
The Juvenile
Court/Probation Services department has employed a bilingual Spanish speaking
staff person and a more diverse staff.
Training
Multi-cultural community training is conducted as a part of cultural
awareness training for staff.
General Services
The Washington
State Juvenile Court process brochure is provided in Spanish, Cambodian, Korean,
Laotian, Russian and Vietnamese.
Citizen Complaints
Mason
County Probation Services reports they received no citizen complaints regarding
bias or disproportionality.
Okanogan
Juvenile Court
Staffing
The Juvenile Department has a Hispanic Court Services
Officer/Counselor and Corrections Officer, both of whom are bilingual. An
additional bilingual court service staff member has recently been hired. The
Department also has a Native American Court Services Officer/Counselor,
Corrections Officer, Probation/Parole Officer, Guardian ad Litem and Director of
Substance Abuse Treatment and Services.
Training
Staff have
attended at least one workshop or seminar dealing with cultural awareness and
diversity issues. One staff member has received certification as a cultural
awareness facilitator and will provide in-service training for the agency.
Community volunteers receive cultural awareness training.
General
Services
A certified interpreter is provided for all juvenile court
sessions. The Juvenile Department has more than 10 types of informational
materials printed in Spanish, on such topics as diversion, detention, substance
abuse treatment, and others.
Rehabilitative Services
Consolidated Juvenile Services enhancement funds were used to fund a new
project in conjunction with the Colville Indian Tribe targeting high risk Native
American youth for enhanced services and intervention. The project had to be
abandoned, since enhancement funds were not reallocated by the
Legislature.
Citizen Complaints
The Okanogan Law and Justice
Council received no citizen complaints regarding bias or disproportionality in
1995.
Pacific/Wahkiakum
Citizen Complaints
The
Committee on Juvenile Justice Proportionality received no citizen complaints
regarding bias or disproportionality in 1995.
Pend
Oreille/Stevens/Ferry
Juvenile Court Staffing
One staff
member of the Stevens County Juvenile Department is a Spanish
interpreter.
Training
The Ferry County Juvenile staff have
completed cultural awareness training, and several staff members of the Stevens
County Juvenile Department have participated in such training.
General
Services
The Ferry County Juvenile Department uses outside resources
such as Tribal counseling. In Stevens County, Native American youth are
generally referred to the Spokane Tribe for services in their local community.
Stevens County reports they have information about the juvenile system available
in various languages.
Citizen Complaints
None of the following
groups received citizen complaints regarding bias or disproportionality in 1995:
Pend Oreille Sheriff, the Ferry County Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice
Proportionality, Ferry County Juvenile Court, Stevens County Juvenile Court or
Law and Justice Council.
Pierce
Juvenile Court Staff and
Training
The Juvenile Justice Proportionality Sub-Committee reports
ongoing cultural diversity training and ethnic diversity of staff in Pierce
County Juvenile Court.
Rehabilitative Services
The Court
increased the capacity of In-Home and Electronic Monitoring Programs as
non-secure alternatives to secure detention. Children of color comprise 46.5% of
participants.
The Inner-City Accountability Board is servicing divertible
youth referred from the 98405 zipcode, which is a successful effort to hold
youth accountable in their own neighborhoods.
Efforts were re-focused in
serving youth of color in danger of failing diversion. Using a non-traditional
service delivery approach, the Diversion Intervention Specialist increased the
number of individuals successfully completing their diversion contracts.
San Juan
Citizen Complaints
San Juan County's
Law and Justice Council received no citizen complaints regarding bias or
disproportionality in 1995.
Skagit
Juvenile Court
Staffing
The Juvenile Probation Department has one full-time and one
part-time Hispanic bilingual probation officer, two Hispanic bilingual
corrections officers, one bilingual corrections officer, and one part-time
Native American corrections officer.
General Services
Interpreters are available through the department via a local provider,
"Language Exchange." Bilingual department employees, clients or client family
members often serve as interpreters. Forms are increasingly available in
Spanish, especially in the diversion area.
Rehabilitative Services
Cultural and language issues are always considered in developing treatment
plans. The intensive supervision program incorporated a cultural awareness
component into the SCORE program's educational component.
Citizen
Complaints
Neither the Skagit County Juvenile Probation Department or
the local law and justice council have received citizen complaints regarding
bias or disproportionality in
1995.
Snohomish
Statistical Findings
The
Juvenile Justice Program Development Unit contracted with the Urban Policy
Institute to analyze disproportionality in Snohomish County. Preliminary
analyses found that White, Native American/Eskimo/Aleut and Hispanic youth had
similar rates of involvement at key points in the juvenile justice process,
while Asian/Pacific Islanders were under-represented and Black youth were
over-represented. Further review indicated that once youth were in the "front
door," over-representation did not vary. A subsequent analysis focusing on
referral found that Asian youth were under-represented because they were
referred less frequently, and for less serious crimes, than other racial/ethnic
groups. Black youths were over-represented, compared to other racial/ethnic
groups, as they were more likely to have multiple referrals in a single year and
were more likely to be referred for violent felony
offenses.
Spokane
Juvenile Court Staffing
The
Juvenile court works closely with the Human Resource Department to recruit
personnel from diverse ethnic groups.
General Services
Informational brochures on the court process are provided to the public in
various language. Translators are provided by the court to non-English speaking
youth and their families.
Rehabilitative Services
The Juvenile
court contracts with the Mens' African-American Association for the mentoring of
African-American youth. The NATIVE program is a valuable resource for
Native-American and other ethnic group youth. The Mens' African-American
Association and NATIVE provide services not only to probationers, but also their
families.
For the rehabilitative projects of C.J.S. at Risk, Option B and
SSODA, the subcommittee found that with the exception of Asians/Pacific
Islanders, the percent of minority youth in each project was slightly greater
than their proportion in the general population. An exception was the
significantly greater representation of African American youth in Option B,
which allows youth to be placed on community supervision as opposed to JRA
commitment.
Citizen Complaints
The Spokane County Juvenile
Justice Disproportionality subcommittee received no citizen complaints regarding
bias or disproportionality in 1995.
Whitman
Training
The Juvenile Department has trained all staff in cultural awareness. New
employees receive diversity training within the first 12 months of employment.
General Services
The Juvenile Department refers youth to
cultural awareness classes when bias or prejudice is demonstrated by an
offender. Whitman County has recruited persons of color to serve as members of
the Guardian ad Litem program, Community Accountability Board, and volunteer
juvenile court staff.
Citizen Complaints
The Juvenile Justice
Advisory Committee received no citizen complaints regarding bias or
disproportionality in 1995. The Committee has established a process, which
includes an investigation by the Juvenile Court Administrator that will be
forwarded to the local law and justice
council.
Yakima
Juvenile Court Staffing
The
Juvenile court has two bilingual/bicultural staff interpreters.
Training
All staff have attended cultural diversity training
provided by either the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission or the
Criminal Justice Training Commission.
General Services
The
Juvenile court makes every effort to insure diversity among court volunteers.
The court recruits in the Spanish language newspaper and radio for volunteers.
All forms used in the court are being translated into Spanish, and all diversion
notification forms are sent out in English and Spanish.
Rehabilitative
Services
The Juvenile court has applied for a grant to work with
monolingual youth in detention.
Citizen Complaints
The
Committee has not agreed on their role in processing citizen complaints, but has
taken action to make the community aware of the existence of the advisory
committee and its legislated responsibilities.
It is clear that disproportionality remains a serious concern in all stages of the juvenile justice system, from arrest to disposition. Disproportionality becomes more acute as one moves through intermediary or post-arrest stages of the process. Disparities are especially severe with respect to African-American youth. The existence of disproportionality and the potential for disparate treatment of selected minority groups is particularly problematic given the goals of Washington's juvenile sentencing system-fairness and equity.
Possible Causes of
Disproportionality
The data presented in this report clearly document disproportionality in
Washington's juvenile justice system. However, the data do not explain
why youth of color are found in disproportionate numbers throughout the
juvenile justice system. Potential explanations include:
Because this study did not control for offense severity and criminal history,
or take into account other variables that might be relevant to decisions in the
juvenile justice process, it does not distinguish between "warranted" and
"unwarranted" disproportionality-between the results of legally justified
decisions based on legally relevant criteria and the results of decisions based
on race or ethnicity (i.e., discriminatory practices). Thus, findings should not
be interpreted as confirming the existence of bias or discrimination in the
juvenile justice system.
In addition, the lack of a uniform comprehensive
data collection system for tracking arrests, likely resulted in an
under-estimate of the proportion of minority youth arrested in Washington.
Similarly, the information stored in JUVIS has been fraught with various
limitations (e.g., participatory problems). Previous disproportionality research
that utilized JUVIS data noted that jurisdictional idiosyncrasies in usage have
created problems in data analysis and statewide research (Bridges et al., 1993,
1995). Therefore, the accuracy of the results documented in this study are
subject to what extent local juvenile courts correctly entered data into JUVIS
on a consistent and uniform basis. It is likely that the total number of youths
processed in the juvenile justice system is somewhat over-estimated, since
multiple referrals may be entered by some jurisdictions for the same
offense.
Fortunately, the redevelopment of a statewide juvenile court
information system is currently underway. The new juvenile judicial information
system will provide for increased functionality and opportunities for the
re-training of juvenile court staff in data-entry practices. It is the goal of
the judicial information system policy committee to establish standardized
business rules to achieve increased data integrity and uniformity. If
cross-jurisdictional uniformity and participation in the new judicial
information system are achieved, future analyses of statewide juvenile court
data will be more accurate and complete.
Suggestions for Future Research
How juvenile justice professionals balance the often diverging and competing
goals of rehabilitation, determinate sentencing, risk assessment procedures, and
prosecutorial standards should be explored. Risk assessment procedures are used
to determine whether a youth should be placed in detention pending adjudication.
Pre-adjudication detention is normally based on risk factors such as the
perceived likelihood that the offender will abscond prior to an adjudicatory
hearing or the potential threat the offender poses to the community or
themselves, if released (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
1995). Since pre-adjudication detention was often found to be a predictor of
sentence severity in other studies (e.g., Bridges et al., 1993, 1995), the
differing risk assessment tools should be examined to determine what effect race
may have upon risk assessment and on subsequent decisions. Likewise, differences
in prosecutorial charging standards should be examined for similar purposes.
Both of these decision-making points in the juvenile justice system are largely
discretionary and should be thoroughly examined for potential bias. Particular
focus should be placed upon the role law enforcement plays in processing youth
and on what effect the enactment of comprehensive juvenile justice reforms,
during the 1997 Legislative Session, have upon disproportionality-as discretion
has been expanded to include a 0-to-30 day standard sentencing range (detention)
for offenders penalized with local sanctions.
Future research should
control for offense seriousness and criminal history and examine each process
stage independently to determine whether each stage produces disparate results
compared with the population entering it. Existing data make it difficult to
make these comparisons. As the Commission accumulates detailed, specific data on
dispositions, now being supplied by the state's juvenile courts, it should be
able to contribute more useful information with regard to the disposition stage.
Dispositions are at the "back end" of the juvenile justice process, the
outcome of a series of decisions that begins in the community with offenders
themselves and the law enforcement officers who bring them to court, and
continues through prosecutors' decisions about charging and judicial decisions
about pretrial detention and adjudication. Disparities in these earlier stages
may contribute to any disparities in dispositions, especially in relation to the
at-risk population. The Commission urges that well-controlled research be
continued with respect to these earlier stages as well as dispositions.
Disproportionality does not have to be measured to be a subject of
concern, or to be addressed by the juvenile justice system. The county law and
justice councils should continue to work with their advisory committees on
disproportionality, as required by state law, and provide the required annual
reports in a timely fashion. These reports should be provided to others besides
the Sentencing Guidelines Commission-for example, the Minority and Justice
Commission, the state Commissions on African-American Affairs, Asian
Pacific-American Affairs, and Hispanic Affairs, and the Governor's Office on
Indian Affairs.
The local law and justice council reports would be more
useful from a statewide perspective if a more consistent format were used,
allowing better comparisons of findings and programs among jurisdictions. It is
suggested that the Washington State Law and Justice Advisory Council convene a
group of interested parties, including legislators, representatives of local and
state agencies and minority communities, to develop a more thorough and
consistent format for the reporting. The Commission would be glad to participate
in such an effort.
Arnold, W. 1971 "Race and Ethnicity Relative to Other Factors in
Juvenile Court Dispositions."
American Journal of Sociology, 77 (2):
211-227.
Bailey, W., and R. Peterson. 1981. "Legal Versus Extra-Legal
Determinants of Juvenile Court
Dispositions." Juvenile and Family Court
Journal, 32 (2): 41-59.
Bishop, D. and C. Frazier. 1988. "The
Influence of Race in Juvenile Justice Processing." Journal
of Research
in Crime and Delinquency, 25(3): 242-263.
--. 1996. "Race
Effects in Juvenile Justice Decision-Making: Findings of a Statewide
Analysis." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 86 (2):
392-414.
Blumstein, A. 1982. "On the Racial Disproportionality of United
States' Prison Populations".
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology,
73 (3): 1259-1281.
Bridges, G., et al. 1993. Racial Disproportionality
in the Juvenile Justice System: Final Report.
Olympia, WA: Submitted to
Commission on African American Affairs and Management Services Division,
Department of Social and Health Services.
--. 1995. Racial
Disproportionality in County Juvenile Facilities: Final Report. Olympia, WA:
Submitted to Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration, Department of Social
and Health Services.
Bridges, G., and R. Crutchfield. 1988. "Law, Social
Standing and Racial Disparities in
Imprisonment". Social Forces, 66
(3): 699-724.
Bortner, M.A., and W.L. Reed. 1985. "The Preeminence of
Process: An Example of Refocused
Justice Research". Social Science
Quarterly, 66 (2): 413-425.
Conley, D. 1994. "Adding Color to a Black
and White Picture: Using Qualitative Data to
Explain Racial
Disproportionality in the Juvenile Justice System." Journal of Research in
Crime and Delinquency, 31 (2): 135-148.
Crutchfield, R., G. Bridges,
and S. Pitchford. 1994. "Analytical and Aggregation Biases in
Analyses of
Imprisonment: Reconciling Discrepancies in Studies of Racial Disparity."
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 31
(2):166-182.
Duster, T. 1987. "Crime, Youth Unemployment, and the Black
Underclass". Journal of Crime
and Delinquency, 33 (2):
300-316.
Fagan, J., E. Slaughter, and E. Hartstone. 1987. "Blind Justice?
The Impact of Race on the
Juvenile Justice Process". Journal of Crime and
Delinquency, 33 (2): 224-258.
Florida Department of Juvenile
Justice/Bureau of Data and Research. 1995. Minority
Representation at
Various Stages of the Juvenile Justice System: 1995. Tallahassee,
FL.:
Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
--. 1996. Minority Representation
at Various Stages of the Juvenile Justice
System: 1996. Tallahassee, FL.:
Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
--. 1997. Minority Representation
at Various Stages of the Juvenile Justice
System: 1997. Tallahassee, FL.:
Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
Gibbons D. 1997. "Review Essay:
Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Social Policy". Journal of Crime
and Delinquency, 43 (3): 358-380.
Horwitz, A. and M.
Wasserman. 1980. "Some Misleading Conceptions In Sentencing Research:
An
Example and a Reformation in the Juvenile Court." Criminology, 18 (3):
411-424.
Huizinga, D., and D. Elliott. 1987. "Juvenile Offenders:
Prevalence, Offender Incidence, and
Arrest Rates by Race". Journal of
Crime and Delinquency, 33 (2): 206-223.
Joe, T. 1987. "Economic
Inequality: The Picture in Black and White". Journal of Crime and
Delinquency, 33 (2): 287-299.
Juvenile Justice Racial
Disproportionality Work Group. 1994. Report to the Washington State
Legislature. Olympia, WA: Office of the Administrator for the
Courts.
Krisberg, B., et al. 1987. "The Incarceration of Minority Youth".
Journal of Crime and
Delinquency, 33 (2): 173-205.
Leiber, M. 1994. "A Comparison of Juvenile Court Outcomes for Native
Americans, African
Americans, and Whites". Justice Quarterly, 11 (2):
257-279.
Office of Financial Management Division of Forecasting. 1996.
1996 Population Trends.
Olympia, WA: Office of Financial
Management.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 1990.
Disproportionate Minority
Confinement Technical Assistance Manual.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
--. 1995. Guide for
Implementing Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic
Juvenile Offenders. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
--. 1996. Evaluation of the Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC)
Initiative: Oregon
Final Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
Justice.
Oregon Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee. 1997. Oregon
Juvenile Justice Advisory
Committee 1997 Report. Salem, OR: Oregon
Commission on Children and Families.
Pawlak, E. 1977. "Differential
Selection of Juveniles for Detention." Journal of Research in
Crime
and Delinquency, 14 (2): 152-165.
Pope, C. and W. Feyerherm.
1981. "Race and Juvenile Court Dispositions: An Examination of
Initial
Screening Decisions." Criminal Justice and Behavior, 8 (3):
287-301.
--. 1992. Minorities and the Juvenile Justice System.
Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
U.S. Department of Justice.
Steiger, J. and C. Ploeger-Dizon. 1991. The
Division of Juvenile Rehabilitation Sex Offender
Treatment Program:
Development, Design, and Evaluation Issues. Olympia, WA:
Department of
Social and Health Services.
Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police
Chiefs (WASPC). 1996. Crime in Washington
State: Annual Report. Olympia,
WA.
--. 1997. Crime in Washington State: Annual Report. Olympia, WA.
Wordes, M., T. Bynum, and C. Corley. 1994. "Locking Up Youth: The Impact
of Race on
Detention Decisions." Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 31 (2): 149-165.
RCW 9.94A.040 Sentencing
guidelines commission--Established--
Powers and duties--Assumption
of powers and duties of juvenile
disposition standards commission.
(1) A sentencing guidelines
commission is established as an agency
of state government.
(2) The legislature finds that the commission,
having
accomplished its original statutory directive to implement
this
chapter, and having expertise in sentencing practice and
policies,
shall:
(a) Evaluate state sentencing policy,
to include whether the
sentencing ranges and standards are
consistent with and further:
(i) The purposes of this chapter as
defined in RCW 9.94A.010;
and
(ii) The intent of the
legislature to emphasize confinement
for the violent offender and
alternatives to confinement for the
nonviolent offender.
The commission shall provide the governor and the legislature
with its evaluation and recommendations under this subsection not
later than December 1, 1996, and every two years thereafter;
(b) Recommend to the legislature revisions or modifications to
the standard sentence ranges, state sentencing policy, prosecuting
standards, and other standards. If implementation of the revisions
or modifications would result in exceeding the capacity of
correctional facilities, then the commission shall accompany its
recommendation with an additional list of standard sentence ranges
which are consistent with correction capacity;
(c) Study
the existing criminal code and from time to time
make
recommendations to the legislature for modification;
(d)(i) Serve
as a clearinghouse and information center for the
collection,
preparation, analysis, and dissemination of information
on state
and local adult and juvenile sentencing practices; (ii)
develop and
maintain a computerized adult and juvenile sentencing
information
system by individual superior court judge consisting of
offender,
offense, history, and sentence information entered from
judgment
and sentence forms for all adult felons; and (iii) conduct
ongoing
research regarding adult and juvenile sentencing
guidelines, use of
total confinement and alternatives to total
confinement, plea
bargaining, and other matters relating to the
improvement of the
adult criminal justice system and the juvenile
justice system;
(e) Assume the powers and duties of the juvenile disposition
standards commission after June 30, 1996;
(f) Evaluate the
effectiveness of existing disposition
standards and related
statutes in implementing policies set forth
in RCW 13.40.010
generally, specifically review the guidelines
relating to the
confinement of minor and first offenders as well as
the use of
diversion, and review the application of current and
proposed
juvenile sentencing standards and guidelines for potential
adverse
impacts on the sentencing outcomes of racial and ethnic
minority
youth;
(g) Solicit the comments and suggestions of the
juvenile
justice community concerning disposition standards, and
make
recommendations to the legislature regarding revisions or
modifications of the standards. The evaluations shall be submitted
to the legislature on December 1 of each odd-numbered year. The
department of social and health services shall provide the
commission with available data concerning the implementation of the
disposition standards and related statutes and their effect on the
performance of the department's responsibilities relating to
juvenile offenders, and with recommendations for modification of
the disposition standards. The office of the administrator for the
courts shall provide the commission with available data on
diversion and dispositions of juvenile offenders under chapter
13.40 RCW; and
(h) Not later than December 1, 1997, and at
least every two
years thereafter, based on available information,
report to the
governor and the legislature on:
(i)
Racial disproportionality in juvenile and adult
sentencing;
(ii) The capacity of state and local juvenile and adult
facilities and resources; and
(iii) Recidivism information
on adult and juvenile offenders.
(3) Each of the commission's
recommended standard sentence
ranges shall include one or more of
the following: Total
confinement, partial confinement, community
supervision, community
service, and a fine.
(4) The
standard sentence ranges of total and partial
confinement under
this chapter are subject to the following
limitations:
(a) If the maximum term in the range is one year or less, the
minimum term in the range shall be no less than one-third of the
maximum term in the range, except that if the maximum term in the
range is ninety days or less, the minimum term may be less than
one-third of the maximum;
(b) If the maximum term in the
range is greater than one year,
the minimum term in the range shall
be no less than seventy-five
percent of the maximum term in the
range, except that for murder in
the second degree in seriousness
category XIII under RCW 9.94A.310,
the minimum term in the range
shall be no less than fifty percent
of the maximum term in the
range; and
(c) The maximum term of confinement in a range may not
exceed
the statutory maximum for the crime as provided in RCW
9A.20.021.
(5) The commission shall exercise its duties under
this
section in conformity with chapter 34.05 RCW. [1997 c 365 §
2;
1997 c 338 § 3; 1996 c 232 § 1; 1995 c 269 § 303; 1994 c 87 §
1;
1986 c 257 § 18; 1982 c 192 § 2; 1981 c 137 § 4.]
NOTES:
Reviser's note: This section was amended
by 1997 c 338 § 3
and by 1997 c 365 § 2, each without
reference to the other. Both
amendments are incorporated in the
publication of this section
under RCW 1.12.025(2). For rule of
construction, see RCW
1.12.025(1).
Finding--Evaluation--Report--1997 c 338: See note following
RCW 13.40.0357.
Severability--Effective dates--1997 c 338: See notes
following RCW 5.60.060.
Effective
dates--1996 c 232: "(1) Sections 1 through 8 of
this act are
necessary for the immediate preservation of the public
peace,
health, or safety, or support of the state government and
its
existing public institutions, and take effect immediately
[March
28, 1996].
(2) Section 9 of this act takes effect July 1, 1996."
[1996
c 232 § 12.]
Effective
date--1995 c 269: "Sections 101, 201, 302, 303,
401, 402,
501 through 505, 601, 701, 801, 901, 1001, 1101, 1201
through 1203,
1301, 1302, 1401 through 1407, 1501, 1601, 1701,
1801, 1901, 1902,
2001, 2101, 2102, 2201 through 2204, 2301, 2302,
2401, 2501, 2601
through 2608, 2701, 2801 through 2804, 2901
through 2909, 3001,
3101, 3201, 3301, 3401, and 3501 of this act
are necessary for the
immediate preservation of the public peace,
health, or safety, or
support of the state government and its
existing public
institutions, and shall take effect July 1, 1995."
[1995 c 269 § 3604.]
Part headings not law--Severability--1995 c
269: See notes
following RCW 13.40.005.
Severability--1986 c 257: See note following RCW
9A.56.010.
Effective date--1986 c 257 §§ 17-35: See note following
RCW
9.94A.030.
RCW 72.09.300 Local law and
justice council, plan--Rules--
Base level of services--Juvenile
justice services. (1) Every
county legislative authority shall by
resolution or ordinance
establish a local law and justice council.
The county legislative
authority shall determine the size and
composition of the council,
which shall include the county sheriff
and a representative of the
municipal police departments within the
county, the county
prosecutor and a representative of the municipal
prosecutors within
the county, a representative of the city
legislative authorities
within the county, a representative of the
county's superior,
juvenile, district, and municipal courts, the
county jail
administrator, the county clerk, the county risk
manager, and the
secretary of corrections. Officials designated may
appoint representatives.
(2) A combination of counties may
establish a local law and justice council by intergovernmental agreement. The
agreement
shall comply with the requirements of this section.
(3) The local law and justice council shall develop a local
law and justice plan for the county. The council shall design the
elements and scope of the plan, subject to final approval by the
county legislative authority. The general intent of the plan shall
include seeking means to maximize local resources including
personnel and facilities, reduce duplication of services, and share
resources between local and state government in order to accomplish
local efficiencies without diminishing effectiveness. The plan
shall also include a section on jail management. This section may
include the following elements:
(a) A description of
current jail conditions, including
whether the jail is
overcrowded;
(b) A description of potential alternatives to
incarceration;
(c) A description of current jail resources;
(d) A description of the jail population as it presently
exists and how it is projected to change in the future;
(e)
A description of projected future resource requirements;
(f) A
proposed action plan, which shall include
recommendations to
maximize resources, maximize the use of
intermediate sanctions,
minimize overcrowding, avoid duplication of
services, and
effectively manage the jail and the offender
population;
(g) A list of proposed advisory jail standards and methods to
effect periodic quality assurance inspections of the jail;
(h) A proposed plan to collect, synthesize, and disseminate
technical information concerning local criminal justice activities,
facilities, and procedures;
(i) A description of existing
and potential services for
offenders including employment services,
substance abuse treatment,
mental health services, and housing
referral services.
(4) The council may propose other elements of
the plan, which
shall be subject to review and approval by the
county legislative
authority, prior to their inclusion into the
plan.
(5) The county legislative authority may request
technical
assistance in developing or implementing the plan from
other units
or agencies of state or local government, which shall
include the
department, the office of financial management, and the
Washington
association of sheriffs and police chiefs.
(6) Upon receiving a request for assistance from a county, the
department may provide the requested assistance.
(7) The
secretary may adopt rules for the submittal, review,
and approval
of all requests for assistance made to the department.
The secretary may also appoint an advisory committee
of local and
state government officials to recommend
policies and procedures
relating to the state and local
correctional systems and to assist
the department in providing
technical assistance to local
governments. The committee shall
include representatives of the
county sheriffs, the police chiefs,
the county prosecuting
attorneys, the county and city legislative
authorities, and the
jail administrators. The secretary may
contract with other state
and local agencies and provide funding in
order to provide the
assistance requested by counties.
(8) The department shall establish a base level of state
correctional services, which shall be determined and distributed in
a consistent manner state-wide. The department's contributions to
any local government, approved pursuant to this section, shall not
operate to reduce this base level of services.
(9) The
council shall establish an advisory committee on
juvenile justice
proportionality. The council shall appoint the
county juvenile
court administrator and at least five citizens as
advisory
committee members. The citizen advisory committee members
shall be
representative of the county's ethnic and geographic
diversity. The
advisory committee members shall serve two-year
terms and may be
reappointed. The duties of the advisory committee
include:
(a) Monitoring and reporting to the sentencing guidelines
commission on the proportionality, effectiveness, and cultural
relevance of:
(i) The rehabilitative services offered by
county and state
institutions to juvenile offenders; and
(ii) The rehabilitative services offered in conjunction with
diversions, deferred dispositions, community supervision, and
parole;
(b) Reviewing citizen complaints regarding bias
or
disproportionality in that county's juvenile justice
system;
(c) By September 1 of each year, beginning with 1995,
submit
to the sentencing guidelines commission a report summarizing
the
advisory committee's findings under (a) and (b) of this
subsection.
[1996 c 232 § 7; 1994 sp.s. c 7
§ 542; 1993 sp.s. c 21 § 8; 1991 c
363 § 148; 1987 c 312 §
3.]
Juvenile Justice System Flow Chart for Criminal Offenses
(Not available in on-line version of document)
[Summary of the State's Juvenile Justice Code]
Number and Percent of Youth Processed by Jurisdiction
(Not available in on-line version of
document)