1. Case of the Day
D.C. et al. v . School District of Philadelphia, 444 C.D (March 2, 2005, Ordered July 20, 2005)
§ of Public School Code prohibits return to classroom of students who have been placed in juvenile corrections, or who have been convicted in criminal court.
Sent first to a transition program and then to one of four “alternative education programs”
Possible to return to original classroom if offense was non-violent, no weapon used, or not a drug offense

2. School District Defense
Student Claims
Due process violation (US Constitution)
This is a disciplinary transfer, subject to procedural safeguards
Creates an irrebuttable presumption of future misconduct
Equal protection (PA Constitution)
School District Defense
Disruptive and violent students have a deleterious effect on education process and pose threat to other students
No equal protection violation because students’ right to ‘reputation’ did not involve a property interest
No due process violation because students had already been removed from school by juvenile court, return is an administrative and not a punitive mechanism, court already protected and observed their procedural rights
Trial Court found for the School District, pretty much across the board
Students appealed

3. Appellate Court reversed
Special legislation targeting Philadelphia did not create a subclass, even though there are other school districts with higher delinquency rates, scale of Philadelphia problem ( students per year) makes reasonable the creation of a formal transition program
But the transfer procedure itself carries the stigma of punishment, and therefore due process safeguards are warranted. Delinquency hearing addresses fact finding at time of the committing offense (which could have been years ago), it does not address fitness to return to school following a possibly successful stay in a juvenile corrections setting
Full protection requires a “stigma plus” test (p. 13, see Paul), and transfer procedure damages students’ reputation among other teachers and students, and could ‘interfere with later opportunities for work or higher education’

4. Court upheld claim of irrebuttable presumption of future dangerousness based on extension of delinquency adjudication to label of ‘disruptive’ or ‘dangerous’ (citing Nixon)
Overrides a rational basis test (can’t exclude returnees without claiming that they will harm other students if allowed to return, and then say it’s only administrative)
Indeed, statute prohibits any future return to classroom for some students
Transfer procedure is punitive in nature in that it labels students as disruptive by no standard other than the prior adjudication
Court notes that due process claims embrace equal protection claims, Court does not take a separate position on this
District has no compelling interest to remove students without procedural safeguards

5. Issues Student safety versus student rights
Future criminality ? What do age, trajectory and other criminological data show? Recidivism?
Court’s sensitivity to stigma and future impact of labels from ‘disciplinary’ matters
A criminological fact – exclusion and stigma mortgage future success
Why only Philadelphia schools? Is it really only about size? What else might have animated the legislators to authorize this in “First Class” districts (large districts)?

6. Patterns and Explanations of Juvenile Crime: Gender and Race
Class 3

7. Race and Crime
As best we understand, juvenile involvement in crime by race has been generally consistent over the past several decades
BUT homicide and injury data show that racial gap in violence has widened dramatically since 1985 and narrowed slowly as juvenile crime has declined
Gaps by race in arrest and incarceration have widened
Crime type distribution the same for whites and non-whites
Validity of different measures of race-specific crime is questionable (Lauristen chapter)

8. Base Rates by Race
White youth were arrested for 72% of juvenile crime and made up 79% of the youth population.
Black youth were arrested for 25% of juvenile crime and made up 16% of the youth population.
American Indian youth composed 1% of the juvenile population and were arrested for 1% of the crime.
Youth of Asian descent composed 4% of the juvenile population and were arrested for 2% of the crime.
(Source: Juvenile Offenders and Victims, 1999)

9. Differences by Race in Arrests
DUI
Gambling
Violence
Weapons
White
92%
16%
57%
68%
African American 5%
81%
41%
30%
(Source: Juvenile Offenders and Victims, 1999)

10. Race and Crime (continued)
Mortality and injury are greater for non-whites
Rates are confounded with social contexts of family and neighborhood … over 60% of effects of individual factors (demographics, family, etc.) disappear when controlling for neighborhood
Are there differences in desistance patterns, and therefore predictions of future offending?
Systemic preferences may contribute to crime, especially if we think that “labeling or secondary deviance” is a part of the developmental process (profiling, incarceration)
Are juv/adult differences the same as for nonwhite and whites?

11. Incarceration Disparities
Human Rights Watch (2002) Report (
In six states, black youth under age eighteen are incarcerated in adult facilities at rates between twelve and twenty-five times greater than those of white youth
Hispanic youth are incarcerated at rates seven to seventeen times greater than those of whites in Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, while the incarceration rate for black youth is between twelve and twenty-five times greater than those of whites in Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Massachusetts, Montana, and New Jersey. .

12. Sources of Disparities
Little disparity in later stages of criminal justice processes by race
Sentencing
Waiver to criminal court
Most of the impact of race occurs at the front end … arrest, initial disposition of arrest, and most important, detention
Detention outcome is strongest predictor of case outcome and sentencing
Impact of detention on future crime, work, marriage (longitudinal studies) – mortgaging effects

14. Georgia Detention Screening Instrument
Georgia Screening.ppt

15. Gender and Crime – Base Rates
Fewer juvenile females than males commit crimes
Females account for about 27% of juvenile arrests
Highest Arrest Rates for females were for:
Prostitution/commercialized vice arrests (54% of juvenile arrests in 2000)
Embezzlement arrests (48%)
Theft (37%)
Juvenile females were least involved in:
Rape (1%)
Sex offense (excluding rape and prostitution) (7%)
Gambling (4%)
Robbery (9%)
The arrest rate among young women did not experience the peak and fall that characterized male juvenile arrests during the ’90s. Female juvenile arrest rates instead experienced twenty years of steady (though slower) growth.

16. Gender Differences
How do factors that explain female delinquency differ from males?
Is there a unique developmental trajectory for girls?
Base rates are lower, especially for serious violence
Are trajectories the same over time? Is the age curve different?
Etiological factors unique or shared? (e.g., sexual abuse)
Peer and social contexts (gangs, for example)
Social control differences (power-control theory)?

17. Systemic Responses to Girls
Does JJS regard female law violation as more or less serious? Especially aggression?
Limited capacity (size, types of placements)
Incarcerated girls have far more extensive offending histories than incarcerated males
More likely to have serious (diagnosable) mental health problems?

18. Interaction of Context and Development among Girls
“The impact of menarcheal timing on female delinquency was moderated by the sex composition of schools; early-maturing girls in mixed-sex settings were at greatest risk for delinquency. Individual differences in delinquency were also significantly more stable among girls in mixed-sex schools than among those in all-girl schools” (Caspi et al., 1993)