Voices for Children recently released a data snapshot focused on the disparities among races and ethnicities of kids who enter the juvenile justice system and the outcomes they face.
Aubrey Mancuso, Executive Director of Voices for Children says the data indicate that African American kids are more likely to end up in the deeper end of the system, like youth rehabilitation or treatment centers as well as detention.
She says interactions with the juvenile justice system often means kids are more likely to have issues with the criminal justice system as an adult.
Mancuso says the state needs to offer schools supportive and behavioral preventions to avoid using the criminal justice system for school-based issues…
"Secondly, we need to think about how we are tracking accountability on a statewide level for reducing these disparities. There used to be an entity at the state level charged with that. But Nebraska has recently decided not to accept the federal funding to continue tracking these issues so I think there needs to be someone overseeing progress."
Mancuso says we also need to ensure all of the actors in juvenile justice system trained in implicit bias and the role it can play in influencing how kids are faring in our system.
To view the data snapshot, the website is Voicesforchildren.com/issue-briefs