JUVENILE JUSTICE SUBCOMMITTEE

This subcommittee has already published one North Carolina specific report with funding from the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission. Dr. Susan McCarter at the University of North Carolina Charlotte completed “The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Implications for North Carolina Schools and Students” in June of 2013.  Prior to publishing her report, Dr. McCarter produced a short document “School-to-Prison Pipeline—A Primer” to help Commission members who were unfamiliar with juvenile justice terminology.

This effort was the first of its kind in North Carolina. The report defines pertinent North Carolinian processes and policies, such as how a student is referred to the courts from school, the types and number of yearlong mandatory suspensions, and how the state age of majority (16) affects statistics on school disciplinary procedures. Furthermore, the report collects nationwide data and examines what data is available in North Carolina. Dr. McCarter also suggests ways to improve the available statewide dataset. The report documents disturbing national statistics, such as the fact that African-American students are three times as likely to be suspended and three and half times as likely to be expelled, and Latino students are one and half times as likely to be suspended and three and half times as likely to be expelled, as compared to white students. Most often when students are suspended it is at the discretion of school personnel rather than for behavior that mandates a suspension or expulsion. And, of the students who have been suspended or expelled at least once, more than 1 in 7 had subsequent contact with the juvenile justice system.

To address these issues, key stakeholders were recruited for the Juvenile Justice Subcommittee and first met as a group October 8, 2013. The subcommittee includes a District Attorney, District Court Judge, Public Defender, a representative from the Attorney General’s office, an attorney at Advocates for Children’s Services of Legal Aid of North Carolina, the Director of Court Services for the Division of Adult Corrections and Juvenile Justice, and two research professors from University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Chapel Hill. The Subcommittee is currently applying for funding for the fiscal year 2014-2015.