Last updated: November 2014 www.ojjdp.gov/mpg

Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) 

The term Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) refers to rates of contact with the juvenile justice 

system among juveniles of a specific minority group that are significantly different from rates of 

contact for white non-Hispanic juveniles. Data has shown that youth of color are more likely than 

white youths to be arrested and subsequently go deeper into the juvenile justice system (e.g., 

Puzzanchera and Hockenberry 2013). For example, in examining placement in residential facilities for 

juvenile offenders in 2011, the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement showed a rate of 521 

African American youths in custody per 100,000 in the population, compared with 112 white youths 

per 100,000—a ratio of approximately 4.7 to 1.0 (Sickmund et al. 2013). Although not as stark, similar 

patterns of disproportionate contact with the juvenile justice system exist for Hispanic youth, 

American Indian youth, and smaller ethnic groups (Sickmund et al. 2013; Bishop 2005). DMC has 

been shown to be a problem in jurisdictions across the United States (Bishop 2005; Feyerherm, Cohen, 

Spinney, Yeide, and Stephenson 2010). 

Definitions 

Although racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system are not new, the terminology has 

changed over time. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) refers to racial 

and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system as disproportionate minority contact. DMC used to 

stand for disproportionate minority confinement. Confinement was changed to contact in 2002 because of 

disproportionality throughout all stages of the juvenile justice system (e.g., arrest, diversion, 

probation), and not only at confinement (OJJDP 2009b). 

The term minority overrepresentation was used more often when OJJDP concentrated primarily on 

disproportionate minority confinement and when DMC was measured using proportions (today it is 

measured using rates). Today, overrepresentation, although still used by some organizations, has been 

replaced by the terms disparity or disproportion since minority youth are often underrepresented in 

receiving more lenient outcomes such as diversion from court and probation placement after a finding 

of delinquency. The terms disproportionality and disparity are often used interchangeably to refer to 

rates of contact with any point of the juvenile justice system that are different for different races or 

ethnicities, regardless of the cause. 

Race and ethnicity are terms often used together (e.g., racial and ethnic disparities). Race tends to be 

associated with biology, whereas ethnicity is associated with culture (LiveScience 2012). OJJDP 

requires that states participating in the federal Formula Grant Program report racial and ethnic 

juvenile justice data using the following categories: White (Non-Hispanic), Black or African

 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 

Suggested Reference: Development Services Group, Inc. 2014. “Disproportionate Minority Contact.” Washington, D.C.: Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. https://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/litreviews/Disproportionate_Minority_Contact.pdf 

Prepared by Development Services Group, Inc., under cooperative agreement number 2013–JF–FX–K002. Points of view or 

opinions expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of 

OJJDP or the U.S. Department of Justice.

1 
American (Non-Hispanic), Hispanic or Latino, Asian (Non-Hispanic), Native Hawaiian or other Pacific 

Islander (Non-Hispanic), American Indian and Alaska Native (Non-Hispanic), and Other/Mixed.1

OJJDP defines minority as youth who are American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African 

American, Hispanic or Latino, or Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (OJJDP, N.d.a.). Other 

commonly used terms are non-white (e.g., Cheesman and Waters 2010; Guevara, Herz, and Spohn 2006) 

and youth of color (e.g, NCCD 2007; Burns Institute N.d.b.; Malesky 2014; Mendel 2014). 

Juvenile justice stages, contact points, or decision points are terms that are used to refer to different points 

where youth have contact” with the juvenile justice system. OJJDP mandates that states receiving 

Title II Formula Grant funding report on disproportionality or racial disparities for at least nine 

juvenile justice stages: arrest (law enforcement referral); referral to court; diversion; secure detention; 

petition filed (charged); adjudication (delinquent, guilty finding); probation supervision; secure 

confinement; and transfer to adult court (waiver). These three terms are often used interchangeably, 

but referring to these stages as decision points shifts more focus on the juvenile justice system 

stakeholders who determine whether the youths will become involved in the system at that point. 

Discrimination denotes between-group differences in outcomes based on the consideration of extralegal 

or illegitimate factors (Bishop 2005, 24–25). In other words, the terms discrimination and bias are used 

when the racial disparities appear to be caused by some intent on the part of the decision-maker (e.g., 

those who may be “racist” or who favor one racial or ethnic group over another), or when a system’s 

design puts minority youth at a disadvantage. Both individual and system bias can be intentional but 

are often unintentional or implicit (Goff et al. 2014; Gove 2011; Tomaskovic-Devey and Warren 2009; 

Hinton Hoytt et al. 2003). 

Federal Legislation 

Amendments to the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974, which 

established OJJDP to support local and state efforts to prevent delinquency and improve juvenile 

justice systems, provide direction on how states address DMC. The 1988 JJDP Act amendment 

contained a requirement that states address DMC (which at this point meant disproportionate 

minority confinement) in their state plans. 

In the 1992 amendment, the identification of DMC became a core requirement, tying state compliance 

to future funding through the Formula Grants Program (OJJDP, N.d.b). The JJDP Act, as amended in 

2002, modified the DMC requirement further to require that states participating in the Formula 

Grants Program “address juvenile delinquency prevention efforts and system improvement efforts 

designed to reduce, without establishing or requiring numerical standards or quotas, the 

disproportionate number of juvenile members of minority groups, who come into contact with the 

juvenile justice system” (Section 223(a)(22)). 

States participating in the Title II Formula Grant Program are required to submit data to OJJDP on the 

numbers of youth by race who come into contact with nine juvenile justice system stages statewide 

(mentioned previously), and for at least three targeted counties in the state. By collecting data at these 

stages, states can measure levels of disparity at each stage for each race in selected jurisdictions. They 

are also required to assess the contributing mechanisms to DMC in their state and have a plan to 

address these disparities. 

 

1 States are required to enter data into OJJDP’s DMC Web-based Data Entry System using these racial categories here: 

https://www.ojjdp.dmcdata.org/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f 

 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 2 
The OJJDP has outlined a five-stage process for states to follow to address DMC: 1) identify the extent 

to which DMC exists; 2) assess the reasons for DMC; 3) develop an intervention plan to address DMC; 

4) evaluate the effectiveness of interventions; and 5) monitor DMC trends (OJJDP N.d.a). 

Contributing Factors to DMC 

Often DMC is presented as being caused either by differential offending (i.e., youthsof color commit 

more crimes or commit more serious crimes) or differential treatment (i.e., the juvenile justice system 

treats youth of color differently). Differential offending is also referred to as differential involvement, 

and differential treatment is also referred to as differential selection or systems factors. These two 

theoretical frameworks have largely helped frame the discussions and studies of DMC to date (Bishop 

2005). 

The differential offending framework centers on the individual juvenile. This perspective requires 

that causes of differential involvement be sought outside the court system by looking at individual, 

family, and neighborhood factors that are related to offending (e.g., Piquero, Moffitt, and Lawton 

2005; Tracy 2005). For example, Fite, Wynn, and Pardini (2009) found that much of the difference in 

arrest rates between white and African American boys was because of higher levels of both individual 

and contextual risk factors for African American boys across multiple domains. 

The differential offending framework perspective and the related consensus theory expect to find 

differences in treatment between minority youth and white youth explained by legal factors, such as 

prior record and severity of crime. In this framework, legal factors are often related to “minority 

centered contexts for risk” (National Research Council 2013, 224), such as: 

 Economically disadvantaged and unstable communities and neighborhood social contexts 

(Fite, Wynn, and Pardini 2009; Sampson, Morenoff, and Raudenbush 2005; Moak, Shaun, 

Walker, and Gann 2012) 

 Low-performing institutions, especially public schools (Sharkey and Sampson 2010) 

 Delinquent peers (Fite, Wynn, and Pardini 2009) 

 Family risk factors such as unmarried or single parents, incarcerated parents, poor parentchild communication, and harsh, lax, or inconsistent discipline (Fite, Wynn, and Pardini 2009; 

Vespa, Lewis, and Kreider 2013; Sampson, Morenoff, and Raudenbush 2005; Jarjoura, Roger, 

DuBois, Shlafer, and Haight 2013) 

 Greater exposure to violence (Kilpatrick, Saunders, and Smith 2003) 

The National Research Council concluded that the “totality of these risk factors is such that minority 

youth are born into and raised in severely compromised familial, community, and educational 

environments that set the stage for a range of adverse behaviors and outcomes, including problems in 

school, relationships, and engaging in prosocial behavior” (2009, 224).

The differential treatment framework perspective, by contrast, generally concentrates on the structure 

of justice decision-making acts that can disadvantage minority youth (e.g., Leiber 2003; Pope and 

Feyerherm 1990). This perspective, also known as bias theory, argues that minority youth are more likely 

than white youth to suffer harsher consequences at each stage of the juvenile justice decision-making 

process because the system treats minority youth differently (and more punitively). This theoretical 

orientation expects to find differential treatment of minority youth even after accounting for legal, and 

often extralegal (e.g., age, socioeconomic status, school status), factors (e.g., Mallett and Stoddard-Dare 

 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 3 
2010). The differential treatment framework centers on the juvenile justice system to explain racial 

disparities and is the approach that frequently characterizes DMC empirical studies (e.g., Leiber 2003; 

Leiber, Brubaker, and Fox 2009; Richetelli, Hartstone, and Murphy 2009). 

The racial or symbolic threat theory (Ousey and Lee 2008; Moak, Shaun, Walker, and Gann 2012) within 

the differential treatment framework focuses on the social-psychological processes behind decisions 

that disadvantage one or more racial/ethnic groups compared with others (Kurtz, Linnemann, and 

Spohn 2008). In this framework, decision-makers are influenced by emotions driven by the perception 

of minority youth as threatening to middle-class standards and public safety (Leiber and Fox 2005). 

Reference is often made to the work of scholars like Tittle and Curran (1988), who explored how 

negative perceptions of African American youth and stereotypes affect decision-makers, and Bridges 

and Steen (1998), who showed how decision-makers attributed the causes of delinquency to internal 

(e.g., individual) characteristics or external (e.g., neighborhood disadvantage) factors depending on a 

youth’s race. 

Other types of conflict theory include attribution theory, where decision-makers “rely on internal and 

external factors they perceive to be linked to criminal and delinquent behavior” (Rodriguez 2007, 633), 

and labeling theory, where dominant groups maintain their status by using labels to define deviant or 

criminal behavior and disenfranchise certain other groups (Tapia 2010). 

Various scholars have identified shortcomings in both the differential offending framework and the 

differential treatment framework (e.g., Tracy, 2005; Pope and Feyerherm 1990; Bishop 2005). With a 

complex social problem such as DMC, numerous factors are likely at work, including both differential 

offending and differential treatment. A 2013 study by the National Research Council states the 

following: 

We know that racial/ethnic disparities are not reducible to either differential offending or 

differential selection. Many other factors affect disproportionality of minority youth in the 

juvenile justice system, including the troubling entrenched patterns of poverty, segregation, 

gaps in educational achievement, and residential instability. DMC exists in the broader context 

of a “racialized society” in which many public policies, institutional practices, and cultural 

representations operate to produce and maintain racial inequities. 

[239] 

OJJDP’s DMC Technical Assistance Manual provides a detailed list of possible explanations for DMC, 

including some subcategories of the differential offenders-–differential treatment dichotomy: 

Differential opportunity for prevention and treatment. The allocation of prevention and treatment 

resources within communities is seldom uniform or universally accessible across an entire 

community. In some instances, those allocations create a disadvantage for minority youth (Leiber, 

Richetelli, and Feyerherm, 2009). For example, effective programs may be geographically inaccessible 

to minority youth in a jurisdiction, or existing programs may be designed for white, suburban youth. 

Thus, retention and outcomes for minority urban youth are poor. 

Differential behavior. Differential behavior refers to differing rates at which youth from various racial 

and ethnic subgroups are involved in delinquent activity. Differential behavior results when minority 

youth are involved in more serious crime, participate more deeply in gang activity, begin delinquent 

activity at earlier ages, and are involved in other social service or justice-related systems such as the 

child welfare system (Leiber, Richetelli, and Feyerherm 2009). 

 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 4 
Mobility effects. Youths may commit delinquent behavior and come into contact with the juvenile 

justice system in jurisdictions outside their own home areas. This often happens when a mall or 

movie theater is located in a community with more white youths than in neighboring communities 

(Leiber, Richetelli, and Feyerherm 2009). 

Indirect effects. Indirect effects is a broad term reflecting the fact that economic status, education, 

location, and a host of risk factors associated with juvenile justice system involvement are also linked 

with race and ethnicity. For example, specific risk factors correlated with race or ethnicity, such as 

living in disorganized neighborhoods and having an unemployed father, may lead to differential 

offending issues. Indirect effects can also lead to differential treatment. For example, some courts, 

fearing lack of supervision, may be more likely to use secure detention if the child is from a singleparent home. If minority youths are more likely to live in single-parent homes (Vespa, Lewis, and 

Kreider 2013), these decisions will contribute to DMC (Leiber, Richetelli, and Feyerherm 2009). 

Differential processing or inappropriate decision-making. Differential processing or inappropriate decisionmaking results when the criteria used to make decisions in the system are either not applied 

consistently across all groups of youth or when the criteria are structured in a manner that 

disadvantages some groups. An example of differential processing or inappropriate decision-making 

includes the use of the term gang-related, which is frequently cited as a factor in decisions about how 

to handle juveniles. To assess gang-related impact, it is important to know how a jurisdiction defines 

the term, and whether the “gang-related” question is asked only of youth from certain community 

areas. If so, then use of this criterion likely will place minority youth at some disadvantage relative to 

white youth—especially white youth from community areas not believed to be gang-affiliated (Leiber, 

Richetelli, and Feyerherm 2009). 

Justice by geography. Minority youth may live in jurisdictions that have stricter law enforcement or 

harsher judges, compared with jurisdictions where white youth live (Leiber, Richetelli, and 

Feyerherm 2009). For example, a Massachusetts DMC assessment study found that police tend to 

patrol urban minority neighborhoods more aggressively than suburban areas where fewer minorities 

reside. Thus, the likelihood of arrest is much higher for minority youth than white youth in this state 

(Kauffman, 1997). School zero-tolerance policies also adversely affect students of color in urban school 

districts (Dunbar and Villarruel 2004). 

Legislation, policies, and legal factors. Policies enacted through legislation or administrative action may 

sometimes contain elements that create a disadvantage for minority youth. For example, statutes that 

define drug offenses tend to treat crack cocaine more seriously than powdered cocaine, which, given 

the usage patterns for the two forms of cocaine, creates a disadvantage for minority youth (Leiber, 

Richetelli, and Feyerherm 2009). Anti-loitering laws also tend to disadvantage minority youth (e.g., 

Minnesota Council on Crime and Justice, N.d.). 

Measuring DMC 

DMC can be measured in various ways, such as comparing proportions or using rates. When using 

proportions, the racial breakdown of youths in the general population is compared to the racial 

breakdown of youths at a certain stage in the juvenile justice system. For example, in one state, the 

youth population is 58 percent white, 21 percent African American, 10 percent Hispanic, and 6 

percent Asian, whereas the youth in the secure, residential population is 25 percent white, 68 percent 

African American, 5 percent Hispanic, and zero percent Asian. This data clearly demonstrates that 

 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 5
 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 6

African American youths are overrepresented at the secure residential placement stage whereas 

white, Hispanic, and Asian youths appear to be underrepresented. 

Although comparing proportions can be a useful method, it is not as useful for seeing trends, 

measuring changes over time (especially when the youth population changes), or comparing 

disparity levels from one jurisdiction to another. Also, when minority groups are in the majority, 

disparities may appear less evident. Given the shortcoming of using proportions to measure DMC, 

OJJDP mandates that states participating in the federal Formula Grant Program measure DMC using 

the relative rate index (RRI). The RRI compares the rates of processing for minority youth to the rates 

of processing for white youth. The RRI method describes the volume of activity from one contact 

point to the next and how it differs between white and minority youth. 

An RRI directs policymakers and practitioners to the juvenile justice stages that need more 

examination (Hsia et al. 2006). Using the same data from the state mentioned above, the RRI at secure 

confinement for African American youths is 2.0, which means that after adjudication, the flow of 

African American youths into secure confinement is twice as high as the flow of white youths. While 

one advantage of using the RRI is to reveal disparity at each contact point in the system (in this case, 

from adjudication to secure confinement), it can be also used to calculate population-based rates. For 

example, the population-based RRI for African Americans at secure confinement is 7.6, meaning that 

the flow of juveniles from the general population into secure confinement is over seven times higher 

than for white youths. These RRI values can easily be compared over time and from jurisdiction to 

jurisdiction. 

Empirical Studies of DMC 

Numerous national and jurisdiction-specific articles and reports on DMC have been published. Many 

of these publications are empirical studies evaluating whether race had an effect on a specific juvenile 

justice decision-making point after controlling for other variables (e.g., offense severity, prior record, 

age). Although many of these studies are written by researchers and published in scholarly journals 

(e.g., Rodriguez 2007; Leiber, Brubaker, and Fox 2009; Freiburger and Burke 2010), state DMC 

assessment studies have also added to this body of work (e.g, Richetelli, Hartstone, and Murphy, 2009; 

Leiber, Johnson, and Fox 2006; Stone, Motes, et al. 2004). 

Four large-scale efforts have been published that analyze this body of research literature on DMC (Pope 

and Feyerherm 1990; Pope, Lovell, and Hsia 2002; Engen, Steen, and Bridges 2002; Bishop 2005). They 

all find that race does affect decision-making but also that variables other than race play a key role. 

More recently, OJJDP funded a new DMC review of articles from 2002 to 2010. This review, conducted 

by the Development Services Group, Inc. (DSG), evaluated the percentage of studies that found racial 

disparities, as well as each individual decision within those studies (e.g., if a study examined African 

American and Hispanic DMC at arrest, secure detention, and transfer to adult court, six decisions were 

examined). Similar to the previous reviews, this review found that while the picture that emerges 

collectively is complex, race effects that disadvantage minority youths were found to exist across the 

country at all decision points (Cohen, Feyerherm, Spinney, Stephenson, and Yeide, in press). 

However, the degree of these disparities, and which groups are affected and how can vary 

considerably. For example, studies that included analysis of earlier decision points in the juvenile justice 

system (including arrest, secure detention, and referral to court) overwhelmingly found that there was 

some racial disadvantage to minority youths However, fewer studies of later decision points 
(adjudication, probation, secure confinement, and disposition in adult court for transferred youths) 

found racial disadvantage to minority youths. 

Efforts to Address DMC 

According to the JJDP Act, all states participating in the federal Title II Formula Grant Program must 

address DMC in their systems (OJJDP, N.d.a.). As explained above, OJJDP has identified a five-phase 

process to address DMC, which includes developing an intervention plan. Outside the federal 

mandate, states, counties, local jurisdictions, private foundations, and individual programs have also 

made efforts to reduce DMC. 

Some policymakers and practitioners want to jump right into programs to reduce DMC. However, 

according to OJJDP’s DMC Technical Assistance Manual (TA Manual), interventions to reduce DMC 

should only be implemented once DMC is identified, the contributing mechanisms are assessed 

through a methodologically sound DMC assessment study, and readiness events are organized to 

prepare local stakeholders. At this point, an intervention to address DMC can be implemented. The 

TA Manual provides five guidelines for developing a DMC intervention plan: 1) design a 

comprehensive, multimodal approach, when feasible; 2) prioritize strategies to focus on critical 

decision points; 3) choose interventions that the community is ready to implement; 4) use evidencebased strategies and draw on the successful experiences of current DMC initiatives, as applicable; and 

5) evaluate the strategy’s effectiveness. 

Strategies for reducing DMC can be organized into three categories: 1) direct services, which address 

the risks and needs of the youth, 2) training and technical assistance, which focus primarily on the 

needs of juvenile justice personnel and law enforcement, and 3) system change, which involves 

altering aspects of the juvenile justice system that may contribute to DMC (OJJDP, 2009a). 

Direct services tend to address differential offending (i.e., differential involvement in crime) by youth 

as well as differential opportunities for prevention and intervention, indirect effects, and accumulated 

disadvantage. Direct services include a wide range of programming such as prevention and early 

intervention programs, advocacy for systems-involved youth, diversion programs, and alternatives to 

secure detention and confinement. But because differential offending may not be the only factor 

contributing to DMC or might not be a factor at all, addressing systems factors is vital. Two ways to 

address systems factors are to provide training and technical assistance to juvenile justice personnel 

and law enforcement, and to change the system. 

Training and technical assistance can address various DMC contributing mechanisms by addressing 

unintentional racial bias, building cultural competency, and improving interactions between youths 

and juvenile justice personnel. Training and technical assistance on strategies such as using risk 

assessment instruments is also important. 

System change strategies seek to alter the basic procedures, policies, and rules that define how a 

juvenile justice system operates to address DMC. Because these strategies aim to transform the system 

itself, they have the potential to produce widespread lasting change. However, they can be 

challenging to implement, given the extensive cross-agency coordination they often require and the 

resistance from leadership and front-line staff that may result. 

When implemented properly, system change strategies can address DMC-contributing mechanisms 

such as differential opportunities for prevention and intervention; differential handling; legislative, 

 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 7
policy and legal factors; indirect effects; and accumulated disadvantage. System changes can include 

small changes in policies and procedures as well as comprehensive, far-reaching reforms. 

National foundations, nonprofit organizations, and advocacy groups also help states and local 

jurisdictions with implementing DMC-reduction strategies, often in collaboration with OJJDP. Some 

examples include the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change/DMC Action Network, the W. 

Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness & Equity (Burns Institute), and the Annie E. 

Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI). 

The Models for Change/DMC Action Network assembles teams from select local jurisdictions, 

presents the latest thinking of national experts, and facilitates interactive learning. The Burns Institute 

is a national organization working to reduce overrepresentation of youth of color in the juvenile 

justice system by promoting and ensuring fairness and equity in youth-serving systems across the 

nation. JDAI is a nationwide effort to help local and state juvenile justice systems eliminate 

unnecessary and inappropriate use of secure detention for juveniles. Although JDAI is not exclusively 

dedicated to DMC reduction, reducing racial and ethnic disparities is one of its eight core strategies. 

Today, JDAI is the most widely replicated juvenile justice initiative in the United States (Annie E. 

Casey Foundation 2014). Numerous other local and national juvenile justice organizations also focus 

on DMC reduction. 

Outcome Evidence

The literature on what works to reduce DMC is not as extensive as the literature on what works in 

delinquency prevention or other areas of juvenile justice. OJJDP’s DMC TA Manual states, 

“Identifying high-quality programs that can address specific DMC factors in a given community has 

been one of the most difficult obstacles in developing effective DMC initiatives” (Gies, Cohen, and 

Villarruel, 2009, 4–4). 

Nevertheless, a few evaluated programs could address differential offending, some of which are 

designed specifically for youth of color. For example, Strong African American Families (SAAF) is a 

parental training and family therapy program grounded in social bonding and control theories. The 

program works to strengthen the attachment between parent and child to reduce the likelihood of 

youth involvement in various problem behaviors, particularly alcohol and substance abuse. A 2006 

study by Brody and colleagues found the program was effective in reducing alcohol use and 

enhancing resistance skills and future-oriented goals among African American youths ages 10 to 14. 

Familias Unidas targets Hispanic families with adolescents ages 12 to 17. The program aims to 

increase parental involvement with their children’s peers and school and to improve family bonding 

and cohesion. It also works on building supportive relationships among Hispanic immigrant parents 

to integrate them into the greater community and reduce feelings of social isolation. By providing 

parents with additional knowledge and tools to raise healthy children, the intervention aims to 

prevent or reduce illicit drug use, antisocial behavior, and risky sexual behavior. A 2003 study by 

Pantin and colleagues showed the program had a significant impact on family functioning (although 

there was no effect on adolescent behavior programs, antisocial behavior, or risky sexual behavior). A 

2009 study by Pantin and colleagues did show a significant effect on the substance use of program 

participants over time. The proportion of youth in the comparison group who reported substance use 

increased 21 percentage points, from 13 percent at the baseline to 34 percent at the 30-month followup. The proportion of youth in the treatment group reporting substance use increased 10 percentage 

points, from 15 percent at the baseline to 25 percent at the follow-up. 

 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 8
 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 9

Project BUILD (Broader Urban Involvement and Leadership Development, now the BUILD Violence 

Intervention Curriculum), is a violence prevention curriculum designed to help youths in detention 

overcome problems they may face in their communities, such as gangs, drugs, and crime. The 

program is designed to intervene in the lives of youths who have come into contact with the juvenile 

justice system to reduce recidivism and diminish the prospects that they will become adult offenders. 

A 2000 study by Lurigio and colleagues found that youths who participated in Project BUILD had 

significantly lower rates of recidivism as compared with nonparticipants. 

For more information on the programs, please click the links below. 

Strong African American Families

Familias Unidas

Project BUILD

In addition, significant knowledge can be gained from the experiences of emerging programs in 

jurisdictions. For example, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s JDAI has had some positive effect on 

DMC at certain sites through detention reform (e.g., Santa Cruz, California; Multnomah County, 

Oregon). Positive effects on DMC resulted when site detention efforts emphasized reducing disparity 

and when sites used strategies such as objective admission-screening instruments, new or enhanced 

alternatives-to-detention programs, expedited case processing to reduce length of stay in detention, 

and new policies and practices (Hinton Hoytt et al. 2003). 

Bernalillo County, New Mexico was able to reduce racial disparities among arrests and diversions 

after focusing on multiple DMC reduction strategies designed primarily for system reform involving 

multiple partners over periods of time. These included increased attention to data, enhanced 

community-based services for court-involved youths, a freestanding community mental health clinic, 

JDAI involvement, and increased access to diversion (Spinney et al. 2014). 

The State of Connecticut was able to reduce DMC at referral to court after a sustained focus on data 

collection and analysis, development and implementation of a police training curriculum, model 

memoranda of understanding between police and schools to reduce school-based arrests and referrals 

to court, and two informational campaigns addressing DMC and school discipline (2014). Finally, a 

recent study funded by OJJDP found that jurisdictions that successfully reduced disparities in their 

systems used the following eight strategies (Spinney et al. 2014): 

1. Focus on data collection and utilization. 

2. Increase collaboration with other state and local agencies, police, judges, and the community. 

3. Shift the institutional culture from a punitive or procedural focus toward a focus on what was 

best for the youths and the community. 

4. Affiliate with national juvenile justice reform initiatives. 

5. Create alternatives to secure detention, secure confinement, and formal system involvement. 

6. Focus intentionally on DMC reduction (and not just on general system improvement) while 

using a non-accusatory tone. 

7. Maintain leadership at the local level, the state level, or both 

8. Make DMC reduction a long-term priority. 
 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention www.ojjdp.gov 10

Other strategies identified in the study included the use of risk assessment instruments to determine 

placement in secure detention; directing DMC-reduction interventions at the system (and not at the 

youths); and changing policies, procedures, and laws. 

Conclusion

The existence of racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system is a complicated social 

problem in the United States today. Its causes are multifaceted and unclear, and methodologically 

rigorous studies linking interventions to system-wide decreases in these disparities are not available 

(National Research Council 2013, 234–235). Exacerbating the difficulty of addressing this issue is the 

fact that racial and ethnic disparities exist well before contact with the juvenile justice system has 

occurred—in child welfare, the foster care system, school readiness, school performance, and school 

suspensions and expulsions. Youth of color are more likely to live in single-parent families, in 

poverty, in disadvantaged communities, and in high crime areas. Given the problem’s extent and 

complexity, this issue is difficult to address. 

The 2013 National Research Council report on reforming juvenile justice summarizes the continued 

need to address this complex issue: 1) the existence of racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile 

justice system raises questions of bias, fairness, and legitimacy regarding its functioning; and 2) these 

disparities raise questions about the larger life-course trajectories of many youths in minority 

communities who may become marked by criminal records early in life (211). 

Since 1988, OJJDP has mandated that states participating in the federal Title II Formula Grant 

Program address racial and ethnic disparities. In 2014, OJJDP Administrator Robert L. Listenbee 

testified before a field hearing of the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism of the U.S. Senate 

Judiciary Committee on the reauthorization of the JJDP Act, emphasizing the reduction in DMC as 

one of his top five priorities. 

References 

Annie E. Casey Foundation. N.d. “Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative.” 

http://www.aecf.org/work/juvenile-justice/jdai/ 

Annie E. Casey Foundation. 2014. Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative: 2013 Annual Results Report 

Inter-site Conference Survey. Baltimore, Md. 

Barrett, David. E., Antonis Katsiyannis, and Dalun Zhang. 2010. “Predictors of Offense Severity, 

Adjudication, Incarceration, and Repeat Referrals for Juvenile Offenders.” Remedial and Special 

Education 31(4):261–75. 

Bell, James, Laura John Ridolfi, Clinton Lacey, and Michael Finley. 2009. The Keeper and the Kept: 

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