Racial disparities in juvenile systems

Season two episode three of the Just-Us YOUth Talk Show aired on Sunday, March 10, 2024. In this episode, we were delighted to be joined by special guest Tshaka Barrows. Barrows is a member of the executive leadership for W. Haywood Burns Institute. This Insititute is a non-profit that works to reform juvenile systems that incarcerate poor and youth of color. He describes his role as both overseeing the organization and working directly in the work that the organization does. 

On this episode, Barrows talks about racial disparities in the arrest and imprisonment of youth. He touches on the conditions of these juvenile facilities deteriorating and are overcrowded. In efforts so far, the organization has been able to reduce arrest of people of color in the juvenile facilities, reduce the population inside these facilities, and move people out of facilities that are harmful. 

“We have found success in all these different points, and yet the racial and ethnic disparities not only remain but persist in ways that are really challenging to define as success.” 

W. Haywood Burns Institute was founded in California in 2001 by James Bell. In his previous work, Bell worked with incarcerated youth for 20 years. During Barrows time in college at the University of Wisconsin is where he met Bell and would eventually join the institute right after finishing college.  

To find out more about the W. Haywood Burns Institute, visit this website.