James Bell, who founded a national organization to address racial disparities and disproportionality within America’s juvenile justice systems, died this month at the age of 71.
Bell founded the Oakland, Calif.-based W. Haywood Burns Institute, named for his mentor and a civil rights activist and lawyer, in 2001. The institute focuses on advocating for community-centered approaches to justice and against “the social control of communities of color by the justice sector and other public systems,” per its mission statement.
Before founding the Burns Institute, Bell worked as an attorney representing youth in juvenile court for over 20 years at the Youth Law Center in San Francisco.
“My dear friend James Bell was a brilliant champion for justice and love,” said Angela Glover Blackwell, in a statement posted online. “He positively impacted the lives of thousands of young people and taught and inspired a generation of advocates to work for transformative change.”
The Burns Institute was prominently involved in two of the major philanthropy-led juvenile justice reforms of the past 40 years: Annie E. Casey Foundation’s JDAI Initiative, which has focused on downsizing the use of locked facilities and probation through better data and alternatives, and the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change, which invested heavily in research about adolescent development and in comprehensive reforms in several states. Both projects included the reduction of racial disproportionality as a core tenet.
Under Bell’s leadership, the Burns Institute collaborated with over 200 counties in 23 states, engaging justice stakeholders and communities to implement strategies aimed at assessing disproportionate minority contact and promoting youth well-being. He trained numerous professionals and community members on the importance of addressing race, ancestry and inclusion in the delivery of safety for all communities.
“Few people could articulate the plight of children in the American juvenile justice system better than James,” said Dan Macallair, in a public statement about the passing of his friend of 40 years. “I am consoled by knowing that because he lived, there are countless children around the country who have a chance at a better life.”
The number of youth incarcerated in detention centers and youth prisons has plummeted since the late 1990s, as has the exposure of minors to adult criminal courts and facilities. Undoubtedly these trends have meant far less youth of color experiencing the deep end of the justice system. But among those youth who are locked up or transferred to adult court, the proportion who are not white has remained high, and in some cases has increased.
Reducing disproportionate minority contact, or DMC, has been one of the four federal requirements on juvenile justice since 2002, when it was added as an element of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Bell was consistently critical of that requirement, because, he argued, the vague nature of it permitted states to simply discuss the issue and not work to address it.
“How many more annual DMC-related conferences will be held to restate what was discussed the year before?” Bell wrote with co-author Laura Ridolfi, in the 2008 paper Adoration of the Question. “How much money will be spent on hotel rooms and catering instead of programming that is intentional, targeted, data-driven, and has been proven to reduce disparities?”
In an interview with Youth Services Insider following the release of that paper, Bell articulated the need for a mediator like Burns to engage communities in recognizing and acting on racial disparities.
“Everyone is eager to speak about public safety but at the same time many are worried about saying the wrong thing or appearing racist,” Bell said. “Almost everywhere we have been, folks of color in communities have a different sense of the system than the system has of itself. Therefore there must be someone that can address that with the skills to mediate with both parties.”