Race and Ethnic Fairness
State:
Committee/Report Name: The Utah Task Force On Racial And Ethnic
Fairness In The Legal System was commissioned by the Judicial Council on
Number of Committee Members: 38 Task Force Members
Number of Subcommittees: 7 Subcommittees
Pre-Adjudication
Committee
Representation Committee
Courts Committee
Post-Adjudication
Committee
Client Committee
Community
Resources Committee
Juvenile
Disproportionate Minority Confinement Committee
Chair/Co-Chairs:
Methods
Used: Methods include public
hearings as well as research related to both adult and juvenile justice issues.
Research related to the adult criminal justice system was conducted using
several methods:
1. Subcommittee research
and reports,
2. Statistical
research by the Social Research Institute, and
3. Perception research by the Social Research Institute.
Research related to the juvenile justice
system was conducted via a contract with the
Topics and Recommendations
Perception
Findings
1. Task Force members were told that many in the minority community
believe that there is widespread racial and ethnic discrimination within the justice
system, and that this is a deeply held belief.
2. Even if actual bias cannot be shown to exist,
the perception of bias in Utah’s criminal and juvenile justice system
constitutes a public relations problem, where the system’s efforts to provide
equal justice are at best unacknowledged, and at worst, subverted by inaccurate
perceptions.
Attorneys,
Judges, and Court Staff
Findings
1. The Woolf report on
the attorney and judges interviews found that the attorneys tended to believe
that “racism is pervasive in the justice system, and is often subtle, denied,
or hidden,” whereas the judges revealed the stated ethos that “courts are fair
to minorities, and the contradictory views of various other groups are only
perceptions and alternative perspectives that may be understandable, but
contrast with reality as they see it.”
Access
Findings
1. At present, law enforcement agencies are not prepared for or capable of
taking care of non-English speaking citizens adequately.
2. The problem of competent interpreters as it now exists will be compounded by the continued growth of non-English speaking minorities.
3. The lack of interpreters and the quality of interpreting result in injustice for some limited-English proficient minorities.
4. There are not enough interpreters available in a sufficient number of
languages, especially outside of the
5. Court employees frequently lack an appreciation of the important role of court interpreters.
6. Interpreters are often not available to law enforcement and other agencies outside of the court system.
7. Non-English speaking parents who don’t receive adequate understanding
of the charges and/or sentencing are hampered in helping their child be
successful either through the court process or post-adjudication. (See also
Juvenile Justice, Finding #4)
8. The Community Resources Committee found that language barriers
impede access to services, as in-patient treatment programs do not exist in
9. The community program administrator survey results stated that 55% of the agencies responding reported that interpreting services were available to “anyone” who needed them, 25% stated that they were available to “most” clients, and 10% provided interpreting services for “some” clients. No agencies reported that interpreting services were “not available at all.”
10. Major concerns in the public hearings regarding interpreters were the “important distinction between bilingual and bicultural interpreters … the lack of qualified interpreters, and the reluctance of police and courts to make any special accommodations when defendants were clearly having communication problems.”
11. Pre-sentence reports written via an interpreter are often shorter and with fewer “collateral contacts” than those where an interpreter is not needed.
12. It is often the case that an interpreter will hear several paragraphs of dialogue from a defendant, and then respond to the investigator with a few short sentences.
Recommendations
1. Judges should receive training on the level of reliability of
psychological evaluation results in cases where the mental health practitioner
does not speak the same language as the client/defendant, does not have an
understanding of the defendant’s culture, and in cases where an interpreter is
used for the evaluation. (See also Education: Judges, Recommendation #2)
2. All law enforcement agencies should ensure effective interpreter
services at arrest, booking, and at the complaint process. Strategies should
include:
• Development
of minimal interpreter standards
• Utilization
of the AT&T Language Line
• Language
training opportunities for law enforcement, including tuition awards and
in-house training
• Use of volunteers to provide assistance with both knowledge of language and culture
3. The public and Bar should be provided with easily retrievable
information on individual rights to an interpreter and the availability of
interpreter services. Strategies should include:
• Bar and
Court web sites, and
• Audiovisual
and pamphlet materials available in multiple languages.
4. The court interpreter certification program should be strengthened
and expanded to ensure quality interpretation for all those appearing in court
proceedings. Strategies should include:
• Employing
a full time administrator, including local managers, as appropriate,
• Employing
full time interpreters as court employees, where appropriate,
• Establishing
guidelines for contract interpreter selection,
• Monitoring
needs requirements for additional language interpreters and certification
testing,
• Establishing
and maintaining a code of professional responsibility, discipline, and
grievance procedure, and
• Conducting
a concerted effort to recruit skilled interpreters so that a high probability
exists that a certified interpreter will always be used.
5. Interpreters should be proficiently bilingual and culturally competent
to provide the proper language and dialect to an individual before the court.
More minorities should be recruited to serve as interpreters.
6. Non-interpreter court employees who have bilingual skills and use those skills as a part of their job duties should be acknowledged through increasing starting salary levels and/or appropriate pay increases.
7. The Judicial Council should assign the responsibility to the Court Interpreter Advisory Committee of conducting a feasibility study to evaluate the need, viability, and placement of a centralized authority for overseeing the administration of certification and delivery of interpreter services for all criminal and juvenile justice agencies.
8. Judges must assume responsibility in
determining that the race, ethnicity or primary language of defendants,
witnesses, victims, and counsel do not affect the ability of individual jurors
to be impartial and should instruct court participants on the role of the
interpreter (including the administration of the oath in open court).
Juries
Recommendations
1. Judges should receive training on the rights
of individuals to serve on juries and defendants to have a jury that reflects a
cross section of the community. (See also Education: Judges, Recommendation #4)
Courtroom Experience
Quality of Legal
Representation
Findings
1. The public hearings noted a “lack of professional standards of
representation” as well as an “unavailability to minorities of private
attorneys due to unaffordability, and the
unavailability of interest and concern from public defenders. Two separate
forms of unfairness were thus coupled and intensified: unfairness due to low
economic status, and unfairness due to the apparent lack of interest in the
fate of minorities in the current public defender system
2. Because minority youth are often from lower-income families, they may have inadequate representation in court. According to staff, such legal representation results in more severe dispositions for minority youth. (See also Juvenile Justice, Finding #5)
3. The impact of a lack of resources on rural public
defenders points to a disparate impact upon the adequate representation of
racial and ethnic minorities because the percentage of minorities in several
rural counties is higher than that of the state as a whole.
Recommendations
1. Public defender contracts should be awarded to attorneys who have
experience and competency in criminal law.
2. Law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges should not be decision makers
in the award of public defender contracts. Input from others should be sought
by those who decide the awards.
3. The budget for appointed attorneys should be separate from the budget for county prosecutors. Since funding a public defender office with funds from the prosecutor office budget can create the appearance of a conflict of interest, local governments should ensure that the budgets are separate.
4. Public defender and prosecutor caseloads should be lightened so as to allow more attention to individual cases.
5. Comparable pay for comparable experience should be given to public defenders and prosecutors so that lateral transfers within the system are possible.
6. Public defenders and all criminal defense attorneys should provide their clients with referrals to other agencies that can assist in resolving problems that are not legal in nature and thus outside the expertise of the attorneys.
7. The Legislature, county and local governments
should provide additional financial resources to bring all prosecutor and legal
defense offices up to the equivalent provided to the Salt Lake District
Attorney’s Office and the Salt Lake Legal Defender’s Association.
Legal Profession
Recruitment/Acceptance
to
Recommendations
1. The
2. The
• Social events and educational programs
• Law school programs
• Internships
• Scholarships
•
Findings
1. Racial and ethnic minorities are adequately represented, if not
over-represented, in some legal defense offices and severely under-represented
in others.
2. Racial and ethnic minorities are under-represented in the offices
of county prosecutors throughout
3. Racial and ethnic minorities are under-represented in the
officials/administrator category for county prosecutor and legal defense
offices throughout the state.
4. The Juvenile Disproportionate Minority Confinement Committee found that “the racial and ethnic composition of juvenile public defenders is predominately white, non-Hispanic attorneys.”
Recommendations
1. The State Bar should encourage Utah women of color to participate in
bar activities, and coordinate efforts of Young Lawyers of Utah, Women Lawyers
of Utah, Bar and Utah Minority Bar Association to increase the number of
minority lawyers and their participation in bar activities.
2. Pay specific attention to expanding
recruiting efforts in order to increase the racial/ethnic representativeness of
legal workforces, especially in rural counties and counties where the percentage
of minorities in the county population exceeds that of overall
Education
Recommendations
1. The Judicial Council should ensure that all judges (at all levels of
court) and relevant court personnel receive regular training on the appropriate
use of interpreters in the courtroom. (See also Education: Court Staff,
Recommendation #1)
2. Judges should receive training on the level of reliability of psychological evaluation results in cases where the mental health practitioner does not speak the same language as the client/defendant, does not have an understanding of the defendant’s culture, and in cases where an interpreter is used for the evaluation. (See also Access: Language, Recommendation #1)
3. Mandatory cultural diversity training should address the specific needs of court employees, including judges. The training should focus on cultural competency, not only awareness and sensitivity. The Administrative Office of the Courts should create a curriculum for court employees, including judges. Upon completion of the curriculum, the Administrative Office of the Courts should report to the Judicial Council on the status and implementation of its curriculum. (See also Education: Court Staff, Recommendation #2)
4. Judges should receive training on the rights of individuals to serve on
juries and defendants to have a jury that reflects a cross section of the
community. (See also Juries: Selection, Recommendation #1)
5. Require judges to undergo personal training
when the Judicial Conduct Commission finds evidence supporting a complaint
related to racial and ethnic bias.
Recommendations
1. The Judicial Council should ensure that all judges (at all levels of
court) and relevant court personnel receive regular training on the appropriate
use of interpreters in the courtroom. (See also Education: Judges,
Recommendation #1)
2. Mandatory cultural diversity training should address the specific needs
of court employees, including judges. The training should focus on cultural
competency, not only awareness and sensitivity. The Administrative Office of
the Courts should create a curriculum for court employees, including judges.
Upon completion of the curriculum, the Administrative Office of the Courts
should report to the Judicial Council on the status and implementation of its
curriculum. (See also Education: Judges, Recommendation #3)
3. The Task Force suggests coordinating the establishment of a clearinghouse for curricula and
resources on diversity issues. It should be developed through enlistment of
various national and local resources and databases. The names of local diversity trainers should
be made available through this clearinghouse, as well as national speakers for
conferences and special events. All of this information should be available via
a website for statewide access by agencies across the state.
4. Conduct training on the nature and impact of racial and ethnic
bias in ways that goes beyond cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity
training and includes a personal assessment and personal coaching when
necessary. For example, a racial bias indicator survey would assist employees
in understanding their own personal biases in a non-threatening way.
5. Make a half-day training on racial and ethnic issues part of the court clerks’ career track. This training should be geared specifically to how clerks deal with minority litigants and other court patrons.
6. Offer cultural diversity training both in new employee orientations and ongoing education programs.
7. Provide opportunities and encourage staff to
learn needed second language skills.
Findings
1. The Juvenile Disproportionate Minority
Confinement Committee states, “[t]here is no systemic continuing education
training on cultural issues nor any cultural competency requirements for public
defense attorneys in the juvenile justice system.”
Recommendations
1. The
2. The
3. The Task
Force suggests sponsoring training for law
enforcement and prosecutors on recognizing, reporting, investigating, and
prosecuting hate crimes as well as general awareness training about needs of
hate crimes victims and diverse groups in
Findings
1. The Pre-Adjudication Committee found that Peace Officers Standards and
Training (POST), “offers an initial training on issues of diversity in its
basic training. While the training is of high quality, the time allotted is
insufficient to address the needs of racial and ethnic communities in
2. The Community Resources Committee’s recommendation for “regular
cultural awareness training for all employees” within community resource
programs stems from research completed by the Social Research Institute (SRI). A
survey of program administrators demonstrated that approximately 50% had a
written policy requiring cultural sensitivity training. Only 19% reported that
such training was required on an annual basis.
3. There is a significant need for public education about the juvenile
justice system. Public hearings demonstrated that many of the
participants, whether of minority backgrounds or not, had insufficient
knowledge about how the system is supposed to work.
4. People seemed to lack information about how to access the system, either to participate in it or to file a complaint against it.
5. Judges’ interviews showed that judges placed more onus for facilitating change on minorities themselves, rather than the legal system. For example, judges emphasized that the problem was often the lack of understanding of the system by minorities, rather than resistance from the system itself.
6. Staff at community programs also observed
that education about the justice system was lacking for many minorities and
that not understanding the laws and cultural norms of
Recommendations
1. Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) certified officers should
be required to complete a minimum of four (4) hours per year of diversity
training, as part of its forty hour (40) continuing education requirement.
2. Law enforcement diversity training should be non-repetitive and
offer a variety of lesson plans throughout the year, such as:
• Race Versus Culture
• Hate Groups and Hate Crimes
• Gender as a Unique Cultural Heritage
• Domestic Violence Training
• Sexual Harassment on the Force
• Rape Survivor Awareness
• Understanding One’s Own Biases
• Consequences for Racial Bias on the Job: Can I
Be Sued?
3. Cultural diversity training should address the specific needs of
law enforcement. This training should focus on cultural competency, not only
awareness and sensitivity. It should provide opportunities for various ethnic
groups to teach officers about the culture. The Utah Chiefs of Police
Association, Utah Sheriffs’ Association, and Peace Officer Standards and
Training (POST), should create a curriculum for law enforcement.
4. Upcoming annual conferences for chiefs and sheriffs should have
diversity issues as a main focus.
5. Administrative personnel, including chiefs and sheriffs, should be
required to complete additional training, at least yearly, regarding issues
related to managing a diverse workforce.
6. The State Office of Education, via their “Prevention Dimensions”
K-12 curriculum, should take a leadership role in partnering with the courts,
state government, local government, legal organizations, and community groups,
to teach the community and students about respect for different cultures,
tolerance of difference, and understanding about what constitutes a hate crime.
7. The Judicial Council’s Public Outreach Committee should take the lead in helping communities to understand the court process by considering implementation of the following: civics classes for minority communities, tours of the courts for schools and youth clubs, Meet the Judges nights, and having a Court - Community Outreach effort to link the courts and the public.
8. All elements of the criminal and juvenile justice system should
collaborate to provide the public and schools with information to better
understand our law enforcement and justice system in order to enhance public
trust and confidence. This should include:
• Law
enforcement complaint process
• Judicial
complaint process
• Other
employee complaint processes
• Annual
report on minority bar
• Web
site information on minority bar and judges, to include tribal courts
9. Offer tuition scholarships for minority
students to attend educational programs within the criminal and juvenile
justice system, sponsored by community organizations and businesses.
Criminal Justice
Findings
1. Minorities are disproportionately represented at each stage of the
justice system. Importantly, overrepresentation increases incrementally as one
progresses through the system, resulting in greater disproportionality
at incarceration than at arrest. (See also Criminal Justice: Incarceration,
Finding #1)
2. A lack of racial and ethnic diversity in law enforcement can
amplify disparate treatment by race/ethnicity. However, Committee members
recognize that most
3. Most law enforcement agencies in the sample do not track the racial composition of their applicant pool.
4. Using data provide by the Salt Lake City Police Department, within the
protective service category of employment, in which officers are included, only
the Native American community is underrepresented.
5. During the public hearings profiling was described as part of the normal, everyday experience of minority life, regardless of social standing or position. Many people indicated that profiling has increased in recent years, and most have accepted profiling as a part of life that must be endured.
6. Attorneys expressed a strong belief that racial profiling by the police was standard operating procedure.
7. Community members claimed they could prove the existence of profiling based on their personal experiences. They could not. Certain law enforcement agencies claimed they could prove that racial profiling did not exist based on their existing databases. They could not.
Recommendations
1. Law enforcement agencies and Peace Officer Standards and Training
(POST) should make efforts to have a workforce that is reflective of the
diversity of the population they serve (including racial, ethnic, cultural, and
language diversity). Recruitment efforts should target local high schools,
community colleges, ethnic community organizations and ethnic media to
encourage minority youth into law enforcement careers.
2. Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) and individual law
enforcement agencies should adopt a proven evaluation instrument that can help
screen all applicants for predisposition towards racial or ethnic biased
behaviors. The tool should be an indicator of possible future job performance
and not simply a measure of personal beliefs.
3. Law enforcement administrators and directors should not tolerate
police officer conduct in decision making at any level based solely on race or
ethnicity.
4. Law enforcement agencies should adopt a written policy that
prohibits the stopping, detention, or search of any person when the action is
solely motivated by consideration of race, color, ethnicity, age or gender and
would constitute a violation of the civil rights of that person.
5. Law enforcement agencies should seek funding
necessary to install video cameras with audio capability to be used in patrol
vehicles and micro-cassette recorders to be utilized on citizen contacts away
from the patrol vehicle in order to ensure against profiling based on race and
ethnicity.
Findings
1. Pre-Sentence investigation workers lack specific training regarding
racial and ethnic bias.
2. Historically, pre-sentence reports began with the identification of the defendant and victim by race.
3. The lack of adequate workforce diversity of pre-sentence investigators yields the potential for less cross cultural experience and thus the possibility of bias.
4. The effect of the defendant feeling mistrust for the investigator could have an effect on the report because much of the content of the interview depends on the defendant’s willingness to reveal his or her personal history. That is, perhaps a defendant of a certain ethnicity does not trust an investigator and so withholds the information. This could hurt the defendant’s sentencing outcome to some degree.
5. Since judges tend to follow the recommendations of the pre-sentence report approximately 90 percent of the time, the Task Force sees this process as critical to ensuring racial and ethnic fairness in sentencing.
6. All of the 18 pre-sentence investigators at SL County Adult Probation & Parole (AP&P) were white. This lack of ethnic representation may be one reason that there is more disagreement between PSI recommendations, sentencing guidelines, and the actual sentence for minorities than Whites.
Recommendations
1. Pre-Sentence investigators should receive training on the importance of
adhering to sentencing guidelines and their affirmative duty to justify
departures with specificity.
2. In order to develop race-neutral release policies,
3. The pre-sentence report header should not include any information
on race/ethnicity of the accused and victims. At no time should race or
ethnicity be considered in the pre-sentence evaluation, except when that
information is an integral component to the pre-sentence evaluation, such as
police report descriptions or in hate crimes. The data, however, should be
collected and maintained separately and electronically if possible.
4. Court ordered psychological evaluations
(i.e., those completed by Pre-Trial Services, Department of Human Services
competency evaluations, in conjunction with Adult Probation and Parole
presentence investigations, the mental health component of diagnostic
evaluations, Adult Compliance and Education Center, community based treatment
program mental health evaluations) should be conducted by skilled practitioners.
Practitioners should strive for linguistic and cultural similarity with their
clients. At a minimum, practitioners should demonstrate a basic understanding
of their client’s cultural background in order to account for the significant
influences of race and ethnicity upon the accuracy of the evaluations.
Findings
1. There is very little racial and ethnic diversity among those involved in the sentencing process, with the exception of defendants. Committee members believe that this lack of workforce diversity in this segment could lead to unintentional biases in the sentencing process due to a lack of cross cultural experience of those in decision making roles.
Recommendations
1. The court and counsel should, as a matter of policy, warn defendants,
who agree to deportation as a condition of the sentence, of the harsh
consequences under federal law for violating the condition not to return to the
2. Individual judges, at all levels of the courts, and members of the Board of Pardons and Parole should conduct a heightened examination of the sentences they impose to determine whether or not they have, perhaps unintentionally, allowed racism to cloud their judgments.
3. Upward departure recommendations on
pre-sentence investigations should, by policy, require review by a
supervisor. Records shall be kept in a
searchable form of all approvals for upward departures.
Findings
1. Minorities are disproportionately represented
at each stage of the justice system. Importantly, overrepresentation increases
incrementally as one progresses through the system, resulting in greater disproportionality at incarceration than at arrest. (See
also Criminal Justice: Arrests, Finding #1)
Recommendations
1. Provide correctional staff with training on issues relating to
diverse religious practices and the rights of inmates. The Department of
Corrections should work with religious groups, including tribal members, to
coordinate religious practices and ensure that religious practices in the
prison are respected.
2. Training on the nature and impact of racial
and ethnic bias within the system should be mandatory for Department of
Corrections and Board of Pardons and Parole employees, including pre-sentence
investigators (staff and contract). Mandatory training should include
communication skills and the minority defendant. This training should assist
employees in understanding different cultures.
Court as Employer/Appointer
Findings
1. Particular problems may exist within certain agencies that make it
difficult for them to maintain adequate staff employment levels let alone bring
on new persons so as to achieve racial and ethnic diversity. While an agency
may aspire to a diverse workforce, achieving that goal may be problematic due
to issues such as starting salaries and professional certification requirements.
2. While results from individual segments of the justice system vary in
their inclusion of minorities, the criminal and juvenile justice system
workforce as a whole is not representative of the
3. Perception data corroborates the need for workforce diversity as well, showing that both the public and participants within the system (e.g., judges, attorneys, community program staff) believe that increased workforce diversity would help alleviate problems and potential problems related to racial and ethnic bias.
4. In addition to workforce composition issues, there is the issue of recruitment of minorities to positions in the justice system. In most instances, the criminal and juvenile justice system as a whole does not make an active, concerted effort to recruit, hire, retain, and promote minorities. A common response to Task Force inquiries about minority hiring rates was simply that minorities choose not to apply for available positions.
5. A Third District Court utilization analysis from October 1999 shows
that compared to the
6. Regarding recruiting, the Courts Committee found that efforts utilizing
ethnic media are needed to increase the efforts to diversify the workforce.
Further, “the Courts have begun an attempt to advertise in
7. Concerning the Department of Corrections, the
Committee stated that the statistics show “a workforce which is roughly
representative of the workforce diversity in
Recommendations
1. Agencies in the state of
2. The judiciary and the legal community as a whole should enhance their current minority recruitment efforts and work with minority communities to attract a larger pool of qualified minority applicants.
3. All county commissions awarding legal defender contracts in
4. The Administrative Office of the Courts should conduct an examination of the racial and ethnic diversity of the courts workforce by judicial district to ensure progress in the goal of increasing workforce diversity. This examination should occur at least annually.
5. Judges should consider the importance of diversity on the bar and bench
in the hiring of law clerks.
6. The workforce of Adult Probation and Parole and the Utah
Department of Corrections should establish policies and practices to increase
their ability to recruit minority applicants. Hiring practices should be
evaluated for their effect on minority applicants. Corrections should seek
minority employees actively as new hires or on a contract basis, such as for
pre-sentence investigators.
7. The State Office of Education should consider the following as
strategies to assist in developing the pool of qualified minority applicants
for criminal and juvenile justice careers:
• A
pilot criminal and juvenile justice academy/magnet school at the high school
level that focuses on the many career opportunities in the criminal and
juvenile justice system
• Incorporating
criminal and juvenile justice issues into the high school curriculum
8. The Judicial Council should request annual reports from the Administrative Office of the Courts and the Utah State Bar outlining their progress in implementation of court workforce recommendations.
9. Emphasize the following in recruiting efforts:
• Seek
qualified minorities,
• Seek
those who speak languages other than English,
• Utilize
ethnic media sources, minority organizations, and other outreach avenues in
advertising workforce openings.
10. Examine hiring practices for subtle and overt biases against women of
color in state agencies and legal organizations.
11. Create a Diversity Advisory Group, to meet
regularly to discuss issues of diversity in the workplace. Diversity should
include issues related to race and ethnicity but may also include issues
related to gender, disability, and other diversity issues. The group should
collect data on workforce diversity issues, such as recruitment, hiring,
retention, termination, pay and workforce environment. It should create and
implement a diversity improvement plan to address these issues.
Findings
1. The Courts Committee found that “[o]f the 106 active judgeships in the
Utah State Courts, six or 5.7 percent of the judges are minority, which is not
representative of the level of diversity in
2. With the recent change to civil and criminal divisions in the Salt Lake City District Court, the Third Judicial District now has only one minority judicial representative who handles criminal matters.
Recommendations
1. The governor should ensure that every judicial nominating commission
has a racially diverse membership.
2. The judicial nominating commissions and governor should adopt a policy
that expressly recognizes the importance of racial and ethnic diversity in the
nomination and appointment of judges.
3. The Judicial Council, as part of the justice court certification
process, should ensure that all judicial appointing authorities (city
council/county government) recognize the importance of cultural diversity in
the workplace and should have in place recruiting processes that result in diverse
applicant pools. Further, the appointing authority, should retain data relating
to the race and ethnic background of applicants for the judicial vacancy for
examination by the Judicial Council to monitor compliance with this position.
4. Minority organizations, including the Utah
Minority Bar Association, should anticipate judicial vacancies, encourage
minority lawyers to apply and participate directly in the nominating commission
and selection processes.
Findings
1. Statewide juvenile court data were provided to the Task Force
demonstrating that as of March 2000 the workforce of the Juvenile Court in
2. The Social Research Institute also completed a study of the juvenile
justice system in
3. Youth who participated in SRI’s juvenile justice focus groups felt that, “the attitudes and behaviors of professionals in the system subject them to racial bias.”
4. Non-English speaking parents who don’t receive adequate understanding of the charges and/or sentencing are hampered in helping their child be successful either through the court process or post-adjudication. (See also Access: Language, Finding #7)
5. Because minority youth are often from lower-income families, they may have inadequate representation in court. According to staff, such legal representation results in more severe dispositions for minority youth. (See also Courtroom Environment: Quality of Legal Representation, Finding #2)
Recommendations
1. The Juvenile Courts and the Division of Youth Corrections, including
their contract service providers, should establish policies and practices to
increase their ability to recruit minority applicants.
2. Minority communities should organize support groups to develop
intervention and mentor/role model programs for high risk youth.
3. Criminal and juvenile justice entities should establish and
maintain ongoing partnerships with community institutions from local
government, to civic groups, to religious organizations, to local leaders in
order to best meet the community’s needs.
4. Juvenile justice system services should be provided to the entire family to insure that family issues that may contribute to delinquent behavior are addressed as well as those of the minor.
5. The Juvenile Court, and its attendant services, such as probation, should expand its operating hours to accommodate work responsibilities of many parents of court clients.
6. Advocate positions should be created by the Utah State Courts as a means of helping individuals and families through the court process. The availability of an advocate who is knowledgeable about the system, has a bi/multi-lingual capability, and has demonstrated cross-cultural skills would create a perception of a friendlier and more caring system.
7. Community based organizations that are engaged in intervention projects targeting minority youth should utilize existing research on reducing risk and enhancing strengths (i.e., the Hawkins Catalano Communities that Care Model, Search Institute Asset-Building Model) in their program development efforts.
8. The Division of Youth Corrections should include cultural competency as one criteria in its review of contract treatment programs. The ability to serve clients and families whose first language is not English should also be considered.
9. Treatment programs need to improve their
content to recognize that cultural and ethnic differences exist and adjust the
program content to better serve the needs of all clients served. Culturally and
ethnically appropriate mentor programs should be designed and implemented.
Findings
1. There is a widespread perception in the minority community that the complaint process system is ineffective