Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Solutions to Reducing Black Girls Contact to the Juvenile Justice System

• In Event: Considerations of Race and Gender in Juvenile Outcomes

Abstract

The current project identifies best practices for supporting Black girls and advocating for policy changes that will improve their lives and prevent legal system involvement. Nationally, Black girls are three times more likely than White girls to be referred to the juvenile justice system (Hockenberry, 2018). In Kentucky, public complaints filed against Black girls for felony C complaints were 13 times the rate of White girls in 2022. Black girls received status offenses for habitual truancy and runaway at two times the rate of White girls.
Given the identity-based bias Black girls experience for both their race and gender, collaborative and multi-systems work is needed to reduce their vulnerability across communities and within systems (Brinkman et al., n.d). There is a need to better understand the inequities Black girls face not only in Kentucky, but nationwide, and to develop actionable steps to address the disparities. The author will discuss findings from semi-structured interviews with a network of key stakeholders categorized in four groups to address the inequities Black girls experience in the respective systems: 1) juvenile justice, 2) health and wellness, 3) child welfare, and 4) education in Louisville, Kentucky.

Authors

• Cicely J. Cottrell, Spalding University

• Amanda Roberts, Spalding University

• Mingrui Wu, Spalding University