Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) refers to the proportional overrepresentation of minority youth at each step of the juvenile justice system. This book addresses the issue of color-blind racism through an examination of the circular logic used by the juvenile justice system to criminalize non-White youth. Drawing on original data, including interviews with court and probation officers and juvenile self-reports, the authors call for a need to understand racial and ethnic inequality in the juvenile justice system from a structural perspective rather than simply at the level of individual bias. This unique research will contribute to larger discussions on how race operates in the United States.

"Minority race youths and other youths admit in self reports to similar overall rates of legal offenses, but there is little doubt that minority youths are more likely to be confined. Similarly, females are more likely than males to be processed in the juvenile justice system and to be confined for status offenses even though male juveniles' self-reported offending rate is 2.3 times that for female juveniles. In response to such discrepancies, the 1989 re-authorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act required that each state analyze the disproportionate confinement of minority, especially racial minority, youths. Disproportionate here means merely statistical over-representation compared with census records of youths race/ethnicity/sex for each area. This study was undertaken to comply with that act"--Executive Summary.