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MAY
20, 1999 4:02 PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: NAACP /
Justice Policy Institute
/ Youth Law Center
Hilary Shelton, NAACP, (202) 638-2269
Jason Ziedenberg/Vincent Schiraldi, Justice Policy Institute (202) 678-9282
Marc Schindler, Youth Law Center, (202) 637-0377
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| Hatch
"Sleepwalking through History" as he turns Back Clock on Discrimination in the
Juvenile Justice System; Error-laced Statement Offends Civil Rights Groups Ignores
Mountains of Research about Racial Discrimination |
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WASHINGTON
- May 20 - In a floor statement in a debate over a controversial juvenile justice
bill, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) shocked the civil rights community by ignoring
reams of federally-funded research which has conclusively shown that minority
youth are confined in America in numbers far outstripping their arrest rates.
Hatch's statement came during debate over S 254, the "Violent and Repeat Juvenile
Offender Accountability and Rehabilitation Act of 1999" which Hatch co-authored
with Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL). The bill would eliminate the seven-year-old
requirement that states address disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) in
their juvenile justice systems. Hatch succeeded in tabling an amendment proposed
by Senators Wellstone (D-MN), Kennedy (D-MA), Feinstein (D-CA), Durbin (D-IL),
and Feingold (D-WI) to retain that requirement.
In a divisively-worded floor speech about disproportionate confinement of minority
youth, Hatch asked "Should they not be convicted when they sell drugs to our kids?
Everybody knows that it happens." Senator Hatch claimed that the justice system
is "color-blind" stating that "I haven't heard one shred of information that proves
there is discrimination here. When you prove that, I will be right there, side-by-side
with you."
Senator Wellstone, speaking on the floor of the Senate in response to Senator
Hatch, stated "This is all about race. I cannot believe that I have heard on the
floor of the Senate an argument that race is not the critical consideration. When
the police are out there in the streets, and we get to which kids are searched
on the streets and which kids are not, you don't think that has anything to do
with race? When we get to the question of which kids are arrested and which kids
are not, you don't think that has anything to do with race today in America...When
we get to the question of sentencing, you don't think that has anything to do
with race? You are sleepwalking through history...This is a civil rights issue,
and this is a civil rights vote."
"This issue has festered in the juvenile justice system for years," stated Senator
Edward Kennedy during his statement on the floor. "To pretend otherwise is to
ignore the facts. Over the past 10 years, documented evidence shows that disproportionality
occurs at all stages of the system."
The civil rights and child advocacy communities reacted sharply to Hatch's error-laced
floor statement. "With the volumes of studies showing conclusively that children
of color are confined in numbers far exceeding their rates of arrest, I was shocked
to hear the Senator's floor statement," stated Regis Lane, Executive Director
of Minorities in Law Enforcement. "It shows that we still have a very long way
to go in terms of racial understanding in America, starting with the United States
Senate. It was particularly disturbing to hear the entire speech framed in terms
of us vs. them. I'd like to know who they are."
Hilary Shelton, Director of the NAACP's Washington Bureau quoted data from the
US Justice Department, stating "African American youth age 10 to 17 are 15% of
the US adolescent population, and 26% of juvenile arrests; but they constitute
32% of delinquency referrals; 41% of detained juveniles; and 52% of juveniles
judicially transferred to adult courts. How much more data does the US Senate
need before they will genuinely address this morally repugnant problem in our
society?"
Federal and state-by-state research -- ironically much of it funded through the
provision Hatch is proposing to eliminate -- has consistently shown that minority
youth are more likely than whites to be detained for the same charges and minorities
are detained at higher rates when controlling for arrest charge, prior offenses,
gender and home living situation.
African American youth are 7 times as likely to be held in public detention
facilities as white youth. Although surveys indicate that blacks and whites use
drugs at about the same rates, African American youth are 30 times more likely
to be confined in a state facility for drug offenses than their white counterparts.
In California, minority youth, particularly African Americans, consistently
receive more severe dispositions than white youth, and are more likely to be incarcerated
than white youth for the same offenses. In Texas and Connecticut, 100% of the
youths held in adult jails in 1996 were minorities.
In response to data like these, Senator Hatch stated that disparity has not been
proven -- "they can't prove it, other than to show statistics." "The DMC provision
of current law gives states the ability to identify the source of this complicated
and important problem, and now 40 states have plans to make their systems fairer,"
stated Vincent Schiraldi, Director of the Justice Policy Institute. "To abolish
this provision of law amounts to premeditated ignorance on the part of the US
Senate."
"We never expected Senator Hatch to claim that there was no unfairness in the
system, particularly in today's environment when racial profiling and police brutality
against minorities are such high profile issues," stated Mark Soler of the Youth
Law Center. "The level of cynicism reflected in the Senator's comments surprised
and disappointed us."
"It is extremely disingenuous for the Senator to claim that he's never seen evidence
of disproportionate minority confinement," stated Katharine Huffman of the Southern
Center for Human Rights. "He should be ashamed of his comments."
The debate over Senate Bill 254 will continue, although the Wellstone/Kennedy/
Feinstein/Durbin/Feingold amendment cannot resurface absent a majority vote of
the Senate. With yesterday's vote cast almost entirely along party lines, that
seems unlikely. If Hatch's bill passes, it will travel to the House, setting up
a likely showdown with the House's juvenile crime bill, which currently preserves
the DMC provision and contains identical language to a bill passed by the House
in the 105th Congress by a 414 to 16 vote.
Additional information about disproportionate minority confinement can be found
on the Justice Policy Institute's web site www.cjcj.org/254.
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