Delinquent: How the American Juvenile Court is Failing Black Children

Black children are more than twice as likely as white children to be arrested. Black children are five times more likely than white children to be detained or committed to youth jails. These statistics are shocking because black children only make up 16% of the total number of children in this country. Why is the American Juvenile Court failing Black children?Daphne Robinson was a prosecutor for more than 20 years in the juvenile justice system. She has had an up close view of a system that is built on institutional and systemic racism. In the book, Delinquent: How the American Juvenile Justice System is Failing Black Children, Daphne Robinson reviews the history of the juvenile justice system and argues that it was founded upon white supremacy and systemic racism. Professor Robinson argues that in order to overcome the racialized history of the juvenile justice system, policymakers should apply public health strategies that focus on data, trauma, and implicit bias training. Daphne Robinson is a native of Greenville, Mississippi, a town in the Mississippi Delta. She is a graduate of Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi and the American University Washington of Law in Washington, D.C. She completed her Master’s Degree in Public Health with a concentration in Prevention Sciences from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, Georgia. Daphne has served as a prosecutor for more than 20 years in three jurisdictions in Louisiana and is currently the Executive Director of the Center for Public Health & Justice, a non-profit organization focused on improving the lived experience of people in the Mississippi Delta. She is also an adjunct professor of public health at Louisiana State University in Shreveport, Louisiana.