(GARDEN CITY, Kan.)—
The Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority looks at trends involving minorities in the department's custody.The JJA is holding meetings about part in a statewide assessment. One of those meetings happened Wednesday in Garden City. Officials are trying to find what minority youths are being over-represented in the juvenile justice system.
Kansas identified law enforcement, detention and case management placements as the three priorities to be examined in the evaluation.
"As a system and as a community we want to make sure that our response to juvenile delinquency is based on the offense and it's based on the needs of the juvenile and not based on the color of their skin," said Elizabeth Neeley, a sociologist involved in the process.
The investigators use age, gender and rural and urban differences to help explain some of the patterns in the data.
