Black youth offenders pay high price for legacy of discrimination
By Cheryle R. Jackson
Two 16-year-old boys get arrested for a nonviolent offense. One is Black, one is white. The Black youth lives in a poor community on Chicago’s West Side. He is no stranger to the police. He has been rounded up and taken to jail during sweeps, which counts as a strike against him even if he’s done nothing wrong. Fighting and drug use are manifestations of his anger over his troubled home life. He even spent a night in juvenile lockup for fighting at school.
The white youth lives in a northwest suburb. He has made frequent trips to the principal’s office for fighting, coming to school under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and displaying erratic behavior. He and a group of friends were picked up by police last summer for “joy riding” but were released to their parents’ custody. Since then, he’s been seeing a therapist to deal with anger issues and depression.
The white youth is far more likely than the Black youth to be asleep in his own bed at the end of the day, to get court supervision or to be ordered to continue therapy. But you can bet the Black youth won’t be that lucky. In Illinois, Black youth make up about 20 percent of the population but account for more than 50 percent of youth offenders in the state’s juvenile detention centers. Cook County’s numbers are even higher, with African American youth making up a whopping 85 percent of those serving in juvenile detention centers.
In Illinois, the difference between a white and a Black youth offender who commit similar crimes could be anywhere from three months in juvenile detention to several years if the prosecutor decides to charge him or her as an adult.
We’re aware that African Americans make up the majority of the adult prison population. But there has been little public awareness about the sentencing disparities between Black and white youth in the juvenile justice system.
That’s why the Chicago Urban League, through a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is raising public awareness about the alarming rate at which African American youth flow in and out of the system. People who work with youth offenders call these disparities disproportionate minority contact. I call it discrimination.
Today’s African American youth are paying a hefty price for America’s legacy of injustice. The spirit of rehabilitation that is supposed to guide our criminal justice system has failed to give a fair shake to juvenile offenders who lack access to supportive services that could steer them away from jail.
Many of the African American men in the criminal justice system started out as boys in the juvenile justice system. Statistics have proven that African Americans receive harsher sentences than white youth for the same offenses and are far less likely to have their juvenile records expunged so that they can start adulthood with a clean slate.
We have to repair this system that disproportionately punishes youth offenders by race, ethnicity and zip code. In 1988, Congress mandated that racial disparities in the juvenile justice system be addressed. But more than 20 years later, the gap has widened.
It’s a crying shame but we cannot ignore the fact that our justice system lacks compassion for the very youth who are our future. I’m not talking about the most violent youth offenders, but kids who grow up in troubled homes and act out, or those who are singled out by law enforcement because of the color of their skin, or where they live.
Where’s the outrage? We heard it over the disparate treatment of the Jena 6 in that small Louisiana town, but what about right here in Illinois?
From zero tolerance to mandatory sentencing policies, the scales of justice have too long been tipped in favor of youth who live in wealthier communities with access to services that poor Black and Hispanic children don’t have.
We’ve got to stand up and put an end to the mindset in our schools, our law enforcement agencies and in our courts that the first line of defense for troubled African American youth is to lock them up. Contact your aldermen, state legislators and congressional leaders and demand change today. This is a matter of civil and judicial rights, so don’t delay. Our future is waiting.
Cheryle R. Jackson is the president of the Chicago Urban League. She can be reached at president@thechicagourbanleague.org Also visit www.DriveChangeNow.org to learn how you can become involved in the Urban League’s movement for change.
