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Minority youths are more likely to face trial as adults
A WHITE KID SELLS A BAG OF COCAINE at his suburban high school. A Latino kid does the same in his inner-city neighborhood. Both get caught. Both are first-time offenders. The white kid walks into juvenile court with his parents, his priest, a good lawyer-and medical coverage. The Latino kid walks into court with his mom, no legal resources and no insurance. The judge lets the white kid go with his family; he's placed in a private treatment program. The minority kid has no such option. He's detained.
There, in a nutshell, is what happens more and more often in the juvenile-court system. Minority youths arrested on violent felony charges in California are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be transferred out of the juvenile-justice system and tried as adults, according to a study released last week by the Justice Policy Institute, a research center in San Francisco. Once they are in adult courts, young black offenders are 18 times more likely to be jailed-and Hispanics seven times more likely-than are young white offenders. "Discrimination against kids of color accumulates at every stage of the justice system and skyrockets when juveniles are, tried as adults," says Dan Macallair, a co-author of the new study. "California has a double standard: throw kids of color behind bars, but .rehabilitate white kids who commit comparable crimes."
Even as juvenile crime has declined from its peak in the early 1990s, headline grabbing violence by minors has intensified a get-tough attitude. Over the past six years, 43 states have passed laws that make it easier to try juveniles as adults. In Texas and Connecticut in 1996, the latest year for which figures are available, all the juveniles in jails were minorities. Vincent Schiraldi, the Justice Policy Institute's director, concedes that "some kids need t