Reforming juvenile justice in NJ

Minority kids commit 34 percent of the crime in New Jersey but make up an astonishing 85 percent of the youths committed to state and county prison facilities. Those statistics, which have fluctuated only slightly over the years, have been a source of concern for two decades. In 1984, now-retired Justice James Coleman Jr. chaired a committee that raised questions about the disparity. Since then, a series of studies have all concluded that minority juveniles are more likely to be sent to jail than to rehabilitation or treatment programs. For those kids, going to jail can lead to a downward spiral from which they may never recover. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, Attorney General Peter Harvey and Howard Beyer, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Commission, announced in March 2003 that they were going to drill to the bottom on the disparity.

As part of that effort, the Youth Services Commissions in all 21 counties — made up of judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers and social workers — have spent the past year tracking juvenile cases from the first encounter with police to final disposition. The reality is that minority youngsters are taking different paths than their white counterparts, more so than in other states. The question is why. If African-American and Hispanic youths are behind bars at disproportionate rates because they commit a disproportionate number of serious offenses, the fact of their race should not matter. But if a disproportionate number of black and brown kids are in jail for other reasons — too few drug treatment centers, undiagnosed mental illnesses, lack of bail money or police officers and prosecutors who treat them differently — something must be changed.

The criminal justice system, including the juvenile justice system, must be a place where those who enter know they will be treated equally regardless of race.

Otros Titulares
24 October 2004

http://www.eldiariony.com/noticias/detail.aspx?section=25&desc=Editorial&id=1016684

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