Greg Wright:
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 the troubling fact that black youth are sent to adult courts and jails at rates so much higher than whites. Today, we will talk about this report with Jeree 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. Welcome to social work talks. Why did you decide to do the report "The Color of Youth Transfer: Policy and Practice Recommendations"?
Jeree Thomas:
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 of 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 and 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 had been treated in this country, it's easy to not understand that how complex the issue is and to not fully appreciate what needs to be done to help to end it.
Mel Wilson:
The issue of disparities pervades throughout the juvenile justice system, the criminal justice system, everything that we do. So for us, I mean NASW, it is important to make sure that these issues are out there, that are our members and beyond. Our members are aware of these kinds of impacts on something that many of them may have heard of transfers that know what it really was or is, and the impact that it has on African American and also Hispanic youth. And lastly, we just want it to work with whichever, yet I think that the conversations we had before we even started writing were so good and, and recognize that doing something collaboratively had such an importance for us.
Greg Wright:
So why are black children being sent to both adult courts and jails at such high rates? What's actually happening out there?
Jeree Thomas:
So this is a very complex issue. There are intersections both social, historical and, and of course, um, the racial justice issues that, that really pervade why we're seeing black children being disproportionately sent to the adult system. You know, in the recent past, there've 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, 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.
Jeree Thomas:
And so I think that's a huge part of it. I think also historically, we know that our black youth have been negatively impacted by the criminal justice system for, for centuries, right? The criminalization, the dehumanization of black children is really embedded in a lot of, of the state's histories. And unfortunately, you know, and in the early, you know, 1900s, you had your black children being physically harmed, being lynched, 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.
Mel Wilson:
The issue of implicit bias and I think we agree to this throughout the system. So I mean if we look at the process of waivers and decision making about worth not a young person, a youth gets waived to adult court. And in our, in our piece there is reference to the fact that there is bias in that decision making, and its 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 where as a white youth they'll look for alternatives or decide not to wait on to adult to the adult criminal justice system. So I think that's really part of the problem.
Greg Wright:
Now in this report, you looked at three states, Oregon, Missouri, Florida. What was the reason for picking the three states?
Jeree Thomas:
So the first reason was finding states that just aggregate their data by race and by other factors of possible, you know, gender, locality, all of those things. And Oregon, Missouri and Florida both do a detailed job. They're pretty transparent actually, because that's one of the biggest issues that we confront is 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 we're 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 a black youth and black adults.
Jeree Thomas:
Oregon being a state that used to ban black people from, from living there. And Missouri being the state, you know that gave us just not only a 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, of historical cases of, of black people being massacred or lynched. And actually it being one of the top four states with the highest rate rates of lynching in our country. And so we really wanted to highlight those, 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 even more dramatic, in Missouri, black youth are about 14.8% of the youth population, but 72% of the youth that judges wave to the adult criminal justice system. And Florida is very similar, with 21%, black youth population, but 67.7% of those transferred are black. So you have very, very high disproportionality in these states. You have a very interesting and histories and you have a lot of data and information to dig into.
Greg Wright:
Mel, why is it wrong for a child to be sent to an adult court?
Mel Wilson:
One of the big issues of sending a young person into an adult system, especially in incarceration, they're in there with adults on this, the whole factor of risk to them being, physically harmed but by much older individuals. The other one that is in the report too it talks about the issue of segregation or solitary confinement within the broad perspective of juvenile justice. There's a consensus that juveniles should not be placed in solitary confinement, but when they go to an adult facility, they're subjected to solitary confinement, and that's one of the biggest areas and turns out developmental emotional health. There are data about the hyper-sensitivity towards a lot of young people have emotional method, could have mental health problems and there's not addressed the same way it would be addressed within a juvenile justice system where there is a very constant or a larger concentration of kinds of treatment 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, and really good planning, then you're subjecting that young person to a lifetime of trauma that's difficult to recover from.
Greg Wright:
There have been a few widely 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, I'm a Kalif Brother and others, right?
Jeree Thomas:
Niecy [inaudible]. 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, are so traumatized by the experience and so that's a significant problem actually. So our organization, the Campaign for Youth Justice, we host youth justice action month. 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 this particular issue is something that's really painful and has significant impact on young people.
Greg Wright:
One of them was Tyrie, which you just mentioned.
Jeree Thomas:
October. So October is our justice action month.
Greg Wright:
Thank you. Thank you. The other thing is you are both advocates on this issue. I'm like wondering if anything in here was either surprising or not so surprising for you.
Mel Wilson:
I mean not so surprising for me in particularly is that you do have racial disparities that that was not a shock to me. This as at you pointed out very well. This is a history of racial disparities when you look at it and looking at those three states, is there, is out that Missouri has seen that move towards coming up with some kind of 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.
Jeree Thomas:
Yeah.
Mel Wilson:
I don't think that they had the same kind of a stretcher duty.
Jeree Thomas:
Unfortunately. Not yet. But what they do have our 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 this, despite the bleak numbers, there's definitely a push by advocates to change that.
Mel Wilson:
There's an important piece to this is that the juvenile justice system as they state system is very based on individuals. These are federal government doesn't really incarcerate juveniles. They may system standards but it's not that just stays and then needs to be a movement towards standardization around decision making and then transfers based on size, based on research, based on 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 title crazy quilt of whatever, you know, and that shouldn't be when you're dealing with a vulnerable population.
Greg Wright:
What are things that a social worker who is outraged, like bothered, can actually do in order to effect positive change here?
Mel Wilson:
Good. Greg, you know, I'm in favor of coalitions and there are a number of juvenile justice coalitions, throughout the United States and nationally.
Mel Wilson:
I know that Jerry is a part of a number of them. I think that as social workers we need to get involved food, 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 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 and part of the advocacy when advocates wants to come out with this statement or a position than it is a diverse, disciplinary not disciplinary in punishment but disciplined, making those decisions and, and coming up with a recommendation. So I think the social workers to just as much as possible get involved with groups that are actually action oriented and 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.
Greg Wright:
And, um, 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.
Jeree Thomas:
So I want to answer both the question before that you all 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 the juvenile public defender's office helping to do juvenile reentry and now she is doing a statewide advocacy, a 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, um, the first thing is vote, believe it or not, three out of three out of four, people who make decisions, in the courtroom around these issues are elected, right?
Jeree Thomas:
Sheriffs and prosecutors and, in some states, judges 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 can make a huge difference. And we're seeing that because we're starting to see more progressive prosecutors being elected 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, and really start 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.
Jeree Thomas:
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, and lobby your elected officials to do so.
Greg Wright:
Yes, and this is a final question. I mean, this is an issue that has actually gone on generation after generation. Are you hopeful having a report out like this a lot on this in the news that it'll actually move the thermometer more in a positive way.
Jeree Thomas:
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 does he do it any, 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 for positive change. And so I, 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 when the police or prosecutors or others know that people are paying attention, that changes behavior, right? And helping to change behavior, helping to change culture. That's what will 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 changing this issue.
Mel Wilson:
Totally agree with that. Our reason for wanting to work with the campaign for youth justice is just that he has to get the word out to social work. Cause that Jeree hit it on a really important point about how many folks do not understand , don't know know. I mean, it's almost a hidden crisis, about you've transferred an 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 a, and the injustice and that we need to respond to it.
Greg Wright:
Well, I wanna thank you. Thanks for being our guests here on Social Work Talks.
Jeree Thomas:
Thank you.
Mel Wilson:
Thank you.
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