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Plan Focuses On Minority Youths

By Colin Poitras, Coursant Staff Writer, January 30, 2003

A national expert on juvenile justice said Wednesday that Connecticut can reduce its large number of minority youths in detention if civic and state leaders literally map out a plan to address the problem at its roots.

Speaking at a juvenile justice conference at the state Capitol, James Bell, a former attorney with the Youth Law Center in California, laid out a strategy that he says has worked to reduce minority overrepresentation in places such as Seattle, Phoenix and Kansas City.

The key, Bell said, is using existing data from the state court system and other resources to map out key trouble areas in the state's larger cities, right down to specific neighborhoods.

Once those areas are identified, Bell said, civic leaders and local youth advocates must work together to identify the needs of the youths and families there, and develop and fund community-based programs designed to keep youths out of trouble.

The success in such programs lies in everyone working together, said Bell, the executive director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity in San Francisco.

State judicial officials already have tried a similar "mapping" technique in New Haven County in an effort to reduce recidivism rates of adult inmates discharged from state prisons, said William Carbone, executive director of court support services in Connecticut.

"What I liked about [Bell's] message is that the community, schools, community organizations, parents, everyone has the responsibility to be part of the solution, to prevent kids from coming into the system," Carbone said.

Currently in Connecticut, minorities represent about 26 percent of the youth population but account for nearly 80 percent of youths locked up in statewide detention centers, the latest statistics show. Studies also have shown that African American and Hispanic youths are more likely to be sent to detention than their white counterparts when charged with a criminal offense an often spend more time in confinement than white youths.

Prominent civil rights attorney Martha Stone said she supports Bell's idea of increasing community involvement. "I think community mapping is extremely important," said Stone, executive director of the Center for Children's Advocacy in Hartford.