Summary

Data Collection, an Ongoing Effort

Data Collection, an Ongoing Effort:

The Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) facilitated the reform, House Bill 239
These policies were based on recommendations from the Utah Juvenile Justice Working Group, following a review of Utah’s data
CCJJ is responsible for overseeing the implementation of House Bill 239 and for gathering and analyzing data that measures the impact of the policy changes
CCJJ works closely with the Juvenile Court, Juvenile Justice Services, and other stakeholders in collecting data on an annual basis. While there is always room for improvement for data collection, the Court & Agencies’ Record Exchange (CARE) database is the primary source for data when youths enter the system
Racial and Ethnic Disparities existed pre reform and still continues to be present at multiple points of contact in the juvenile justice system
Careful analysis is valuable to look at policy effects, particularly as it relates to Racial and Ethnic Disparities

Representation at Different Points of Contact

While youths that identify as White make up the largest share of Utah’s youth population (74%), they are under-represented in the juvenile justice system. This under-representation is illustrated by their lower share of representation at important points of contact.

Relative Disparity

These disparities become elevated as youth go deeper into the system with the most severe points of contact at Locked Detention, Community Placement, and Secure Care. At these points of contact, we see around 4 Minority youth per 1 White youth and 5 Minority youth per 1 White youth respectively.

Arrest

At the point of Arrest, these disparities are the highest amongst youth who identify as Black/African American with more than 1,200 per 10,000 youths. In comparison, White youths show a reduced number measuring at 245 per 10,000 youths.
These include non-duplicative cases.

Court Referral

At the point of Court Referral, youths that identify as Black/African American are 4.6 times more likely than White youths to receive a referral to Court. The lowest representation is amongst youths who identify as Asian.
These include non-duplicative cases.

Locked Detention

This disparity becomes significantly higher for youths held in Utah’s Locked Detention facilities, where youths that identify as Black/African American are 11 times more likely than White youths to be held at these facility. The lowest representation is amongst youths who identify as Asian.
Pre-adjudicatory Locked Detention, these include duplicated cases.

Community Placement

At Community Placement, these disparities are the highest amongst youth who identify as Black/African American with 181 per 10,000 youths. In comparison, White youths show a reduced number measuring at around 16 per 10,000 youths.
Community Placement is a residential placements for youths committed to JJS Custody by the Juvenile Court. These include proctor care, group homes, and boarding schools.
The data represented are dispositions to Community Placement, these include non-duplicative cases.

Secure Care

And even higher for youths held in Secure Care facilities. Youths that identify as Black/African American are around 13 times more likely than White youths to be held in Secure Care (53 vs 4 youth per 10,000 youths).
Secure Care, Long-term locked confinement facilities for serious and habitual delinquent youths who are high risk to reoffend.
The data represented are dispositions to Secure Care, these include non-duplicative cases.

Take-Aways

Take-Aways:

Racial and ethnic disparities remains a systemic issue in Utah’s juvenile justice system.
These disparities tend to grow in magnitude the further youths move through the system.
Blacks/African Americans show the highest over-representation, a finding that is consistent across five important points of contact: Arrest, Court Referral, Locked Detention, Community Placement, and Secure Care.
These numbers are however nuanced and differ between different racial and ethnic groups.
Youths who identify as Asian show the lowest representation at point of Court Referral, Locked Detention, Community Placement, and Secure Care. In many of these points of contact they are considered to be under-represented.

Definitions

Defining Over- & Under-Representation:

Being over-represented at a particular point of contact means that the share of individuals at that juvenile justice decision point is higher than their general population count. In contrast, being under-represented means that a lower share of individuals are seen at a particular juvenile justice decision point in comparison to their general population count.

Group representation of the youth population:

Representation at a point of contact:

This group is over-represented at this point of contact

Why Per Capita Numbers?

Translating representation to per capita values is useful as it allows us to take into account the actual number of youths at a particular point of contact, for example, Secure Care relative to their general population count. If there were no disparity across different racial and ethnic groups, then these per capita numbers would be equal across different groups.
Let us say that we wanted to calculate the overall number of youths in Secure Care by 10,000 Utah residents. Then we would simply take the number of youths in Secure Care, divide it by the number of youths in our general Utah population, and then multiply this by 10,000.

Reducing RED

Reducing RED in Utah:

Decades of research has shown that racial-and-ethnic disparities persists across Utah’s juvenile justice system. Action-oriented solutions in ending over-representation by racial and ethnic groups requires a multifaceted approach. This includes: continuing education, awareness and collaboration with: stakeholders across the board, the general community, schools, law enforcement, defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, probation officers & juvenile justice workers. It further requires on-going data collections and processes to measure improvements across the system’s different points of contact.

Please see juvenile.utah.gov for our current efforts in eliminating RED in Utah.

Note About the Data:

The data presented here include Utah numbers for the 2019 year. It should be noted that certain points of contacts have a share of youths whose race-ethnicity is unknown. These youth are not included here.