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Advocates Decry Racial Disparity At Juvenile Jail

Hartford Courant - 1/16/2017

Jan. 16--Nearly nine out of 10 of the kids locked up in the juvenile jail in Middletown are black and Latino -- a deeply ingrained racial disparity that advocates want to see broken this legislative session as officials follow the governor's order to close the sprawling jail compound by next year.

"We're not saying this is intentional on the part of the police or of judges -- but it's systemic, and it's costly, and it's entrenched, and it has to be fixed as we take this opportunity to reimagine how we handle committed delinquents," said Abby Anderson, who directs the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance in Bridgeport.

Programs that stress treatment over arrest are steering greater numbers of kids away from court. But even so, for kids who make it into the system, "the disproportionate numbers of youth of color is growing somewhat -- and that can be discouraging," said Deborah Fuller, director of juvenile and family services for the Connecticut judicial branch.

Fuller said the branch is paying to train "all players in the criminal justice system" -- including judges -- to recognize implicit bias in themselves and to change their thinking.

The youth who end up at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School -- the juvenile jail -- are the state's hardest cases. They compromise a scant 2.5 percent of the 10,150 kids who enter juvenile court each year. But it's there, in the "deep end" of the system, where advocates say the racial disparity is felt the most, where black and white kids of equal risk have different outcomes. Currently, there are 53 juveniles in the training school.

African-American kids are more likely than whites to be sent to the juvenile jail, rather than a residential treatment facility or group home, studies have repeatedly shown for the past 15 years.

Black children and teenagers make up 10.8 percent of the population, but nearly 46 percent of all committed delinquents, according to the Department of Children and Families, which runs the juvenile jail.

In place of Connecticut Juvenile Training School, a $50 million-a-year-debacle with a high recidivism rate among juvenile offenders, DCF is considering smaller locked centers totaling about 50 beds, and a richer array of mental-health and drug-abuse treatment programs.

But the advocates says it's crucial that there isn't one more kid in a jail setting than is absolutely necessary. If that's not the case, they say, than those smaller locked centers are going to end up looking exactly like the place that was supposed to close. And garner the same disastrous results -- high rates of repeat offenders, and kids not getting the help they need, even as the meter runs.

Part of the racial disparity is rooted in geography.

The residential schools and treatment centers tend to be in Litchfield, or other suburban and rural areas, not in Hartford, New Haven or Bridgeport. So sometimes a white offender may be diverted to a campus setting, just because it's closer to home than the juvenile jail in Middletown.

"In Connecticut, justice by geography is going to cause racial disparity," Anderson said.

By the time a young offender enters the juvenile jail, he's been arrested seven or eight times, or more. And by that point, racial inequity has left its mark.

"While we do not select which youth are committed to us by a juvenile court, we pay a great deal of attention to this injustice," said Joette Katz, DVF commissioner.

The department has shortened virtually all stays at the juvenile jail to six months, and works to ensure that "that our programs are culturally competent ... We do everything possible to return youth to the community as fast and successfully as possible," Katz said.

Cathy Foley Geib, who works with Fuller as assistant director of juvenile and family services for the judicial branch, said the effort to reduce racial inequity has to start at the point of arrest.

She noted, for example, that as many as 20 percent of juvenile arrests occur at school. In response, the juvenile court has put in place school-based diversion programs that have school personnel calling in mobile-crisis workers rather than police officers when appropriate to deal with problems.

The state's largest cities, which have the largest minority populations, are the biggest feeders to juvenile court. This is true, in part, because the cities have a greater police concentration than suburban areas, and may have more stringent arrest practices, said Foley Geib.

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