Is it true that JDAI could reduce confinement levels without changing fundamentally the distribution of detainees by race and ethnicity?
It is correct that JDAI could reduce confinement levels without changing fundamentally the distribution of detainees by race and ethnicity. That’s because JDAI, as a general rule, does not require addressing the decisions that cops make. So, if the cops continue to bring disproportionate numbers of kids of color to the facility, it is likely that the best the system can do is to not exacerbate those disparities. (By the way, most jurisdictions do make the disparities worse; the deeper kids go in the system.) Second, even if the relative proportions remain disparate, JDAI will undoubtedly mean that fewer kids of color are inappropriately or unnecessarily detained. That is a good outcome. For example, if a facility had 100 kids in it, 60 of whom were kids of color, and if it reduced its population to 50, with 30 kids of color, the disparity in overall distribution is the same, but 30 fewer kids of color are detained at any given time. That’s good relative to the DMC issue. It isn’t compl
