NASW Social Work Talks - EP16: Juvenile Justice and Youth Transfer

Episode Date: October 30, 2018

A new NASW social justice brief reports that Black youth make up about 14% of the total youth population, but comprise 47.3% of the youth who are transferred to adult court by juvenile court judges. Guests Mel Wilson, NASW's social justice and human rights manager, and Jeree Thomas, policy director at the Campaign for Youth Justice, discuss this unjust practice. They encourage social workers to get involved in action-oriented coalitions to make changes in their communities, and to hold their elected officials accountable. Read the show notes to download the report and for more resources.

Hi, my name is Greg Wright and I'm one of the hosts of Social Work Talks. This nation has made progress in the last 50 years, but sadly racism remains deeply embedded in our society. An area where this is very clear is our justice system. The Campaign for Youth Justice and the National Association of Social Workers recently released a report, The Color of Youth Transfer Policy and Practice Recommendations. The report looks at a troubling fact. Black youth are sent to adult courts and jails at rates much higher than whites.

Today, we will talk about this report with Jaree Thomas, Policy Director at the Campaign for Youth Justice, and Mel Wilson, Social Justice and Human Rights Manager at the National Association of Social Workers. Jaree and Mel, welcome to Social Work Talks. Why did you decide to do the report, The Color of Juvenile Transfer Policy and Practice Recommendations? Well, first, I want to thank you all so much for having me. The reason why we decided to do a report on this particular issue is because, and the work that the Campaign for Youth Justice does with young people and families and advocates across the country, the issue of the disproportionality of black youth being transferred to the adult system was very prominent

in what we heard from those young people and from those families. And so we thought it made a lot of sense to talk about the issue, but not only talk about it, but to shed light by putting a historical perspective on the issue. I think when you don't look at the history of how black youth have been treated in this country, it's easy to not understand how complex the issue is and to not fully appreciate what needs to be done to help to end it. The issue of disparities pervades throughout the juvenile justice system, criminal justice system, everything that we do. So for us, meaning NASW, it is important to make sure that these issues are out there, that our members and beyond our members are aware of these kinds of impacts. It's something that many of them may have heard of transfers, but not know what it really was or is. and the impact that it has on African-American and also Hispanic youth.

And lastly, we just wanted to work with Jerry. I think that the conversations we had before we even started writing were so good and recognized just doing something collaboratively was something important for us. Yes, so why are black children being sent to both adult courts and jails at such high rates? What's actually happening out there? So this is a very complex issue. You know, there are intersections, both social, historical, and of course, racial justice issues that really pervade why we're seeing black children being disproportionately sent to the adult system. You know, in the recent past, there have been a number of reports about the fact that black boys and black girls are generally identified by their white teachers or others as being less innocent, of not being the children that they are. And so I think it sort of starts there, right? If we have a society that already views black children as being older than they are, being less innocent, then you can imagine what happens and how those problems are compounded when they come in contact with the juvenile justice system or the criminal justice system.

And so I think that's a huge part of it. I think also, historically, we know that black youth have been negatively impacted by the criminal justice system for centuries, right? The criminalization, the dehumanization of black children is really embedded in a lot of the state's histories. And unfortunately, in the early 1900s, you had black children being physically harmed, being lynched, being all of those things when they were accused of committing crimes. And so you see the through line of what happens in our country if you don't address that root cause and really look at what the problems are. And so I think it's a multidimensional issue, but I think it's really critical that we look at that historical and social perspective to address it. Yeah, the issue of implicit bias, and I think Jaree certainly would agree to this, is throughout the system. So, I mean, if we look at the process of waivers and decision-making about whether or not a young person or youth gets waived to adult court, And in our piece, there is reference to the fact that there is bias in that decision-making, and it's implicit bias with a young person, a young black male comes before a judge

and automatically becomes the worst kinds of decision to send that person to, whereas a white youth may look for alternatives or decide not to waive them to the adult criminal justice system. So I think that's really part of the problem. Now, in this report, you looked at three states, Oregon, Missouri, Florida. What was the reason for picking these three states? So the first reason was finding states that disaggregate their data by race and by other factors if possible, you know, gender, locality, all of those things. and Oregon, Missouri, and Florida both do a pretty detailed job. They're pretty transparent, actually, because that's one of the biggest issues that we confront in this work is that many states

are not transparent about how they're treating young people who they're putting into the adult system. And so we started with the states that were pretty transparent and had up-to-date data that we could use and really analyze not only the most recent year, but look over the course of a decade. So these were states that had a lot of data that we could use. The other reason why was because these states have pretty unique histories around the way that they treat black youth and black adults, you know, Oregon being a state that used to ban black people from living there and Missouri being the state, you know, that gave us just, you know, not only Supreme Court cases around how black people are treated in this country, but also the Mike Brown case, right?

So there's a real through line. And then Florida, there being a number of historical cases of black people being massacred or lynched, and actually it being one of the top four states with the highest rates of lynching in our country. And so we really wanted to highlight those states in particular. I think the other piece of it is that when you look at their data, they have very disproportionate numbers of young people entering the system. Oregon's black youth population is 2.3%. But when you look at the population of youth transferred, black youth are 15.8% of the youth transferred. Similarly, but even more dramatic, in Missouri, black youth are about 14.8 percent of the youth population but 72 percent of the youth that judges waive to the

adult criminal justice system and Florida is very similar with 21 percent black youth population but 67.7 percent of the youth transferred are black so you have very very high disproportionality in these states you have a very interesting histories and you have a lot of data and information to dig into. Mel, why is it wrong for a child to be sent to an adult court? One of the big issues of sending a young person into an adult system, especially in incarceration, they're in there with adults, and there's a whole factor of risk to them being physically harmed by by much older individuals the other one that is in the report too is talks about the issue of segregation of solitary confinement within the broad perspective of juvenile justice there's a

consensus that juveniles should not be placed in solitary confinement but they go to an adult facility they're subjected to solitary confinement and that that's one of the one of the biggest areas in terms of developmental emotional health there are data about the high propensity towards a lot of young people have emotional could have mental health problems and it's not addressed the same way it would be addressed within a juvenile justice system where there is a bigger concentration larger concentration of treatment kinds of options that you don't get into that adult system so Anytime you move a young person into that kind of facility and without that comprehensive service, really good assessments, really good planning, then you're subjecting that young person to a lifetime of trauma and difficult to recover from. Jaree, there have been a few highly publicized instances of our young people who are actually dying by suicide.

I was wondering if you could also mention a few of those. I think it was a Khalif Browder and others. Yes, Khalif Browder, Nisi Finnell. Unfortunately, there have been several cases of young people taking their lives either when they're placed in adult jails or when they leave and are so traumatized by the experience. And so, yeah, that's a significant problem, actually. So our organization, the Campaign for Youth Justice, we host Youth Justice Action Month. And that month was actually started by a mother whose child committed suicide in an adult prison because he could not take the abuse anymore. And so, you know, this particular issue is something that's really painful and has significant impact on young people.

When is that month, Jeree, that you just mentioned? October. So October is Youth Justice Action Month. Thank you. Thank you. The other thing is, you are both advocates on this issue. I'm wondering if anything in here was either surprising or not so surprising for you. Yeah, I mean, not so surprising for me in particular is that you do have racial disparities. That was not a shock to me, as you pointed out very well. There's such a history of racial disparities. When you look at and looking at those three states, it stands out that Missouri seemed to have moved towards coming up with some

kind of a structure to make assessments and really make a determination about whether or not a young person should go. And that kind of surprised me, given Missouri's history. And if you look at Florida, which is the largest, had the most kids that get transferred, I don't think that they have the same kind of a structure, do they? Unfortunately, not yet. But what they do have are a number of advocates, including social workers and others, who are working to try to change the laws in Florida. And so we wanted to highlight that despite the bleak numbers, there's definitely a push by advocates to change that. There's an important piece to this is that the juvenile justice system is a state system. It's very based on individual states. The federal

government doesn't really have doesn't really incarcerate juveniles they may set some standards and but it's up to the states and then needs to be a movement towards standardization around decision-making and transfers based on science based on research based on just just data but when you have each state almost making the ability to make a determination of what happens from a national perspective that really creates this kind of crazy quilt of whatever you And that shouldn't be when you're dealing with a vulnerable population. What are things that a social worker who is outraged by this can actually do in order to effect positive change here?

Greg, you know I'm in favor of coalitions. And there are a number of coal youth coalitions, juvenile justice coalitions throughout the United States nationally. i know the jury is a part of a number of them i think that as social workers we need to get involved through those kinds of coalitions that are action oriented meaning that there are regular meetings there's planning and there's a defined role for different disciplines we we bring a perspective to those discussions one of the issues around families i mean you've come from families and what happens and how do you involve the child welfare piece of that. But that can be shared as part of the advocacy

when advocates want to come out with a statement or a position, then it's a diverse disciplinary, not disciplinary in punishment, but disciplined making those decisions and coming up with recommendations. So I think the social worker should just as much as possible get involved with groups that are actually action-oriented in their communities. Again, emphasizing that this is a state issue, so within their particular states, they can identify who's doing what, and they really care about just getting involved that way. And, Jeree, if you could, like, answer that question.

If I'm a member of the general public and I want to get involved, let us know how. Yeah, so I want to answer both the question before that you mentioned as well, just to give you an example. So my colleague, Tracy Tucker, she is our South Carolina coordinator for the Raise the Age Coalition. She's a social worker, and she actually has a history of working with the Department of Juvenile Justice and trying to help find treatment alternatives for young people. She worked with the Juvenile Public Defender's Office helping do juvenile reentry, and now she is an advocate doing a statewide advocacy campaign, and she's coordinating a statewide coalition. So that really shows you social workers can do quite a bit in this area to support young people. I think as far as what the general public can do, the first thing is vote. Believe it or not, three out of four people who make decisions in the courtroom around these issues are elected, right? sheriffs and prosecutors, and in some states, you know, judges, they really make decisions around how youth are treated, legislators as well, of course. And so when people vote for individuals who take a strong position about not treating young people as adults, that by itself could

make a huge difference. And we're seeing that because we're starting to see more progressive prosecutors being elected. And in those areas, and I think I mentioned this in the report in Florida in particular, you had a woman who was a defender for a 12-year-old who was tried as an adult in Florida. And she was so angry by that that she actually ran and became a prosecutor and really started working on how can I reduce the numbers of kids being tried as adults in this community. And so I think that really shows you what impact it could have if people first and foremost vote, but then also make the decision after you have your elected officials, hold them accountable for how they're treated, make sure that they're transparent in their

practices, and lobby your elected officials to do so. Yes, and as a final question, I mean, this is um an issue that has actually gone on generation after generation um are you like hopeful that um you know having a report out like this um a lot on this in the news that it'll actually move the uh you know thermometer more in a positive way so i think it's it's always really critical to raise awareness around issues because while I am steeped deeply in this issue and Mel is as well, we have to remember that there are lots of people across the country who didn't even know that youth could be tried as adults, didn't even know that young people could be held in jails before being convicted of anything, right? And so it is critical that we

never forget and never leave people behind because these are voters, these are people who could advocate for positive change. And so I do think it's important to continue to educate our communities about what's going on, to continue to encourage people to hold their elected officials accountable. Because I have seen just in my own work that just having people being on the lookout on these issues, right, when the police or prosecutors or others know that people are paying attention that that changes behavior right and helping to change behavior helping to change culture that's that's what will give give you a long-term change and so i do think that reports like this and continuing to educate our communities are really central to to changing this issue

yeah i mean i totally agree with that our our reason for wanting to work with the campaign for youth justice is just that it has to get the word out to social workers that jerry hit on a really important point about how much how many folks do not understand don't know i mean it's almost a hidden crisis uh about youth transfer and the impact on them including social workers so it's important for us to be able to get this out to our membership and say this is something that's out there that's an injustice and that we need to respond to it well i want to thank you thanks for being our guest here on Social Work Talks. Thank you.

Thank you. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards,

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