Black youth disproportionately tried in adult court, study finds
1st October 2018 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
For several years, New Orleans officials and Louisiana children’s advocacy groups have been sparring, at times quite testily, with Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro and other prosecutors about the seemingly high prevalence of African-American juvenile defendants being transferred to adult criminal court.
Now, with the recent release of a joint study between the Campaign for Youth Justice and the National Association of Social Workers and the long-delayed implementation of a new state law revising the rules for prosecution of juveniles in Louisiana drawing closer, the scrutiny of such court maneuverings in New Orleans is being renewed.
The joint CFYJ/NASW study – titled, “The Color of Youth Transferred to the Adult Criminal Justice System: Policy and Practice Recommendations” – asserts that the process of prosecuting and incarcerating African-American youth continues to devastate Black youth and the Black community as a whole.
With the practice of incarcerating Black youth rooted in the centuries-long implementation and perpetuation of institutional and social oppression, suppression and terror, African-American suspects and defendants sent from juvenile courts to adult jails and prisons are more likely to commit suicide, experience mental illness, and recidivate once they return to their communities at disproportionately high rates.
“As a result [of these factors], there is no way to eliminate disproportionality at transfer without a recognition of why youth of color are more likely to be referred to the juvenile system from their schools or policed in their communities,” the report states.
“These challenges are deeply rooted in the fabric of American society and although data confirm their existence, there is still insufficient acknowledgment of the long-term effects of slavery, Jim Crow laws, racial terrorism, and the explicit and implicit biases that have existed and continue to exist against people of color. As a result, policies and practices in states across the country both unintentionally and intentionally perpetuate these challenges.”
In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly, CFYJ Policy Director Jeree Thomas said that in many states, including Louisiana, the disparate rates of juvenile prosecutions and imprisonment in adult facilities among Black youth can at least partially be attributed to a lack of accountability of prosecutors for their decisions that occurs in the absence of close examination and analysis of the numbers.
“You can’t [have accountability] if you’re not being transparent and collecting data,” Thomas said.
Accountability for the high rate of juvenile transfers can be obtained, she said, “once you have that data, once you nail down that information, you can start to have accountability.”
Thomas said the lack of transparency often obfuscates the true nature of juvenile transfers to the point of the issue not even being in the general public discourse.
“The only time you hear about it is when there’s a horrible story,” she said.
And such tragedies – including suicide, abuse and mental illness – that occur to incarcerated Black teens take place even before the youth’s case reaches adjudication.
“There are many cases when bad consequences occur even before [the case] gets to trial,” Thomas said.
Louisiana has been an especially turbulent crucible for these issues. Under existing law, all defendants 17-years-old and older are tried as adults in the criminal justice system, but for 15 and 16 year olds, district attorneys have sole authority to transfer defendants from juvenile court to adult court. For 14-year-olds, must approve the move after a request from prosecutors.
However, in 2016, the Louisiana State Legislature passed a law, called the Raise the Age bill, placing 17 year olds in juvenile court. But legislate hold-ups delayed the implementation of the new regulation until July 2020.
And, Thomas said, “The more we delay [change] for one reason or another is putting more children in harm’s way.”
In addition, often-bitter controversy still exists of the district attorney’s continued ability to send 15 and 16 year olds to adult court at his or her sole discretion. Some advocacy groups have pushed for Cannizzaro’s office to be more measured, contemplative and cautious when deciding whether any youth 16 and younger should be moved from juvenile to adult court.
In the wake of the CFJY/NASW report, Rachel Gassert, policy director of the Louisiana Youth Justice Coalition, echoed Thomas’ thoughts by saying that the lack of data regarding the rate of juvenile defendants being processed and tried as adults has exacerbated the racial disparities in Louisiana whole.
However, Gassert said that in New Orleans, local public defenders and advocacy groups have actually been tracking such data for the past four years, an analysis that has started to paint an ugly picture.
She said that during that span, 100 percent of the youth transferred to adult court in Orleans Parish have been African-American. But even before that stage of a case, more than 95 percent of suspects 17 and under arrested have been Black.
“What the New Orleans system shows us is the only children who are arrested in New Orleans are Black, so the ones who face the harshest punishment are Black,” Gassert said. “We see a willingness to devalue certain children, and to determine their future potential and the possibility of rehabilitation.”
Gassert said that virtually guaranteeing harsher punishments, and at a disproportionate rate, for Black kids than their white peers defeats the supposed purpose of juvenile justice – producing men and women who can put their pasts behind them and become productive members of society.
“It runs contrary to everything we know about children and their potential rehabilitation,” she said. “The adult system is not only not able to provide the rehabilitation kids need, but it can actually be harmful.”
Gassert noted that the Orleans Parish juvenile detention center has a quality school facility for youth there, but that the parish jail still has no such system to educate incarcerated youth and help them turn their lives around. The presence of quality social workers and counselors is also vital.
Because the D.A. has control over what charges are applied to a defendant and has the power to transfer 15 and 16 year olds at his discretion, Gassert said Cannizzaro bears much of the responsibility for the drastically disparate amount of African-American youth being charged as adults and, therefore, for the effects of such decisions, from suicide to abuse to a lack of education to increased rates of recidivism.
“Prosecuting children as adults makes them more likely to commit crimes in the future,” Gassert said. “Yet District Attorney Cannizzaro continues to overuse this practice, which disproportionately harms Black youth and communities. As an elected official, the D.A. should be accountable to all residents of New Orleans, and do what actually works to make our city safer.”
In early 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a blistering, 40-page critique of the apparent propensity of the Orleans Parish D.A.’s Office to bump juvenile cases up to the adult court system. The SPLC study reported that between 2011 and 2015, the Orleans D.A. transferred more than 80 percent of eligible cases involving 15 and 16 year olds to adult court.
“…District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro chooses to transfer children to adult court in almost every possible instance,” the SPLC report stated. “He transfers children who have no prior delinquency record or played a minor role in the alleged crime. He transfers children who have a mental illness or developmental disability. He even transfers children accused of nonviolent offenses. Some of the children he transfers are found innocent of any crime – but only after enduring the stress and danger of the adult system.”
“Prosecuting children as adults is, in fact, Cannizzaro’s default practice,” it added.
And that, Gassert said – that the Orleans D.A. chooses to transfer youth to adult court almost by default or reflex—reveals troubling prosecutorial priorities.
“We feel it should be the other way around,” Gassert said this week. “Our belief is that transfers should be rare, and it should be the exception.”
Ken Daley, spokesperson for Cannizzaro’s office, said that it’s Louisiana state law itself that governs how the D.A.’s office deals with transfers and that there each case is individually evaluated:
“Louisiana law provides for the transfer to adult court cases of the most violent crimes: Murder, first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and armed robbery. Depending on the violent teen offender’s age, such transfers are subject to the approval of a juvenile court judge following a hearing. Each case is evaluated on its individual merits, and the facts and circumstances of each case determine whether a transfer to adult court is appropriate. The race of a defendant or victim is immaterial to such decisions.
“Out of the 1,999 juvenile delinquency cases processed in the past three years, only 47 (2.3 percent) were transferred to adult court (18 in 2015, 21 in 2016, 8 in 2017). That hardly represents an ‘overuse’ of the statute approved by the people of Louisiana through their state legislature to address the worst and most violent teen offenders victimizing our community.”
Daley also said that it’s not up to the D.A. who comes before their office. “We do not choose the offenders brought before our office to be considered for prosecution. That is a function of the police, based upon whom they arrest for alleged offenses,” Daley said.
The SPLC’s report triggered a wave of protest and commentary at the time; in March 2016, for example, a coalition of 15 advocacy organizations, community and church groups and representatives, and educational institutions issued a strongly-worded resolution that was published in The Louisiana Weekly.
The statement acknowledged that victims of serious crime and their loved ones absolutely deserve support and resolution in their lives. But also asserted that many young offenders become trapped in the court system without an opportunity to better themselves, and in doing so bettering their community, messages that are reinforced by the conclusions of the recent CFYJ/NASW report, as well as the SPLC.
“Making victims whole is an important and necessary part of the justice system, and that is not in question. Many children in the system are also suffering as victims of crimes,” asserted the March 2016 community resolution. “This is not an excuse. However, the cycle of violence must end somewhere, and we will not achieve safety in our communities until we address all the factors that contribute to crime. We cannot prevent future victims and heal our children unless we are making informed decisions about how each child can best be rehabilitated.”
But Gassert noted that even with several years of increased pressure on Cannizzaro to reduce the amount of youth transferred to adult court, little positive change has occurred. In 2016, a so-called “working group” of local politicians and officials – including Cannizzaro, two City Council-members, staffers from the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, and representatives of the New Orleans Police Department of the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s – coalesced to face the controversy head-on.
Much of the pressure on the DA at the time was initiated by then-Councilwoman Susan Guidry, who in 2017 proposed a City Council resolution calling for Cannizzaro to reduce the number of juveniles transferred to the adult court system. Guidry also urged the DA’s Office to conduct a more individualized and vigorous screening process when deciding which juvenile cases to transfer.
The proposed resolution triggered a flurry of sniping and accusations between several councilmembers and Cannizzaro, while advocates and others involved in juvenile justice watched with hope for change.
However, Gassert said, nothing productive has since come out of those discussions, leaving supporters of change to continue their battle.
“Advocacy has not been successful in the long run yet,” she said, “but we’re still holding out hope. We want to keep fighting to keep more kids in the juvenile system, it’s just an uphill battle. But we feel it’s the right thing to do, and we believe it’s actually better for public safety.”
Gassert said she and her peers are encouraged by national efforts toward juvenile justice reform, including the release this month of the CFYJ/NASW report, which concluded by presenting a way forward toward equality and fairness in juvenile justice systems.
“Racial and ethnic disproportionality cannot be resolved at the point of transfer to the adult system without a holistic approach to addressing the systemic and individual factors that lead Black youth to the justice system,” it stated. “America’s traumatic racial challenges, particularly in the justice system, are a part of its history and present but do not have to be a part of its future,” the report added. “Advocates, including social workers practicing on the macro and micro levels, can address these challenges with a holistic and collaborative approach rooted in historical context.”
The CFYJ’s Thomas said concerned citizens who believe in such issues of justice need to vote whenever they can “to get people in office who are willing to take on these challenges.”
“There are absolutely things people can do [to] affect the issue by improving outcomes for Black youth across the country,” she said. “A lot of it is about the public holding folks accountable. There’s a very real need to continue to highlight how important this is.”
This article originally published in the October 1, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
