NCJ Number
194204
Date Published
2002
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This document focuses on an effort to reduce juvenile detention in Multnomah County, Oregon.
Abstract
Eighty percent of the increase in youth being detained during the years 1983 through 1997 was minority youth. Any strategy designed to reduce the number of young people detained must address race, and the “race effect” that researchers say follow racial and ethnic minorities as they travel through the justice system. In Multnomah County, Oregon, the number of youth admitted to detention dropped by half for all youth, and by half for both African American and Hispanic youth. Three factors contributed to Multnomah County’s successful efforts to reduce racial disparities in detention utilization. The first was the development of alternatives to detention, including shelter care, foster homes, home detention, and a day reporting center. The second was training sessions addressing and raising awareness about overrepresentation. The third was the design and implementation of a risk assessment instrument (RAI) to guide admission decisions. The objective was not to eliminate the use of detention, but to make sure the right juveniles were detained. The RAI was developed to evaluate its individual elements through the lens of race. The creation of a new detention intake team was critical to successful implementation of the RAI. The team consisted of six to seven intake workers overseen by a pretrial placement coordinator (PPC). Another key detention reform strategy was the development of a new system for dealing with the 20 to 30 percent of admissions that were probation violators. A sanctions grid was developed and implemented with a range of sanctions including warnings, community service, or re-admission to the detention system. Officers could choose among the specific options, but they could not go outside the grid’s ranges. The new sanctions grid immediately reduced the detention population. The probation staff was diversified to make the department look like the community. 3 figures, 17 endnotes