Nasiyah Richardson

12/14/11
Substitution for Presentation:
On Tuesday the 13 of December I attended a workshop circulated around the Juvenile
Court System. In this workshop I learned that these courts and detentions are
overwhelmed by African Americans. So there are groups in Chicago like T.A.S.K. that
work with volunteer lawyers in order to get help for teens in the judicial system. They
also work on social work and support with them and there families.
One lady there was a prosecutor. She spoke on how 85% of her prosecutions were
African Americans. She said that she would receive her cases and since she wasnt
initially from cook county she automatically assumed that cook county was an all African
American county. 90% of the Juvenile detention centers are African Americans but this
county is only 21% Black.
With this being know you would think that whites didnt even commit crime. I
learned that the legal system is split in two. One is you public system which is in
committing any crime you go from school, to juvenile to adult prison. The second system
is privatized. This is where in committing a crime being put in jail depends on race, zip
code and resources of the parents. This is the legal system many white children and teens
face. They are usually sent to drug treatment or mental health wards which avoids these
things being put on there record. For most African Americans in cook county this system
is not available. The time is not took to determine the factors of jail or not, and even if
sent to jail depending on where you live you can receive lesser charge for being white or
wealthier child vs. one whose poor and African American.

African American children and teens are already put at an dis advantage . And a crime
committed at 12 is now closing life long doors for them and is leading to mental health
problems and future for more jail time. More of these institutions and detentions should
be closed and families should be worked with. Kids in the neighborhoods should be
worked with and should have better public security.
With 90% of the juveniles being African American in these juvenile detentions it is a
law in America that permits the sentence of Juvenile death penalty. This means that a
child could have committed a crime at 12 tried as an adult and sent straight to prison. No
where in this is age ever a factor and thought about as a child doing wrong at 12 and
forced to pay for this for the rest of his life. The juvenile system in cook county cracks
down hard on African American children and teens and we have no hope in this system.
There are people working to fight these laws and the panel on Tuesday were full of them,
hopefully what there fighting for goes noticed and things begin to change.