Doing Something About DMC

• NCJ Number: 230976
• Author(s): Patrick Griffin
• Date Published: November 2008
• Length: 8 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2006/2007-J-04-18673
• Sponsoring Agency: Pennsylvania Cmssn on Crime and Delinquency; Office of Justice Programs (OJP)
• Corporate Author: National Ctr for Juvenile Justice
• Sale Source: Pennsylvania Cmssn on Crime and Delinquency
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper from the Pennsylvania Progress series

Annotation

This paper describes the work being done across the State of Pennsylvania on disproportionate minority contact (DMC) to create a truly fair and unbiased juvenile justice system.

Abstract

Because of creative disproportionate minority contact (DMC)-reduction strategies Pennsylvania is increasingly being recognized as a leader in the national effort to understand and address minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system. Pennsylvania first began targeting funding at DMC in 1987, and formally established a DMC Subcommittee to coordinate the State's DMC efforts in 1990. The DMC Subcommittee has been committed to monitoring DMC at the local level, encouraging improvements in data collection practices that contribute to the understanding of DMC, identifying and promoting new approaches to addressing DMC, and sponsoring symposia and other events designed to spread awareness of the problem and its potential solutions. This paper describes many of the DMC reduction strategies undertaken on both the Pennsylvania State and local county levels.