Efforts to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Connecticut: Q&A with Christine Rapillo

[Disproportionate minority contact (DMC) remains a serious problem in many communities. But getting broad support to address it can be a problem. In response, juvenile justice advocates in Connecticut have developed JUST.START, an excellent, accessible website and campaign on the topic. How it came about is the focus the interview below, which is reposted with permission from The CJJ e-Monitor, the newsletter of The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ). --Ed.]

Earlier this month, CJJ caught up with Christine Rapillo, Esq., a member of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee (JJAC, the Connecticut State Advisory Group), to discuss the launch of JUST.START, a new, JJAC-supported website and educational campaign that aims to promote racial and ethnic fairness in Connecticut’s juvenile justice system.

In addition to her SAG membership, Attorney Rapillo is Chair of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School Advisory Committee, and co-chairs the Steering Committee for the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance (CTJJA), where she takes part in the efforts to raise Connecticut’s jurisdictional age from 16 to 18. She is Director of Juvenile Delinquency Defense for the Connecticut Office of the Chief Public Defender, previously served as the supervisor of the Hartford Juvenile Court Public Defender’s Office for 12 years, and has practiced in adult felony trial courts in New Haven and New Britain.

Q. What is the history of disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in Connecticut? Are there issues that are unique to the state?

A. Connecticut is a relatively small state and has a statewide juvenile justice system, as opposed to a county system, as is the case in larger states. This fact made it easier for us to identify and analyze DMC, and we also hope that it will help us more readily bring about statewide change that will eliminate DMC.

Q. What is the purpose of the JUST.START website?

A. So often, states conduct studies, find DMC and yet can’t convince anyone DMC is real. The purpose of the website and public campaign is to raise public awareness. Our goal is to explain what DMC is and what we’re doing to eliminate it in an easy-to-understand, non-jargon, non-judgmental way.

Q. What made the JJAC launch the JUST.START campaign?

A. The JJAC commissioned three large-scale DMC research studies, the first of which was conducted in the mid-1990’s; the most recent was published in 2009. Overall, the studies showed us that DMC does in fact exist in Connecticut’s juvenile justice system, and at multiple decision points.

One of the main decision points where we found DMC was at the interaction between police officers and youth. Through the program component of the JUST.START campaign, the JJAC will support local school-police collaborations, awarding up to $20,000 for programs focused on prevention and/or intervention strategies to reduce arrests in schools.

We’ve also created the Effective Police Interactions with Youth curriculum, designed to educate patrol officers on their role in helping to eliminate DMC, provide information on adolescent development, and equip law enforcement officers with strategies for more effective communication with youth. [The curriculum was recently featured as a workshop at the CJJ 2010 National DMC Conference in Jersey City, NJ. Click here for more information].

Q. How do you plan to measure the impact of this campaign?

A. The JJAC conducted a pre-test to determine the level of awareness of DMC among 1,500 juvenile justice system stakeholders and state agency staff. A post-test has not yet been scheduled. We designed the pre-test to help raise awareness in its own right, and plan to continue to disseminate information on DMC elimination efforts taking place using the new JUST.START Web site, as well as printed materials.

Q. Tell us a bit more about the collaboration between the JJAC, a CJJ member, and CTJJA, a National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) member.

A. The collaboration has been great and has served the JJAC well in making our efforts known to a much broader audience. For example, CTJJA has been presenting an easy to digest synopsis of the latest DMC study’s conclusions to groups all across the state.

CTJJA is also advocating for policy changes that will support the overarching goal of eliminating DMC in Connecticut. For instance, our DMC research studies indicated that requiring a court order before admitting a child to detention actually eliminates DMC. In response, the JJAC has recommended that a court order be required by law for all detention admissions in Connecticut, to help to eliminate DMC at that decision point. CTJJA has taken up this recommendation as an advocacy group, and is working to bring about this change in state law.

For more information: Read more about JUST.START at www.ctjuststart.org.