Wednesday, September 08, 1999
Racial gap studied in youth detention
The Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky is investing up to $100,000 in a study of its juvenile-detention centers, to determine whether a disproportionate number of blacks are there and — if so — why.
Only 11 percent of Kentucky's children are black. But in 1998, 31 percent of the state's 12,690 juvenile detention admissions were black.
The skew is even greater in Louisville and Lexington, urban areas where most of the state's blacks live.
In 1998, the cities' underage minority populations averaged about 15 percent, but nearly half of the youths placed in detention centers were minori ties.
“We're concerned that we don't have a lot of good numbers and facts to work with on this issue. There isn't much use in our speculating on what the causes might be,” said Fayette District Judge Megan Lake Thornton, vice chairwoman of Gov. Paul Patton's juvenile justice committee, which approved the proposed study.
In 1988, Congress responded to the perceived bias by amending the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 to require all states to study the racial skew in their juvenile-justice systems.
Kentucky is conducting its study — although 11 years later — under the auspices of its 2-year-old Department of Juvenile Justice.
Most state studies have concluded that black children were more likely than whites to commit the types of crimes — theft, burglary, assault and drug dealing — that attract the attention of police.
Kathryn Wood, a Somerset criminal-defense lawyer who sits on the governor's juvenile justice committee, said black youths generally can be more likely to suffer the types of social problems — poverty, broken homes, parents with criminal records and poor educations — that can lead to crime.
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