LADY JUSTICE TILTS SCALES AGAINST MINORITY JUVENILES

The test of our juvenile justice system is whether we believe it would
be fair to our own children.

If white parents learned that their teenagers were 48 times more
likely to go to juvenile prison for a first-time drug offense than
black kids, the Gold Dome would literally tremble with their angry
shouts and calls for reform.

Instead, the Gold Dome is silent. Because according to a new national
report, it's not white parents who live with this outrage. It's black
parents.

So when our overwhelmingly white Legislature demands tougher penalties
for youthful offenders, its members are really talking about somebody
else's kids. They know that if their own son makes a mistake --- as
children of all races are prone to do --- they can tell the boy to
slick down his hair and apologize nicely to the judge, then get home
in time to watch "The Simpsons."

"And Justice for Some," released Tuesday and sponsored by the U.S.
Justice Department and six major research foundations, reviewed all
phases of the nation's juvenile justice system --- from arrest to
sentencing --- and found that minority youth face more severe
treatment at virtually every turn.

This report ought to lead Georgia to re-examine each and every step of
its juvenile justice system, starting with a child's first brush with
police. Because each encounter with the system ought to be an
opportunity to save kids rather than shape them into career criminals.

That's what treating kids like adults ultimately does. As research in
several states shows, kids whose cases are transferred to adult courts
come out of jail committing more and worse crimes than those who did
similar crimes but remained in the juvenile system.

Our blood lust has overcome our reason, explaining why juvenile jail
populations nationally have gone up even as the number of juvenile
arrests has fallen.

"These disparities accumulate, and they make it hard for members of
the minority community to complete their education, get jobs and be
good husbands and fathers,'' says Mark Soler, president of the Youth
Law Center, a research and advocacy group in Washington devoted to
reforming juvenile justice and an organizer of the research project.

Soler also notes that while many white parents may be able to afford
better lawyers to represent their kids in court, economics cannot
explain away all the dramatic disparities.

The national data reveal a system in which children can expect to
endure harsher outcomes if they're black or Latino. For example,
African-American children with no previous time in a juvenile facility
are locked up at six times the rate of white kids charged with similar
offenses. Looking only at drug cases, the admission rate of black kids
to juvenile detention centers is 48 times the rate for whites.

The gap continues once kids are jailed. African-American children are
incarcerated an average of 85 days longer than white youth, and
Latinos are incarcerated an average of more than 140 days longer than
white youth.

Orlando Martinez, Georgia's enlightened juvenile justice commissioner,
understands that most juvenile offenders belong in community programs,
not in jails that do nothing but hone their criminal acumen. But he's
had to battle hard-line legislators who couldn't care less that our
justice system marginalizes and disproportionately punishes minority
kids.

A fair system should regard each child as an individual. If children
break the law, they ought to suffer consequences appropriate to the
behavior. But there should not be consequences to simply being born
black or Hispanic.