Explaining the Shift: A three-part blog on factors contributing to disparities in the juvenile justice system
Posted by Audrey Grace on June 19th, 2009
As we work to ensure the equitable treatment of youth of color by the juvenile justice system, our daily struggles can be informed by a look at the recent history that has brought us here. Based upon our research, we have found that several factors have helped contribute significantly to disproportionate minority confinement – namely the war on drugs, “broken windows” and “quality of life” policing, zero tolerance in school discipline, and the shift away from the rehabilitative function of the juvenile justice system.
These policies, though neutral on their face, overwhelmingly affected low-income youth of color. During the 1980s, new federal and state policies attempted to reduce drug use, improve the quality of the communities, and make schools safer for all children. Ironically, these policies purported to be race neutral. They removed discretion and established preset consequences for objectively defined offenses. In practice, they had a disproportionate affect on youth of color.
The War on Drugs
The first attempt by a state to impose mandatory minimum sentences for low level drug offenders was the 1973 Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York. These laws overwhelmingly affected people of color. In fact, 94% of the drug offenders in New York state prisons today are black and Latino. Federally, the war on drugs changed its focus to poor African-Americans in the mid-1980's when crack became the drug of choice in low-income communities. Crack was attractively cheap and selling crack was lucrative to young low-income people. The crack epidemic hit the cities hard and with it, the level of gun violence in the cities grew. At the peak of the crack boom, homicide rates of African-American boys quintupled. The public associated crack with violence and, even though the victims were mostly youth of color, feared for their safety.
While Reagan encouraged people to “just say no,” Congress passed a wave of tough federal drug laws, including harsh minimum sentences through the 1986-1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, in response to the rising level of drug use and violence. Despite being race neutral on their face, these laws targeted African-Americans. The penalty for selling five grams of crack was the same as selling five-hundred grams of cocaine, however few white people were arrested, detained, or sentenced for using crack. There was also incentive for law enforcement to arrest people of color for drug violations because they were most likely to receive government benefits. Federal laws mandated eviction from public housing if drugs were found on the premises, bans on welfare benefits for those with a drug conviction, and bars to federal financial aid for students with a drug conviction. All of these federal benefits flowed mainly to those who needed it most, which were low-income people of color.
Not only do youth of color represent 60% to 75% of drug arrests today, but also are incarcerated at 25 times the rate of white youth. Latino youth are incarcerated at 13 times the rate of their white counterparts. Racial profiling increased during the war on drugs. People of color, especially youth, were more likely to be pulled over or even followed until they commit a traffic violation. More black boys were targeted, searched, arrested, sentenced and detained because of these drug laws. As a result of these policies, youth of color were disproportionately punished in an effort to make the city streets appear safe and drug free.
Broken Windows and Petty Crimes
A 1982 article in Atlantic Monthly titled “Broken Windows” introduced the concept “that ignoring the little problems – graffiti, litter, shattered glass – creates a sense of irreversible decline that leads people to abandon the community or to stay away.” Violence and disorder, these authors believed, stem from the perception that the community is already abandoned. In order to save communities, police needed to patrol the streets and punish those who commit anti-social acts, such as jumping a turnstile, tagging a building, or breaking a window. These initiatives attempted to assuage public fears about youth crime and help make neighborhood cleaner and safer.
Public perception influenced what made an “unsafe” neighborhood, which was therefore in need of an increased police presence to maintain order. But the public perceived black neighborhoods or black people moving into white neighborhoods as a sign that the area was unsafe. One critique of the broken windows theory by Sampson and Raudenbush found that the physical deterioration of the neighborhood was not as important as race as a factor in determining disorder. Stabilizing the neighborhood was less about the reduced presence of graffiti, but about the perceptions of black neighborhoods. More young African-Americans were likely to be arrested for petty offenses in these communities. As a result, more young black boys were detained in the name of maintaining order.
New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, took broken windows measures to new heights and with “quality of life” policing. “Quality of life” policing is not limited to minor offenses, but also refers to a practice of heavily policing a number of normally non-criminal activities such as standing, congregating, sleeping, eating and/or drinking in public spaces. Mayor Giuliani attributed the sharp reduction in violent crime to this new strategy of community control. Following the lead of Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, these new policing strategies encouraged decentralized police control over neighborhoods, computerized crime statistics and data, and increased police presence on the streets. While violent crime decreased, arrests and incarceration rates increased.
African-Americans represented a disproportionate number of misdemeanor arrests for "quality of life" offenses and a majority of those arrested for subjective offenses, such as “suspicion." The decision to arrest a person for quality of life offenses also had a disproportionate affect on people of color.
Zero Tolerance
Emerging in the late-1980s, “zero-tolerance” was a term from the drug enforcement lexicon that found its way into public education. In 1994, Congress backed state zero tolerance policies with the Gun Free Schools Act, which “made school discipline the focus of violence prevention.” The Act required schools to expel students who brought guns to school property and limited or denied federal funding to states that failed to adopt this rule. Schools took these policies further to include “tobacco-related offenses and school disruption.”
Often referred to as the “school to prison pipeline,” zero tolerance policies often criminalize otherwise trivial offenses that would have previously warranted a visit to the principal’s office or a call to the child’s parents. The initiatives increase the police presence in schools, locker searches and interrogation without the same rights afforded to adults. Children perceive school as a prison with teachers, administrators and law enforcement scrutinizing their every move. Zero tolerance policies criminalize behaviors that would not be a crime for an adult. Children are punished for their impulsive, “child-like” behavior. These policies also affect the child’s ability to graduate, go to college, and get a job because of their juvenile or criminal record.
Zero tolerance policies are widely used and unequally applied. Such a system is unnecessarily demoralizing and creates lasting social effects. Suspension and expulsion increase the risk that students, especially students of color, will eventually dropout. Those who are suspended or expelled because of zero tolerance policies fall behind in school and, after the age of 16, most will not return to school. The Advancement Project notes that “[t]hose who drop out are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than their peers who graduate.” Because school disciplinary policies “tend to mirror inequalities persistent in the larger society,” it is not surprising that zero tolerance policies and exclusionary discipline fall mostly on African-Americans. Youth of color are disproportionately targeted by zero tolerance policies and therefore are more likely to affect the composition of the juvenile justice system.
Unfortunately, the war on drugs, broken windows and zero tolerance do not reduce crime. They merely make the public feel safe. In the 1980's, the United States faced a recession. People were unemployed, the government took tax money away from supporting social services, and the disparities in wealth increased. With more people on the streets, especially unsupervised African-American boys, the public perceived cities and towns as unsafe. States changed their approaches to juvenile justice to make cities and towns appear safer. From 1985 to 1994, the juvenile population increased and so did instances of violent crime. Juvenile violence is certainly not new, but the media focused attention on juvenile drug use, gang related activities and school violence because “if it bleeds, it leads.” The public perceived African-American boys as the perpetrators of these violent crimes. The media reinforced the image of the “super-predator” or African-American boy, beyond salvation, who must be locked up. The public, influenced by the media, perceived African-American boys as inherently violent. Legislatures and law enforcement responded by adopting a “tough on crime” approach to juvenile violence that focused on violent youth of color, which do little to reduce crime, but instead merely increased the amount of youth of color in detention.
Check back next month for the second installment of this blog series.
