Georgetown University

Washington, D.C. – Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, in partnership with the University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall, recently released “Racial and Ethnic Disparity and Disproportionality in Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice: A Compendium.” The compendium is a collection of papers focusing on the efforts of the child welfare and juvenile justice systems to reduce the overrepresentation of children of color in their systems.

“We hope it offers policymakers, practitioners and advocates materials and ideas to continue to tackle this important problem,” says Shay Bilchik, director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform and research professor at Georgetown.

Leading the compendium is “Understanding Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice” a paper submitted by Chapin Hall. The paper served as the discussion paper at a symposium on the same topic sponsored by GPPI’s Center for Juvenile Justice and Chapin Hall last spring.

Commentaries on the Chapin Hall paper follow. Dennette Derezotes, executive director of Race Matters Consortium and senior associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, offers commentary on the child welfare system, and Raquel Mariscal, senior consultant from the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, tackles the area of juvenile justice. Both commentaries explore the degree to which the efforts of juvenile justice systems and child welfare systems are and are not integrated.

Bilchik concludes the compendium with a paper on policy reforms to address racial and ethnic disparity and disproportionality in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. His commentary incorporates the proceedings from the symposium and explores ways in which the federal, state, and local government might help both systems achieve better outcomes for children and youth while promoting policies to better integrate their efforts.

Bilchik writes that in the past two decades, stakeholders in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems have taken important steps toward understanding the relationship between race, ethnicity, and the extent of children’s involvement in the two systems. Through progress in a variety of forms, including legislation, advocacy, and research, more is known today about how children of different races and ethnicities become involved in the two systems than ever before, and more is being done to improve the quality of services offered to children and youth, regardless of their race and ethnicity. However, he argues, the research also suggests there is still a significant amount of work to be done before all children and youth receive the services that best meet their needs.

“To sustain progress, it is sometimes important to step back and examine again what is being done,” says Bilchik. “The problems are complex, and a careful assessment provides an opportunity to apply what has been learned so that limited resources are used as effectively as possible.” Exploring the commonalities and differences that characterize the two systems, Bilchik focuses on the opportunities where stakeholders can work together to solve common problems. “The problem has been well established,” says Bilchik. “Now it is time to move beyond research and discussion in addressing it and take immediate and sustained action to create a just and equitable juvenile justice and child welfare system for all children and youth.”

The compendium can be found online at http://cjjr.georgetown.edu/.

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