Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/series/racial-disparities-in-kentuckys-juvenile-justice-system/)
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Records, research and interviews with stakeholders in the juvenile justice system show that racial disparity occurs at nearly every decision point in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system.
As juvenile detention center populations dwindle and fewer minor offenders are locked up, whites feel the benefit most. Youth lockups are becoming more black and brown.
If Louisville’s detention center closes at the end of the year, Louisville youth will be sent to facilities throughout the state — an outcome that families and city officials have feared will make it harder for youth to see family and attorneys and get services.
Though black youth are less than 27 percent of Louisville’s youth population, they represented more than 75 percent of the youth bookings in Louisville’s secure detention center last year.
When a youth is accused of a crime in Kentucky, an adult has to make a choice in nearly every step that follows.
Allow the youth to avoid a formal charge, or bring the case to a judge? Send him home or to sleep in a cell? Put another way: Offer another chance, or deny it?
Disproportionately, the Kentucky youth denied that second chance are black.