Introduction

Background:

The Racial and Ethnic Disparities (R/ED) Collaborative is a branch of the Utah Board of Juvenile Justice that was created to help address the fourth core protection of the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. This requires states to assess and address racial and ethnic disparities at key points in the youth justice system.

While the genesis to the creation of the R/ED Collaborative was a federal mandate, there is unified commitment across all juvenile justice stakeholders to tackle the overrepresentation of minority youth across systems. Read more about R/ED reduction efforts across the state in the “Take Aways” tab.

Purpose of this Document:

In partnership with Utah’s Juvenile Court, Juvenile Justice and Youth Services, the Utah State Board of Education, and the Bureau of Criminal Identification, data is collected on an array of points of contact a youth may have with the juvenile justice system on an annual basis. This information is submitted to the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention to be in compliance with federal grant requirements. The information is further presented to relevant stakeholders to assist in the guidance of R/ED reduction efforts.

This presentation document serves to provide an overview of those points of contact from a racial and ethnic disparity lens. It is important to note the information presented is on a descriptive level and is only one of many potential methods that could be utilized to understand if disparity is present. Caution is advised in any causal interpretation of the information presented here. Rather, the information should serve as guidance for further inquiry and study of understanding. Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of the information presented here, as this presentation does not consider factors such as the level of referred offenses.

Statewide FFY 2024

Racial and Ethnic Disparities

Racial and Ethnic Disparities (R/ED) research in Utah has focused on youth contact at various points of the juvenile justice system as shown in the figure. These points include contact before a youth enter the system but is not an exhaustive list of other contacts a youth may have while in the system.
Cases involving youth who are referred to the juvenile court could be petitioned to court for formal court processing. In court, a judge may order a youth to be placed on probation, in a community placement, or in secure care. Youth may be held in locked detention awaiting a hearing with a judge. For the majority of youth referred to the juvenile court, cases are handled nonjudicially, being diverted from the system with no formal court processing and without seeing a judge.

Utah Youth’s Population

A common way to measure disparity is to compare a group’s share of the general population to their share that exists at different points of contact in the system.
If these shares are higher when a youth enters the juvenile justice system than their share of the general population, then overrepresentation exists. In other words, there is disparity for that group at entry into the juvenile justice system.
As seen in the figure to the left, minority youths make up around 30% of Utah’s youth population. Then for equity, minority youths would comprise a similar proportion at various points of contact in our juvenile justice system. This data point is important in analyzing proportionality at various points of contact within our juvenile justice system.

Representation at Front End Points of Contact

While minority youths account for about 30% of the general youth population, they make up about 45% of referrals to court.

Representation at Different Points of Contact Post-Referral

Following a court referral, youth have the opportunity to be diverted from the system through the use of a Nonjudicial Adjustment if certain criteria are met. We see here minority youth make up 42% of all diversions, 46% of petitions and 55% of pre-trial locked detention.

Representation at Disposition Points of Contact

Disposition refers to any order of the court, after adjudication, as defined in Utah Code section 80-1-102. This means that if a case reaches disposition, a youth has seen a judge. Once the point of disposition has been reached, we see that minority youth make up:

50% of intake probation (IP) orders
50% of formal probation (FP) orders
46% of community placement (CP) dispositions, and
60% of secure care (SC) dispositions

Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of this information, as this does not account for factors such as the level of referred offenses. In particular, the CP and SC dispositions are greatly dependent on what the offense was that was referred and adjudicated.

The Relative Rate Index (RRI)

The Relative Rate Index (RRI) can help us understand if disparity stays the same, increase, or decrease as youth move through the system by taking into account the previous point of contact. The RRI is simply a ratio between two percentage shares that measures either:

Equity: an RRI that is equal to 1
Overrepresentation: an RRI greater than 1
Underrepresentation: an RRI below 1

For example, when the RRI measures at 2, it means that one group is twice as likely as the other groups to experience an event.

From Population to Locked Detention

Once a youth is arrested, a judge will review a probable cause statement and within 24 hours determine whether the youth should have been arrested or not. Within 48 hours a youth will see a judge for a detention hearing, at which time, a youth may be ordered to remain in locked detention pending further hearings before a judge.
In 2024, minority youths were 3.4 times more likely to be held in detention after an initial detention hearing, based on their population share compared to white youths.
The sample size was 1,611 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of the information presented here, as this presentation does not consider factors such as the level of referred offenses.

From Population to a Court Referral

Taking into account the population size for each respective group, we see an increase in disparity at the point of court referral with the RRI measured in 2024 at 2.26. This means minority youth were two times more likely to be referred to court than white youth.
The sample size was 15,216 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of this information.

From a Court Referral to a Diversion

From a Court Referral, a youth may be diverted from formal court processing through a Non-Judicial Adjustment. Here we see minority youth are being diverted about 10% less than white youth for 2024.
The sample size was 8,788 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of this information, as it does not account for factors such as the level of referred offenses.

From a Court Referral to Petition

If a youth is not diverted, a prosecuting attorney will screen the referral. The prosecuting attorney may file a petition, or they may decline to do so. If the prosecuting attorney files a petition, the youth will see a judge. If adjudicated, a disposition will be made.
Here, we see a close parity between minority and white youth in 2024.
The sample size was 3,504 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of the information presented here, as this presentation does not consider factors such as the level of referred offenses.

From a Petition to an Intake Probation Order

When a youth is formally petitioned to court and appears before a judge, a youth may be placed on Formal Probation, which statute defines as court monitoring that includes field supervision, or Intake Probation, court monitoring that does not include field supervision.
In 2024, Intake Probation was close to parity for minority and white youth.
The sample size was 640 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of the information presented here, as this presentation does not consider factors such as the level of referred offenses.

From a Petition to a Formal Probation Order

In 2024, Formal Probation was close to parity for minority and white youth.
The sample size was 432 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of the information presented here, as this presentation does not consider factors such as the level of referred offenses.

From a Petition to a Community Placement Disposition

Community Placement was close to parity for minority and white youth.
The sample size was 112 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of the information presented here, as this presentation does not consider factors such as the level of referred offenses.

From a Petition to a Secure Care Disposition

Secure Care is the system’s most restrictive and serious placement. Minority youth were 1.3 times more likely than white youths to be given this disposition in 2024.
It is important to note that the number of secure care dispositions overall in 2024 was less than 100.
The sample size was 73 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of the information presented here, as this presentation does not consider factors such as the level of referred offenses.

Breakdown of Status and Misdemeanor Offenses

This graph shows the percentage share of court referrals for status and misdemeanor offenses by minority and nonminoriy.

Breakdown of Offense Level - Status and Misdemeanors

This graph shows the percentage share of court referrals for status and misdemeanor offense levels by minority and nonminoriy.

Breakdown of Felony Offenses

This graph shows the percentage share of court referrals for felony offenses by minority and nonminoriy.

Breakdown of Offense Level - Felony

This graph shows the percentage share of court referrals for felony offense levels by minority and nonminoriy.

From Population to a Court Referral - Misdemeanors

Taking into account the population size for each respective group, minority youth were being referred to court for a status and misdemeanor offense 1.84 times more than white youth.
The sample size was 12,547 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of this information.

From Population to a Court Referral - Felony

Taking into account the population size for each respective group, minority youth were being referred to court for a felony offense 2.45 times more than white youth.
The sample size was 1,225 episodes. These did not include Unknowns.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of this information.

Take Aways

Key Points:

Data from Federal Fiscal Year 2024 (October 1, 2023 - September 30, 2024) shows us that minority youth are overrepresented from arrest, to locked detention, court referral, formal probation, community placement, and secure care from a percentage share perspective.
From an RRI perspective, we see variations in rate of disparities at the point of court referral and locked detention.
Additional data analysis would need to be evaluated to meaningfully understand the significance of the information presented here, as this presentation does not consider factors such as the level of referred offenses.

Reducing R/ED in Utah:

The challenge of juvenile justice lies at the intersection of public safety, racial and ethnic inequality, and public health where improving the outcomes and lives of the juvenile justice-involved population and their communities must occur with the full understanding of what underlies the risks and maladaptive outcomes that have led to their system involvement in the first place. Click below to learn how mapping and spatial tools can help inform policy. Learn more here.
Please also see justice.utah.gov for more information on the R/ED Collaborative current projects, data presentations, and Compliance Plans with the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention.

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 RRI?

The RRI is simply a ratio between 2 percentage share of the groups of interest. When this ratio equals to 1, we have parity. When the ratio is above or below 1, we have overrepresentation and underrepresentation.
While the sum of these two RRI’s can sum up to 2 (when the percentage shares that go into an NJA and Petition are equal for both groups), they are unlikely to do so. This is because the RRI is calculated as the ratio between two percentage shares across different groups. Hence the sum of these do not have to adhere to the strict qualifications noted above.

Notes about the Data:

Minority youth include youth identified as American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Other/Mixed.
Nonminority youth include youth identified as White, non-Hispanic/Latino.
The data presented here include Utah numbers for the 2024 Federal Fiscal Year.
Population numbers are collected by the Utah State Board of Education.
Arrest numbers are collected by BCI through the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. These arrests include youths who were arrested and may be sent home with their parents and or guardian. These numbers are non-duplicative.
Pre-adjudicatory Locked Detention numbers are collected by Juvenile Justice and Youth Services. These include duplicated cases.
Court Referrals, Diversion, Probation, Community Placement, and Secure Care numbers are collected by Juvenile Court through their database CARE. Unit of analysis are episode based.
Community Placement is a residential placement for youths committed to Juvenile Justice and Youth Service Custody by the Juvenile Court. These include proctor care, group homes, and boarding schools.
Secure Care are long-term locked confinement facilities for serious and habitual delinquent youths who are high risk to re-offend.
Community Placement and Secure Care numbers represent dispositions. Unit of analysis are episode based (i.e, multiple dispositions were counted only one time based on a disposition order date).
Certain points of contacts have a share of youths whose race-ethnicity is unknown. These youth are not included here.
Episode-based counts may include duplicate youths. One episode may include multiple incidents that occurred on the same incident date. Data for this report is displayed by episodes.