Black girls may benefit from data
Advocates hope to use information to assess how to help juveniles
Following the first Equity Summit for black girls in Pittsburgh in 2016, legal and child welfare advocates formed the Black Girls Equity Alliance to formulate strategies and solutions to reduce the high number of black, female teens who land in the juvenile justice system.
Among the advocates who have been meeting monthly for two years was Kristy Trautmann, executive director of the FISA Foundation, which supports programs for women, girls and individuals with disabilities, and which helped to fund the first equity summit.
One particular statistic that emerged from that summit — that black girls in Allegheny County are 11 times more likely to be referred to juvenile court than their white peers — “lodged in my psyche,” Ms. Trautmann said.
“It was a startling statistic,” she said. “And to address this problem, I knew we needed to get more upstream about why so many more black girls were coming in the front door of the juvenile justice system and for what.”
As a result of a push by Ms. Trautmann and others in the alliance, Allegheny County Juvenile Probation developed an online
dashboard that allows advocates to access data about where juveniles are committing offenses, their race, gender and the alleged charges.
Armed with that information, Ms. Trautmann said, advocates will be able to collaborate with community leaders to assess how to support the accused, analyze how they got caught up in the juvenile system and, eventually, reduce the number of girls who are referred and charged.
On Thursday, Ms. Trautmann will introduce the data dashboard at the third annual summit at the Omni William Penn Hotel, Downtown.
FISA provided $5,000 to develop the dashboard, an amount Ms. Trautmann called “a modest investment.”
“The big investment was the [county] juvenile probation department’s willingness to open their doors and make the data available,” she said.
Communities in Allegheny County that refer the most black girls to the juvenile system include McKeesport, Clairton, the North Side and Homewood, said Kathi Elliott, who spearheaded the equity summit and alliance and is executive director of Gwen’s Girls, a nonprofit that provides support to at-risk girls.
With more data available about black girls who end up in the system, she said, Gwen’s Girls and other social service providers can combine their outreach efforts and develop interventions with law enforcement offices to avoid sending some girls to the court system.
“Not until you have the raw data can you understand the issues and needs within each community … and educate people about the disparities that exist,” Ms. Elliott said.
One of the top reasons teens end up in Allegheny County’s juvenile system, said Ms. Trautmann, is “failure to comply” or pay fines when they are cited for actions such as truancy or underage drinking.
“For these things you wouldn’t necessarily go to jail, but often a magistrate issues a fine and for kids in families that don’t pay the fine, they can be referred to juvenile court.”
The result is a disproportionate number of poor or minority juveniles entering the system, she said.
Besides addressing juvenile justice issues, the twoday equity summit includes sessions on race and gender bias in school dress codes, teen mothers, sex education and harassment, trauma in black girls’ lives, and improving services for marginalized girls.
One of the scheduled keynote speakers is Kheris Rogers, an 11-year-old from Los Angeles who with her 23-year-old sister last year launched an online business, Flexin’ in My Complexion.
The firm sells T-shirts and other apparel that features the expression their grandmother used to encourage them to feel beautiful.
After Kheris was bullied at school because of her dark skin, her sister, Taylor Pollard, helped design and market the fashion items to boost Kheris’ confidence and raise awareness of racism.
About 50 high school girls have been invited to the summit so they can engage in future initiatives, Ms. Elliott said.
“We can’t do any work around youth if we’re not including them,” she said.