Black adolescents are processed as adults in NJ at a ‘disturbing’ rate, according to the report

A New Jersey Law that gives prosecutors almost total control over which youth criminals will be tried as adults expose “disturbing” racial disparities in the State’s youth justice system and can cause irreparable damage, according to a New report.

The 61 pages Report published on Tuesday by Human Rights WatchA non -profit group based in New York, detailed the causes and consequences of the prosecution of children under 18 as adults.

Prosecutors can ask young people to be tried in adult courts based on their alleged crime. The practice is allowed under a rule known as the exemption statute.

Based on more than 80 interviews and data analysis of the State Youth Justice Commission and the New Jersey Corrections Department, the report concluded that children of color, particularly black young people, are disproportionately renounced to the adult system.

For example, in December there were 19 times younger blacks in the Court of Adults than young White in New Jersey, according to the report. The young Latinx were renounced at a pace 3.8 times higher than white youth. Both figures are related to population size and measured for every 10,000 young people aged 15 to 19.

A spokesman for the State Attorney Office told NJ Advance Media officials would review the reports of the report.

“Our office undertakes to guarantee public security while treating people fairly,” said the spokesman. “This is what we have done for two decades among administrations.”

The Youth Justice Commission, a state agency that operates under the office of the Attorney General, did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

County prosecutors make exemption decisions in New Jersey, who operate at practically not controlled discretion, alleges the report.

Prosecutors are not trained in child development or psychology. “They do not have the tools, knowledge, and perhaps the most important thing, the mandate to evaluate whether a young person is susceptible to rehabilitation,” said Brian Gurwitz, former deputy prosecutor of the district in California, in the report.

As a result, the application of the statute can vary greatly depending on the policies and political reasons of the office of each prosecutor, says the study.

“You have 21 counties and 21 prosecutors, and may have 21 different philosophies on how to prosecute exemption cases,” said the former judge of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, Barry Albin, in the report.

The lack of judicial supervision further complicates the matter. The judges are empowered to intervene only in cases where they find that a prosecutor has abused their discretion, “a practically impossible standard,” the report said.

Amanda Leavell, researcher and defender of the children’s rights division in Human Rights Watch and the author of the report, described the “abusive and arbitrary” exemption statute.

“This law not only damages children, but harms all their communities,” he added.

The report found that Middlesex and Passaic counties represent the highest proportion of youth exemptions, each responsible for almost a quarter of all young people who renounce in the system.

“Middlesex is known for giving up us,” said Peter L., one of the youth resigned interviewed by Human Rights Watch researchers. “They like the people of ‘roof, giving them the maximum and tougher prayer.”

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment. The Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office did not respond to a request for comments.

Young people who renounced the adult system often languish in preventive detention for prolonged periods and are deprived of rehabilitation support granted to those who remain in the youth system, found Human Rights Watch.

Regardless of the duration of their prayer, young people also experience “significantly higher depression, suicide and suicide ideation than those awarded in the youth system,” according to the report.

“They also have a higher risk of victimization while they are imprisoned and, in many cases, more prone to reopen when liberating,” the report said.

Geographical disparities, which can lead to very different results for children arrested in similar loads in different parts of the state, are also “deeply intertwined” with racial disparities, according to the report.

In the last data available on December 14, there were 178 young blacks in state custody, including 55 who had been renounced to an adult court. That was compared to 17 young whites, 10 of whom were renounced, and 46 young Latinx, 22 of which had been renounced, according to the report.

Human Rights Watch also found that, from 2018 to 2019, 61 percent of exemption requests were for young blacks, 23 percent for young Latinx and 14 percent for young whites.

The racial gap is not only present in the youth population. New Jersey is known for having one of the highest rates of racial disparities in its prison population in the country, rival only by Wisconsin, according to the report.

Despite understanding only 15.5% of the general population of the State, the New Black Jerseanes are imprisoned at a rate 12.5 times greater than that of white residents, according to the report. They also represent more than half of the New Jersey prison population.

The report offered several recommendations to New Jersey legislators to counteract the issue, even to approve legislation to reduce and finally end the prosecution of children in an adult court.

Until the exemption decision can be eliminated by the system, the report suggested the legislation to focus on restoring judicial supervision and establishing clearer criteria for the eligibility of exemption.

The report also urged New Jersey prosecutors to commit to exemption motions only as a last resort, and asked them to consider undergoing regular training on the development of the adolescent brain and youth trauma.