FLORIDA SUPREME COURT RACIAL AND ETHNIC BIAS STUDY COMMISSION, WHERE THE INJURED FLY FOR JUSTICE: REFORMING PRACTICES WHICH IMPEDE THE DISPENSATION OF JUSTICE TO MINORITIES IN FLORIDA, DEC. 11, 1990
The Commission was created on December 11, 1989 by the Chief Justice. It was charged with assessing whether race affected the dispensation of justice and with developing longterm strategies to eradicate any vestiges of discrimination.
The Commission developed the findings and recommendations contained in its report after analyzing information from several different sources. First, the Commission held public hearings in every region of the state. Second, the Commission retained leading researchers from Florida's universities and nationally recognized experts to conduct studies and to assist it in formulating the findings and recommendations contained in the report.
FINDINGS:
Extensive evidence suggests that minorities are too often subjected to the threat of abuse and brutality by law enforcement organizations. Survey responses suggest that African-Americans and Hispanic individuals are stopped and detained more frequently than a non-minority would be under similar circumstances and are treated with less respect and more unnecessary force than are their white counterparts.
Minority juveniles are being treated more harshly than non-minority juveniles at almost all stages of the juvenile justice system, including: arrest; referral for formal processing; transfer to the adult criminal justice system; secure detention prior to adjudication; and commitment to traditional state-run facilities.
Opportunities for informal processing and diversion are not equally accessible to minority juveniles. The deeper the penetration of the juvenile justice system towards “deep-end” commitment, the greater the overrepresentation of minority juveniles.
The differential treatment of minority juveniles results, at least in part, from racial and ethnic bias on the part of enough individual police officers, intake workers, prosecutors, and judges, to make the system operate as if it intended to discriminate against minorities. It results as well from bias in institutional policies, structures, and practices.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Police practices, including field adjustments, relating to law enforcement interaction with juveniles should be recorded for supervisory review and monitoring to determine whether and how race or ethnicity has entered into arrest and disposition decisions by Florida's law enforcement personnel.
The State should mandate the establishment of procedures, in each of the agencies comprising the juvenile justice system, to encourage and provide means for reporting, investigating, and responding to professionals whose decisions appear to have been influenced by racial or ethnic bias.
