 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Minority teen confinement high in state, study says
Wednesday, April 26, 2000 By Barbara White Stack, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Pennsylvania officials have known since 1992 that the state was sending to reform school a disproportionate number of minority youths, so they've tried to prevent minority teen-agers from being arrested in the first place.
According to the report, "And Justice For Some," Pennsylvania's response had not been entirely successful.
The report, prepared by researchers from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and released yesterday, contains statistics showing Pennsylvania's rates for confining minority youth are high compared to those in other states.
One chart shows that it has the second highest rate for sending minority youth to criminal court for trial when compared to 17 other states from which statistics could be obtained. Rhode Island had the highest rate of trying minority teens in criminal court instead of juvenile court. It was 5.3 times their proportion in the general population. Pennsylvania had the second highest rate at 5.2.
Similarly, Pennsylvania had a high rate for detaining minority teens in both public and privately-run reform schools. For private schools, it was 3.5 times their proportion in the population, and in public reform schools, it was 3.7 times. Only a few states had higher or similar rates, including West Virginia, Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky and Minnesota.
The report addresses the claim that minority youth are locked up more because they commit more crimes by documenting that when white and minority youngsters are charged with the same offenses, minority youth are six times more likely to be incarcerated.
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Cheryl Allen Craig, the supervising judge for juvenile court, said yesterday that the report suggests that the county's judges and district attorney need to discuss the issues.
Pennsylvania attempted to address the issues after a 1992 report showed the state incarcerated a disproportionate number of minority youth.
The study was done because federal law required each state to examine its treatment of minority youth and resolve inequities.
Pennsylvania responded by providing grants for programs aimed at preventing delinquency in communities such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia where the disproportionate involvement of minority youth was highest.
Overall, juvenile crime has dropped in Pennsylvania as it has across the nation in the past seven years.
Melissa Sickmund, senior research associate for the National Center for Juvenile Justice, which is located in Pittsburgh, said states do not have to show progress in reducing disproportionate minority involvement in the juvenile justice system to continue receiving federal funding. "As long as it appears something is going on, like a committee that is planning or thinking about it," the federal government will not cut off state funding, she said.
|
||||||||
