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Colorado Coalition for Minority Youth Equality (CMYE)

The Colorado Coalition for Minority Youth Equality is a subcommittee of the Colorado Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Council. The JJDP Council is appointed by the Governor to advise him on juvenile justice issues and to oversee the OJJDP Formula Grant and Title V Funds that come to Colorado. In order for the state to be eligible to receive our annual Formula and Title V funding Colorado must be in compliance with the four core requirements of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (Act).

CMYE was established to develop and oversee the implementation of a plan to address the fourth core requirement (223 (a) (22)) of the Act, requiring states to address Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC). The Act requires states to “address juvenile delinquency prevention efforts and system improvement efforts designed to reduce, without establishing or requiring numerical standards or quotas, the disproportionate number of juvenile members of minority groups, who come into contact with the juvenile justice system.”

In order to do this CMYE, in partnership with the JJDP Council and the Division of Criminal Justice develop a Three-Year DMC Plan that outlines goals, objectives and activities to be completed and overseen by CMYE and Division of Criminal Justice staff.

Colorado Coalition for Minority Youth Equality
Three-Year Action Plan
October 2005 - September 2008

DATA and RESEARCH

GOAL: To focus efforts to reduce the over representation of minority youth contact in the juvenile justice system through utilization of data.

OBJECTIVE: Improve the data collection and analysis system in Colorado to measure impact of interventions in the communities with minority family advocacy programs.

TASKS:

  • Improve the representation of the information in the RRI matrix
  • Analyze the data
  • Look for trends in the data
  • Prioritize funding based on these trends

Training and Technical Assistance

GOAL: To assist juvenile justice o rganizations, agencies and system professionals in increasing their awareness of the over representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system and provide them the knowledge to intervene.

OBJECTIVE 1: Provide technical assistance to programs/communities addressing minority over representation so they can provide appropriate interventions to impact the over representation in their communities.

TASKS :

  • Provide communities data
  • Assist communities in collecting their community data to fill in the gaps
  • Provide a DMC/MOR checklist for assessing DMC in their community

OBJECTIVE 2: Provide education to targeted audiences i.e. faith-based agencies, professional conferences, service clubs and other organization and agencies.

TASKS:

  • Provide training and speaking points to Coalition for Minority Youth Equality (Coalition) members
  • Assess the needs for training to direct activity
  • Identify targeted agencies
  • Market availability of training
  • Submit requests to present at appropriate conferences

ADVOCACY

GOAL: Advocate for minority youth and families by monitoring legislation that may affect them and champion equal access to services by all youth.

OBJECTIVE : To keep Council members and others aware of proposed legislation during the session.

TASKS:

  • Track legislation and committees of jurisdiction that may impact minority youth and families
  • Disseminate the information to the Coalition
  • Provide the information to other organizations or individuals who request it

INTERVENTION/PROGRAMS

GOAL: To fund programs and interventions based on proven effective strategies and which address multiple contributing factors of the over representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system.

OBJECTIVE 1: Expand the Coalition to include representation from multiple systems to address contributing factors to the over representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system.

TASKS:

  • Recruit other disciplines to participate on the Coalition
  • Identify contributing factors

OBJECTIVE 2: Fund programs and interventions that have been proven effective in reducing the over-representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system.

TASKS :

  • Identify programs that have been proven effective
  • Write the Announcement of Availability of Funds based on the findings
  • Fund programs that are proven effective