Race and Ethnic Fairness
State:
Committee/Report Name: The New Jersey Supreme Court Task Force on Minority Concerns was established in September 1985 after the Supreme Court reviewed the report of the Committee on Minority Concerns, established in June 1984. The Task Force published its final report June 1992. (KFN2310 .A75 N485)
Number of Committee Members: 59 Task Force members
Number of Subcommittees: 4 Subcommittees
Criminal Justice ad the Minority Defendant
Minorities and Juvenile Justice
Minority Access to Justice
Minority Participation in the Judicial Process
Chair/Co-Chairs: Theodore Z. Davis, Superior Court Judge
Methods
Used: In order to complete its mission, the Task Force undertook a variety
of activities. Members of one or more Committees met with
representatives of minority bar associations, as well as administrators of key
public and private agencies involved with the administration of justice; other
members observed court proceedings, and experts in specialized areas spoke at
symposia. A pilot research project obtained preliminary insights about how
judicial employees at the state, county and municipal levels experienced the
judicial workplace. Furthermore, extensive reviews of pertinent fields of
literature and a number of research projects—including ad hoc telephone surveys
and social scientific surveys—were completed. Four research initiatives merit
special attention. First, a survey aimed at capturing perceptions of bias in
the justice system was conducted of all Superior Court judges and top-level
court mangers in November 1987, at the annual
(1) Testimony in person at public hearings held at thirteen different sites around the State. The testimony of the 129 persons who spoke at these hearing produced 1,216 pages of transcripts.
(2) Testimony in person but anonymously. This testimony was taken in the privacy of the offices of designated members of the Task Force. The testimony of these twenty-two persons produced 376 pages of transcripts.
(3) Submission of written testimony of a public nature. Eleven persons presented forty-eight pages of written materials under this option.
(4) Submission of written testimony on an anonymous basis. Forty-five persons provided 192 pages of written testimony.
The last major study was titled “Differential Court Usage
Patterns among Minority and Non-Minority Populations in
Topics and Recommendations
Perception
Findings
1. There is a perception of insensitivity or indifference to minority citizens who are in the criminal justice process.
2. Many minorities express a lack of confidence in the court system and are reluctant to bring cases to court.
3. The judiciary reflects many of the prejudices of the society it serves, and minorities often view the judiciary as working in concert with law enforcement.
Recommendation
1. The Supreme Court should require annual sensitivity training to address racial and ethnic bias for all judge and court support employees. (See also Education: Judges, Recommendation #1; Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #1)
Access
Findings
1. Criminal defendants who have limited English proficiency often are unfamiliar with the judicial process, are sometimes subjected to discrimination because of language, receive inadequate interpreting services, and have limited access to the various support services.
2. Access to courts is limited for minorities who speak little or no English because interpreters often are not sufficiently qualified and are not readily available, and there are insufficient bilingual court support staff who can speak the languages that are spoken by persons in need of their services.
3. The Administrative Office of the Courts has attempted to increase the hiring of bilingual employees in probation departments through a policy initiative which commenced in 1982. However, additional compensation for bilingual positions is often inadequate or non-existent. (See also Court as Employer/Appointer: Hiring/Promotion, Finding #12)
4. Bilingual positions are underused or nonexistent in the municipal courts. (See also Court as Employer/Appointer: Hiring/Promotion, Finding #13)
5. The quality and professionalism of court interpreters are inadequate, although some progress has been made since 1985.
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should assure that the trial courts (1) provide interpreters who are not only bilingual, but who have a knowledge of cultural variations; and (2) implement the recommendations of the Task Force on Interpreters and Translation Services aimed at assuring equal access to courts for linguistic minorities.
2. The Supreme Court should prescribe the qualifications of interpreters and translators, including a certification process and of the other pertinent employees, i.e., bilingual and bilingual/multicultural court support personnel; and should adopt policies, including standards governing interpreted proceedings, to assure that services to linguistic minority clients are delivered in a manner that is both linguistically and culturally appropriate.
3. The Supreme Court should assure that continuing education be provided to pertinent employees, i.e. interpreters, translators, and those who deliver bilingual or bilingual/multicultural services.
4. The Supreme Court should assure that all of these services are organized effectively and administrated efficiently.
5. The Supreme Court should adopt policies that will attract, employ, and retain sufficient numbers of the pertinent employees.
6. The Supreme Court should adopt a policy that all forms and documents must be drafted in easily translatable English and translated into other languages.
7. The Supreme Court should adopt a program informing linguistic minorities about the Judiciary and its services.
8. The Supreme Court should direct that all codes of conduct include a provision that prohibits discrimination against litigants on the basis of language.
9. The Supreme Court should require that a qualified interpreter is provided for every person who needs an interpreter.
10. The Supreme Court should adopt a policy that requires all forms and documents intended to be read by litigants or the public be published in language that the lay public can easily comprehend.
11. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to revise the bilingual probation initiative by (1) requiring greater reliance on the bilingual variant position for meeting goals, (2) extending the initiative to all judiciary units, including the municipal courts, that have direct contact with the public or clients, (3) conducting a new needs assessment and setting new goals, and (4) directing that employees in bilingual variant titles be paid for the additional skill they are required to have. (See also Court as Employer/Appointer: Hiring/Promotion, Recommendation #6)
12. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to expand its training efforts, and direct appointing authorities to increase court interpreters’ pay.
Findings
1. Access to courts for minorities is impeded by the lack of knowledge minorities and majority persons who work in the courts have of each other. (See also Education: Court Staff, Finding #1)
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to develop a plan aimed at familiarizing the community with the judiciary and making the employees of the judiciary more familiar with the communities they serve. This should include recommendations as to materials that might be included in public school curricula. The plan should include initiatives that are culturally and ethnically appropriate for reaching minority communities. (See also Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #4)
Findings
1. Many persons believe there is a direct correlation between how much money one has and the probability of prevailing in the Courts.
2. Minorities are more likely than non-minorities to lack the economic means to privately purchase legal representation.
3. Financial expenses associated with a court or hearing appearance present another case management factor which adversely impacts on minorities and discourages them from going to court.
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should direct the forthcoming Supreme Court Committee on Minority Concerns to document any special needs that may distinguish counties in terms of the size or proportion of minorities within those counties.
2. The Supreme Court should permit the Committee on Minority Access to Justice to supervise the completion of the Differential Court Usage Project.
3. The Supreme Court should appoint a multicultural advisory board to increase the judiciary’s ability to relate effectively with different community groups. The board could also review administrative policies and procedures, participate in management team meetings, and sensitize top policy makers to cultural diversity.
Juries
Findings
1. Minorities are underrepresented on juries and, as a result, decisions reached by juries may discriminate against minorities.
2. African Americans in particular and Hispanics to a lesser degree are excluded from eligibility to serve on juries at much higher rates than whites because of the conviction-free qualification. However, both Asians-Pacific Islander and American Indians appear to be less likely than white to be excluded from jury eligibility as a result of this qualification.
3. Some African Americans and Latinos do not register to vote because they do not want to be called as jurors.
Recommendations
1. The Chief Justice should direct the Permanent Supreme Court Committee on Minority Concerns to study minority representation on juries and their impact, if any, on verdicts.
Courtroom Experience
Findings
1. Access to justice for minorities is diminished since some judges are believed to use different standards of credibility when dealing with minorities.
Findings
1. While eyewitness identification is widely accepted as persuasive evidence, it is significantly less reliable than is commonly believed.
2. Cross -racial identifications by eyewitnesses are significantly less reliable than same race identification. The legal community is not sufficiently aware of this extremely important fact.
3. The reliability of eyewitness identification, both same-race and different-race, is reduced further by identification procedures used by law enforcement. In the process of in-person lineup identification, there is frequently no counsel present. This process often occurs prior to a charge being made and prior to arrest. (See also Criminal Justice: Arrests, Finding #1)
4. Since data on the frequency of cross-racial
eyewitness identification in courtroom hearings are not available in
Recommendations
1. Practitioners in the criminal justice system, including judges, should attend educational seminars on eyewitness identification developed by their respective agencies. (See also Education: Judges, Recommendation #2; Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #2; Education: Lawyers, Recommendation #1)
2. The Supreme Court should develop cautionary instructions that would be used to inform juries on the issues pertaining to unreliability of eyewitness identification generally and on the more significant limitations respecting cross-racial identification particularly. The instructions should be made available to judges for use in cases where expert testimony on eyewitness identification is introduced.
3. The Supreme Court should allow more frequent use of expert witnesses on the general problem of unreliability of eyewitness identification in trials. Court rules should be formulated which authorize such testimony, particularly where the identification is not strong or where the case rests mainly on the identification.
4. The Supreme Court should consider making a request for legislation which would grant a right for defense counsel to be present during live lineup procedures. (See also Criminal Justice: Arrests, Recommendation #1)
5. The Supreme Court should authorize a statewide study to determine the prevalence and frequency of cross-racial eyewitness identifications in criminal investigations and indictable cases.
Legal Profession
Recruitment/Acceptance
to
Findings
1. Minority
applicants pass the
2. Some essay questions drafted by the Board of Bar Examiners are perceived to have defects which may affect the scores of minority examinees.
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should continue to seek
commentary on the bar examination from minority attorneys. It should (1) adopt
the recommendations made by the ACBA based on the consultant’s report, (2)
instruct the Board of Bar Examiners to consider carefully the reviewers;
comments on the essay questions, and (3) ensure that the Board of Bar Examiners
and related committees always have full representation of minority attorneys.
Finally, the court should support efforts to recruit minority students to
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to maintain current data on minority representation among lawyers, municipal judges and employees, court committees and staff, court volunteers, and court appointees. (See also Court as Employer/Appointer: Hiring/Promotion, Recommendation #15; Court as Employer/Appointer: Appointer, Recommendation #3)
Education
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should require annual sensitivity training to address racial and ethnic bias for all judge and court support employees. (See also Perception: Public, Recommendation #1; Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #1)
2. Practitioners in the criminal justice system, including judges, should attend educational seminars on eyewitness identification developed by their respective agencies. (See also Courtroom Environment: Lawyers/Jurors/Others, Recommendation #1; Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #2; Education: Lawyers, Recommendation #1)
3. The Supreme Court Should require that all family court judges, division managers, and support staff are trained effectively regarding the knowledge and sensitivity that are required to assure (1) the delivery of appropriate services to and (2) the reaching of bias-free decisions regarding court-involved minority youth. (See also Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #3; Juvenile Justice, Recommendation #6)
Findings
1. Access to courts for minorities is impeded by the lack of knowledge minorities and majority persons who work in the courts have of each other. (See also Access: Culture, Finding #1)
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should require annual sensitivity training to address racial and ethnic bias for all judge and court support employees. (See also Perception: Public, Recommendation #1; Education: Judges, Recommendation #1)
2. Practitioners in the criminal justice system, including judges, should attend educational seminars on eyewitness identification developed by their respective agencies. (See also Courtroom Environment: Lawyers/Jurors/Others, Recommendation #1; Education: Judges, Recommendation #2; Education: Lawyers, Recommendation #1)
3. The Supreme Court Should require that all family court judges, division managers, and support staff are trained effectively regarding the knowledge and sensitivity that are required to assure (1) the delivery of appropriate services to and (2) the reaching of bias-free decisions regarding court-involved minority youth. (See also Education: Judges, Recommendation #3; Juvenile Justice, Recommendation #6)
4. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to develop a plan aimed at familiarizing the community with the judiciary and making the employees of the judiciary more familiar with the communities they serve. This should include recommendations as to materials that might be included in public school curricula. The plan should include initiatives that are culturally and ethnically appropriate for reaching minority communities. (See also Access: Cultures, Recommendation #1)
5. The Supreme Court should require that all court personnel attend ongoing cross-cultural training programs.
Recommendations
1. Practitioners in the criminal justice system, including judges, should attend educational seminars on eyewitness identification developed by their respective agencies. (See also Courtroom Environment: Lawyers/Jurors/Others, Recommendation #1; Education: Judges, Recommendation #2; Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #2)
Criminal Justice
Findings
1. The reliability of eyewitness identification, both same-race and different-race, is reduced further by identification procedures used by law enforcement. In the process of in-person lineup identification, there is frequently no counsel present. This process often occurs prior to a charge being made and prior to arrest. (See also Courtroom Environment: Lawyers/Jurors/Others, Finding #3)
Recommendation
1. The Supreme Court should consider making a request for legislation which would grant a right for defense counsel to be present during live lineup procedures. (See also Courtroom Environment: Lawyers/Jurors/Others, Recommendation #4)
Findings
1. There
is a tremendous lack of uniformity in arriving at bail decisions in
2. The type and amount of bail usually are influenced more by factors relating to the dangerousness of the offender, such as the severity of the crime and the defendant’s criminal history, than by those background factors relating to risk of flight (such as employment and community ties).
3. The effect of money bail falls hardest on the poor, and since minorities are disproportionately poor, it falls disproportionately on minorities.
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should require that all rules and directives regarding bail be reviewed and revised in order to promulgate procedures to be applied uniformly statewide.
2. The Supreme Court should adopt a bail policy with release criteria focused upon factors relating demonstrably to the defendant’s likelihood to appear in court. The bail policy should (1) take into consideration past court appearance history and significant background factors which insure likelihood to appear, (2) give substantial consideration in the release evaluation process to defendants likelihood to make cash bail, and (3) give minimum weight to economic criteria because such factors generally impact unfairly upon racial minorities (e.g., salary, employment history).
3. The Supreme Court should adopt a bail policy which requires that monetary release options incorporate a defendant’s ability to pay in cases where bail will be set. The policy should (1) specifically require submission and use of financial and economic information regarding the defendant’s status; (2) create a mechanism for review every 30 days, where bail has been granted, with a requirement that the prosecutor submit an affidavit regarding the status of the case, (e.g., expected dates for indictment, arraignment, and trial); and (3) require consideration of the relationship between bail and the accused’s ability to pay.
4. The Supreme Court should adopt a bail policy that includes non-monetary release options to minimize the settings of bail unless probability of nonappearance has been established by the court. The non-monetary options should include but not be limited to: (1) supervised pretrial release with conditions; and (2) Release to a community agency or family member willing to assume responsibility for the defendant’s appearance in court.
5. The Supreme Court should adopt a bail policy based on the presumption that all individuals are release-worthy and that in cases where there is a presumption against incarceration, the defendant should be released on his or her own recognizance.
6. The Chief Justice should consider approaching the Attorney General to explore the possibility of jointly sponsoring an empirical analysis of recent New Jersey samples of bail and sentencing outcomes, controlling for key factors that influence the outcomes of these decisions, examining the possibility of the cumulative discrimination effects over the sequence of decisions from arrest through sentencing, and determine the degree to which discrimination occurs at each of those decision points. (See also Criminal Justice: Outcomes, Recommendation #1)
Findings
1. Scientific evidence supporting a hypothesis of discrimination is mixed and results vary by locale of decisions in the criminal justice system and by jurisdiction studied. When data are pooled from a variety of decision points or of jurisdictions, evidence of discrimination may be observed.
2. Since there are substantial relations between minority status and other correlates of outcomes, assessment of discrimination effects are especially difficult to make from statistical studies.
3. Evidence of discrimination at any one point in the criminal justice system tends to be limited by sampling bias. Cumulative increments of discrimination effects may be missed in the analysis.
4. Most available empirical studies may be challenged as lacking in sufficient scientific rigor to permit firm conclusions on the question of discrimination in sentencing.
5. Some groups of minorities--especially African Americans—are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and the independent contribution of the criminal court system itself to this overrepresentation needs to be closely studied.
6. There may be discrimination against African-American defendants in capital cases and cases with white homicide victims may be at greater risk of advancing to a death penalty trial than cases with African-American or Hispanic homicide victims.
7. There is a severe shortage of drug treatment resources available to indigent offenders, who are disproportionately minorities.
Recommendations
1. The Chief Justice should consider approaching the Attorney General to explore the possibility of jointly sponsoring an empirical analysis of recent New Jersey samples of bail and sentencing outcomes, controlling for key factors that influence the outcomes of these decisions, examining the possibility of the cumulative discrimination effects over the sequence of decisions from arrest through sentencing, and determine the degree to which discrimination occurs at each of those decision points. (See also Criminal Justice: Pretrial, Recommendation #6)
2. The Supreme Court should consider a request to the legislature that would revise N.J.S.A. 2C: 44-1 to include as an appropriate mitigating sentencing factor that the defendant has suffered familial, educational, or other societal deprivation during his or her youth which may have contributed to the criminal activity.
3. The Supreme Court should consider proposing to the appropriate executive branch agencies that dedicated treatment bed spaces for indigent defendants be made available to the judiciary.
Court as
employer/appointer
Findings
1. When a minority comes to court, the degree to which other minorities are visibly present as employees of or principal participants in the court often plays a significant role in shaping that minority person’s expectations of being treated fairly.
2. There is significant underrepresentation of minority judges in the prominent assignments of the superior court.
3. Minority representation in the key policy-making and senior management positions is seriously low at each level of the judiciary.
4. With the notable exception of senior managers, officials, and administrators at the state level, the judiciary generally met or exceeded the 1980 Standard for Determining Underrepresentation (SDU) but lags behind the 1990 SDU.
5. The overall 1990 goal for promoting minorities in the state-paid judiciary has not been met and the proportion of minority promotions mirrors the proportion of minority separations.
6. Both the number and proportion of minority county employees working in the superior court have increased over the last five years. However, in some counties minorities are underrepresented throughout the court, especially in senior-level management positions.
7. Minority representation among municipal court employees over the past decade has increased by ten percent while the total increase in the workforce has more than doubled.
8. The judiciary has an unsatisfactory level of Hispanic employees in all categories of employment for state-paid employees and in most categories of employment for county-paid employees.
9. The state-paid judiciary has an unsatisfactory level of Asians/Pacific Islanders in all categories of employment.
10. The Chief Justice’s program to emphasize the hiring of minority law clerks is a model for other programs because of its significant success. However, the program has not advanced in recent years beyond the level achieved early in the program.
11. Minority lawyers who have served as law clerks have found their experience valuable, and judges report no difference in the quality of law clerks’ work between minority and non-minority law clerks.
12. The Administrative Office of the Courts has attempted to increase the hiring of bilingual employees in probation departments through a policy initiative which commenced in 1982. However, additional compensation for bilingual positions is often inadequate or non-existent. (See also Access: Language, Finding #3)
13. Bilingual positions are underused or nonexistent in the municipal courts. (See also Access: Language, Finding #4)
14. Court volunteers are not sufficiently representative of the client population.
15. The judiciary maintains inadequate records on racial/ethnic representation among court-related volunteer boards, municipal court judges and staff, court appointees, and court committees.
Recommendations
1. The Chief Justice should promote minority judges into the more prestigious and policy-making judicial assignments.
2. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts and the vicinages to make vigorous and aggressive recruitment, hiring, and retention efforts to increase the representation of minorities in senior management and key policy-making positions.
3. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to develop and implement a more aggressive plan to ensure representation of Hispanics in the judiciary’s work force.
4. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to enhance its efforts to ensure representation of Asians/Pacific Islanders in the judiciary’s work force.
5. The Chief Justice should continue the program to recruit minority law clerks.
6. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to revise the bilingual probation initiative by (1) requiring greater reliance on the bilingual variant position for meeting goals, (2) extending the initiative to all judiciary units, including the municipal courts, that have direct contact with the public or clients, (3) conducting a new needs assessment and setting new goals, and (4) directing that employees in bilingual variant titles be paid for the additional skill they are required to have. (See also Access: Language, Recommendation #11)
7. The Supreme Court should establish ongoing monitoring procedures to ensure representation of minorities in all job classifications of the judiciary’s state, vicinage, and municipal work force.
8. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to establish a career development office and in-house promotion policy.
9. The Supreme Court should require the Administrative Office of the Courts to (1) expand its training efforts toward cultural awareness and management skills in a multicultural work force and (2) provide minority employees with general management and leadership training.
10. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to establish an EEO/AA training program for new employees an annual cultural awareness program for state and vicinage judicial employees.
11. The Supreme Court should direct the administrative office of the courts to establish employee support services to assist in recruitment and retention of minorities in the judicial work force.
12. The Supreme Court should establish a tuition reimbursement program as soon as possible.
13. The Supreme Court should set the standard for determining underrepresentation (SDU) in court volunteer programs in two stages: First at the level of minorities in the county population and second at the level of minorities among the constituency served.
14. The Supreme Court should require that the various volunteer programs be better advertised in the minority community.
15. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to maintain current data on minority representation among lawyers, municipal judges and employees, court committees and staff, court volunteers, and court appointees. (See also Legal Profession: Hiring and Promotion, Recommendation #1; Court as Employer/Appointer: Appointer, Recommendation #3)
Findings
1. There as been an increase in the representation of minorities appointed to standing Supreme Court committees since the inception of the Task Force, but three such committees remain without any minority members.
2. Procurement policies and programs may exhibit some bias.
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should continue its efforts to increase the representation of minorities among its appointees to the various Supreme Court boards and committees.
2. The Supreme Court should set a standard for determining underrepresentation (SDU) in court appointments. That standard should reflect the level of minorities using the system.
3. The Supreme Court should direct the Administrative Office of the Courts to maintain current data on minority representation among lawyers, municipal judges and employees, court committees and staff, court volunteers, and court appointees. (See also Legal Profession: Hiring and Promotion, Recommendation #1; Court as Employer/Appointer: Hiring/Promotion, Recommendation #15)
4. The Supreme Court should direct he Administrative Office of the Courts to establish and monitor a minority vendor program to ensure ongoing representation of minorities in its contracts.
Findings
1. There is a paucity of minorities on the New Jersey Supreme Court, Superior Court, and Tax Court.
2. There is a dearth of minority judges on the municipal court level.
Recommendations
1. The
Supreme Court should consider presenting to the Governor and the State
Legislature the finding of the Task Force that there is widespread concern
about the underrepresentation of minorities on Supreme,
2. The Supreme Court should consider presenting the finding of the task force that there is widespread concern about the underrepresentation of minorities on the Municipal Court bench to all mayors and municipal councils.
Findings
1. Minority defendants are overrepresented at all stages of juvenile delinquency proceedings. The degree to which bias on the part of judges and court employees contributes to this overrepresentation is unclear, but responsibility for the overrepresentation is not attributable solely to the judiciary.
2. The differences in the handling of Black, White and Hispanic youth are greater at earlier stages in the system (diversion, calendaring and detention) than at later stages of the system (adjudication and disposition).
3. While comparisons in the early stages (diversion, calendaring and detentions) all operate to the disadvantage of minority youth, in the adjudicatory and dispositional stages, there are individual comparisons in which minority youth are more likely to “fare well” (receive less severe decisions than white youth) as well as situations in which minority youth are likely to fare less well.
4. The Judiciary has not provided sufficient information to the minority community about either the juvenile justice system or the steps that are being taken by the judiciary to eliminate unfairness to minority juveniles.
5. Disparities
in treatment based on race and ethnicity exist at all stages of
6. There are too few services available to juvenile delinquents, minority and non-minority alike. Fewer services are available in communities with a large minority population than in communities with a small minority population. Given considerations of socioeconomic class, minorities have access to a smaller range of services.
7. Services that are available often are fragmented and creating a comprehensive dispositional plan from them can be an imposing task. Family division judges and staff do not have a well organized approach to managing information about services which are available.
8. Some family division judges and court staff are insensitive to the need to recognize racial and ethnic differences and the need to treat minorities fairly and compassionately.
9. Many minorities have little or no confidence in the family court, since they view the prospects of minority juveniles’ cases being heard fairly as limited.
10. Since some family courts, especially in urban areas, operate under unsatisfactory physical conditions, the negative effects fall disproportionately on minority juveniles.
11. Statewide implementation of the Family Automated Case-Tracking System (FACTS) is necessary in order to provide a mechanism for monitoring the processing of juvenile delinquency cases by race and ethnicity in the future.
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should set a goal for the judiciary of reducing the number of minority juveniles incarcerated. This goal would be accomplished by: (1) working through county youth services commissions to expand sentencing alternatives; (2) carefully considering the use of available alternative dispositions that would keep juveniles in the community; (3) adopting a policy that factors like family status, which may appear race-neutral but which when considered in creating a disposition may tend to result in disproportionate numbers of minorities being incarcerated, are insufficient grounds in and of themselves for justifying a decision to incarcerate; (4) encouraging judges to play a more active role in determining which juveniles go into these programs by recommending specific placements at the time of sentencing; (5) directing that juvenile conference committees be established for every municipality which does not now have one in order to strengthen the local constituency for developing resources and alternatives to keep juveniles from being incarcerated; (6) supporting the concept of an urban initiative to provide alternative dispositional resources in New Jersey’s cities; and (7) implementing a statewide intensive supervision program for juveniles.
2. The Supreme Court should direct two initiatives be undertaken to make the community, especially the minority community, aware of the juvenile court system: (1) A comprehensive public education program to provide information on the operation of the juvenile court system and the steps that are being taken to eliminate unfairness to minority juveniles; and (2) An engagement in partnerships with schools where the judiciary assists local schools in development and instruction of a legal education curriculum or programs which bring judges and court workers into classrooms to speak to students, and bring students to visit the courts.
3. The Supreme Court should ensure that judicial decisions involving minorities are fair by: (1) Directing the Standing Committee on Minority Concerns, in conjunction with the Conference of Family Division Presiding Judges, to examine the juvenile code, all written rules, directives, and forms to (A) identify and determine the nature of any adverse impact on minority youth and (B) recommend corrective action; this examination should focus on decision making criteria such as consideration of family circumstances. And (2) authorizing the Administrative Director of the Courts to issue a directive that family division judges and staff, when making diversion, detention, calendaring, dispositional, and other decisions in delinquency cases, determine and consider actual family circumstances.
4. In order for the judiciary to play a lead role in the development of additional community alternatives which can provide adequate levels of supervision for juveniles for whom family supervision is lacking, the Supreme Court should direct each vicinage to implement the following strategies: (1) Direct family division judges to enhance and expand the level and kinds of services currently available internally though probation and externally by developing partnerships with community groups in the judges’ capacity as members of youth services commissions and in their dealings with other bodies; and (2) since some juveniles are committed to the Department of Corrections because other state agencies are not forthcoming with other services, direct family division judges to actively seek to hold such agencies accountable for (A) the delivery of mandated services and (B) the meeting of statutory time goals.
5. The Supreme Court should assure that family division judges, managers, and support staff are as aware as possible of resources by directing each vicinage to create and make appropriate use through training and daily use of a vicinage delinquency dispositional resource manual which is regularly updated.
6. The Supreme Court Should require that all family court judges, division managers, and support staff are trained effectively regarding the knowledge and sensitivity that are required to assure (1) the delivery of appropriate services to and (2) the reaching of bias-free decisions regarding court-involved minority youth. (See also Education: Judges, Recommendation #3; Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #3)
7. The Supreme Court should: (1) Direct that each assignment judge arrange for a statement on racial and ethnic bias in the courts to be read in court on May 1 (Law Day) of each year. In addition consideration should be given to prominently displaying a statement in each court, along with the name of a person who can be contacted if someone has a concern or question; and (2) set a policy requiring an increase in the number of minorities in all levels of the family courts and the family division at the Administrative Office of the Courts, especially in key positions such as family court judges, division managers, supervising probation officers, intake workers, and managers at the AOC.
8. The Supreme Court should direct each vicinage to consult with its county government to ensure that the physical condition of courthouse facilities for the family division meets the courthouse facility guidelines developed by the Supreme Court Committee on Courthouse Facilities.
9. The Supreme Court should consider requesting that the legislature provide sufficient funding to continue the installation of FACTS throughout the state. If the legislature cannot fund FACTS through normal appropriations, the judiciary should explore with the legislature non-traditional funding methods, such as possible surcharges on dissolution or other court filings, as a means of providing the resources necessary to continue the installations of FACTS.
10. The Chief Justice should share with the Governor the findings about the discrimination that has been found to occur at the law enforcement stage of processing juvenile delinquency cases and propose conducting a joint study of all decision points in processing juvenile defendants.
Findings
1. Presently there is no formal procedure available to users of criminal court services for filing a grievance against court personnel in instances of alleged discriminatory behavior, and existing procedures for filing complaints of discriminatory behavior against judges and attorneys rarely are used.
2. The court system lacks sufficient complaint procedures to enable persons to overcome unfair treatment in the court.
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should direct that the Administrative Office of the Courts develop, adopt and implement in its own offices and in each vicinage a discrimination complaint procedure.
2. The Supreme Court should direct that all complaint procedures include the following features: All key aspects of behavior which could result in a complaint are clearly specified, notices of complaint procedures are readily accessible to the public, and complaint procedures are structured so that grievances having to do with minority issues can be identified and quantified.
3. The Supreme Court should direct that ombudsperson offices be established at the state and vicinage levels to provide information about the courts and to receive and investigate complaints about abuses in the judicial process.
Recommendations
1. The Supreme Court should direct that performance standards similar to those existing for judges, lawyers, and probation personnel be adopted for all employees of the judiciary; that all job descriptions include related provisions; and that the personnel system incorporate these standards in the initial selection of new hires, their orientation, and their ongoing performance evaluations.
2. The Supreme Court should direct that performance standards be established to evaluate employees’ treatment of racially, culturally, and ethnically sensitive issues.
National Center for
State Courts
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