Crime And Punishment

Yesterday’s topic was family acceptance and how it is related to the well being of the child. Today, I want to cover bias toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth when it comes to sentencing and punishment. The results of a study done at Yale found a disparity between non-LGBT persons and LGBT person in the criminal justice system and also in school discipline. The Washington Times reported…

Gay and lesbian teens are punished more at school, by police, study says
By Donna St. George
Washington Post Staff Writer
December 6, 2010

Gay and lesbian teens in the United States are about 40 percent more likely than their straight peers to be punished by schools, police and the courts, according to a study published Monday, which finds that girls are especially at risk for unequal treatment.
[…]
The study, from Yale University, adds another layer, finding substantial disparities between gay and straight teens in school expulsions, arrests, convictions and police stops. The harsher approach is not explained by differences in misconduct, the study says.

"The most striking difference was for lesbian and bisexual girls, and they were two to three times as likely as girls with similar behavior to be punished," said Kathryn Himmelstein, lead author of the study, published in the journal Pediatrics.

Also, consider the fact that many times the LGBT student are the victim of bullying and the initial incidence of the violence by the bully is not seen, but only the victim defending themselves. As the report states, this disparity may not be overt, but maybe more of a subconscious bias, which results in more in school expulsions, arrests and convictions. As a result LGBT youth have higher dropout rates and criminal records than straight students.

Budgets cuts will aggravate the situation by cutting the number of social workers both in the school system and in the court system that work with troubled youth.

Andrew Barnett, executive director of the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, which serves 300 teens a year in Washington, said he was not surprised by the findings.

"This is a symptom of school administrators, teachers, court officials, police officers - anyone who works with youth - not necessarily being equipped to handle the challenges" faced by the teens in their care, he said. "It's much easier to punish the youth than to work with them and figure out why they may keep getting in fights and what is leading to this behavior."

The article goes on to explain where the data for the research came from…

Using data from more than 15,000 middle school and high school students who were followed into early adulthood as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers compared categories of misconduct against six punishments. The interviews used for the study started in 1994-95 and continued until 2001-02, but researchers said they expect the findings would be similar today because the institutions involved have not dramatically changed.

So what can be done to lessen the disparity? The community must work together, not just the school administrators or teachers or the court system, but it must be an integrated approach of all of these entities including the parents and community leaders all working together to create a safe environment. It can work! In Beaverton OR they reduced suspension from 175 a year down to less than a dozen. (What We’ve Learned About Safe and Effective Schools)