Virginia kids do well, with 1 exception

BY FRANK GREEN
Media General News Service
Published: June 13, 2008

Virginia remains in the top third of states in an annual review of the well-being of children, but a decades-old phenomenon still haunts the state’s juvenile justice system.

In the 2008 KIDS COUNT Data Book released today by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Virginia placed 15th among states and since 2000 has improved in six of 10 key indicators, including teen birth and school dropout rates.

However, the study found racial disparity remains pronounced in the juvenile justice system.

John Morgan, executive director of Voices for Virginia’s Children, said, “The rate of custody is four times higher among youth of color than among white youth, even higher than the national rate of three to one.”

Barry Green, director of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, agrees it is a problem. “Minority juveniles continue to be very much disproportionately represented in the justice system,” he said.

While African-Americans make up 23 percent of Virginia’s 10- to 17-year-olds, last year they accounted for 54 percent of those put in local detention homes and 66 percent of those committed to state juvenile correctional centers.

A 1995 study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found that after accounting for the seriousness of the crime, prior records and other factors, the race of the juvenile appeared to play a role in judicial decisions to lock youths up.

Green said, “I don’t really think anyone has a handle on all the reasons. We’re trying to gin up all the data we can to try to come up with something on which to develop a plan.”

He said that 45 percent of the juveniles who come in contact with the juvenile justice system are African-American, almost the same percentage that are in foster care.

“The problem certainly appears to go beyond the juvenile justice system,” Green said. So any solutions will also need to include police, prosecutors, social services, schools and others, he said.

Progress is being made, he said. From 2003 through 2007, the number of juveniles placed into city, county or regional detention homes dropped 11 percent and the number committed to state juvenile facilities decreased by 27 percent.

At the same time, said Green, juvenile crime and arrest rates have remained well below the national average and the number of youths who commit new crimes after their release from custody has dropped by eight percent in the last three years.

“The [reoffending] rate among this group is now lower than it has been since Virginia began keeping these statistics in 1998,” Green said.

Morgan, with Voices for Virginia’s Children, also said that Virginia is holding fewer youths in custody for nonviolent offenders, 61 percent, than the national average, 66 percent. That suggests better use of alternatives to incarceration in Virginia, he said.

But Andrew K. Block, legal director of the JustChildren Program, said, “Both figures are too high. Most nonviolent offenders are not a threat to public safety and can be successfully reformed through community interventions, such as drug treatment programs.”

Frank Green is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.