- Racial and ethnic disparity (RED) refers to the disparate outcomes for similarly situated youth in the juvenile legal system due to unequal treatment of youth of color.
- Disparate treatment can occur at all stages of the juvenile justice system, from arrest to summons, processing, arraignment, detention, and commitment.
- Reducing racial and ethnic disparity is one of the JDAI Core Strategies. However, beyond seeking to reduce disparity, the universal goal is to create a system where every stakeholder values equity for all young people.
For further information on understanding racial equity, disparity, and other terms used in these discussions, please refer to this booklet on Race Equity Terms, created by the JDAI Race Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee. Link to booklet JDAI Race Equity Terms.
Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities
Reducing racial disparities requires specific strategies aimed at eliminating bias and ensuring a level playing field for youth of color. This is one of the Eight Core Strategies for JDAI in Massachusetts. Racial/ethnic disparities are the most stubborn aspect of detention reform. Real, lasting change in this arena requires committed leadership, on-going policy analysis and targeted policies and programming.
Need for Quality Data
In order to address Racial and Ethnic Disparity system stakeholders must responsibly collect data, use standardized tools to guide their decision-making and regularly analyze the data they collect to assess the performance of their efforts. System stakeholders at all levels must be accountable to that data.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and many non-profits promoting equity in our system, suggest that the best way to analyze the data about disparity is to capture numerous decision points in the juvenile justice system and compare the data at each point. Important decision-points in which data should be collected to be analyzed for disparity include arrest, court referral, diversion, arraignment, probation, detention and commitment. Unfortunately data is not currently available at all of those decision-points in the Massachusetts juvenile justice system by race and ethnicity.
DYS and JDAI partnered with the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security, to develop and launch an Interactive JDAI Data Dashboard. The goal of the Dashboard is to bring JDAI collaborators, system stakeholders, and members of the public up-to-date accurate data about detention trends across the Commonwealth. The Dashboard offers an interactive analysis of juvenile detention data through an equity lens. It allows users to examine the equity of aspects of the juvenile legal system to ensure that moving forward, disparities based on race, age, gender/sexual orientation, and other aspects of a youth’s identity are not perpetuated by the system. Click to access the JDAI Dashboard.
Implicit Bias and Decision-Making
Science has proven that implicit bias exists and impacts the decisions that we, as humans, make every single day. This topic bears more discussion at all levels of our youth services systems, from school and police, to families, community providers, attorneys and advocates, court personnel and judges. Explore the links below to learn more about implicit bias and the efforts you can take to unravel your own subconscious bias.
The Implicit Aptitude Test
For years, researchers at Harvard University have allowed anyone to take the Implicit Aptitude Test (IAT) which measures the associations that one has between two concepts. While racial bias is of particular interest within JDAI, the IAT has exposed bias around many other facets of humans lives, such as gender, sexual orientation, body type, etc. At times the results of the IAT can be troubling and disconcerting for the test-taker. Learn more about the IAT and take the test yourself.
Seeing RED
In 2016 JDAI premiered its documentary film, Seeing RED, which described the racial and ethnic disparities in the Massachusetts Juvenile Legal System and identified national and local best practices to address the issue. The film featured interviews with leaders from various state agencies, juvenile court decision-makers, and JDAI partners. In conjunction with the film, JDAI produced supporting materials and trained collaborators to facilitate conversations following film screenings across the Commonwealth. The film and its curriculum have received recognition both statewide and nationally and have been used as the foundation for training by other agencies.
Click to watch the documentary Seeing RED.
Transcript available.
Seeing RED: Changing the Narrative
Since the 2016 release of Seeing RED, the overrepresentation of BIPOC youth involved in the juvenile legal system has increased in Massachusetts and across the nation. The Massachusetts Department of Youth Services has seen this increase in overrepresentation both in the number of detention admissions and the experiences of young people while detained. While Hispanic/Latinx youth comprise about 18% of the Massachusetts juvenile population overall, they made up 47% of all young people detained in 2023. Similarly, Black or African American youth comprise about 10% of the state’s juvenile population but made up 30% of all young people detained in 2023. White youth, in contrast, made up only 17% of young people detained, despite comprising 64% of the state’s juvenile population. (Data for the juvenile population in Massachusetts by race comes from the most up-to-date numbers available from the National Center for Juvenile Justice. Source: Puzzanchera, C., Sladky, A. and Kang, W. (2021). Easy access to juvenile populations: 1990-2020.
Disparities by race continue once youth are in a detention facility. A disproportionately high percentage of Hispanic/Latinx were restrained in 2023—53% of all young people restrained identified as Hispanic/Latinx—while a disproportionately low percentage of white youth were restrained—10% of all young people restrained identified as white. Additionally, the average length of stay in detention was twice as long for Black or African American youth in 2023 than white youth: 84 days compared to 42 days. Hispanic/Latinx youth also had a notably longer average length of stay at 64 days.
In response to this increase in inequity, the Massachusetts JDAI team produced a second film in the RED series called Seeing RED: Changing the Narrative, in which issues of racial and ethnic disparities and other systemic biases are revisited from the perspective of impacted youth, families, and communities, who share their stories of personal, family, and generational system involvement and offer candid critiques and advice that challenges us all to do better. Seeing RED: Changing the Narrative- Massachusetts Juvenile Court Judicial Conference Proposal
Seeing RED: Changing the Narrative premiered in July of 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts followed by a panel discussion by Massachusetts juvenile justice leaders who shared insights into the challenges they have faced in advancing racial equity within their agencies and solutions they are actively pursuing to make our systems better. Similarly to the first documentary, this film is intended to be a learning tool and is accompanied by a curriculum to guide facilitated discussions. The curriculum follows two frameworks: Dr. Kenneth Hardy’s model for healing racial trauma based on what he calls the “Cycle of Adolescent Violence,” which serves as the structure for the film, and the Person-Role-System Framework that looks at the power and influence each of has as a person, in our role, and within the system or systems in which we work. Watch Seeing RED: Changing the Narrative here.