PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Young Black girls are entering the justice system at significantly greater rates than their peers, according to a new study entitled, Sounding the Alarm: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Florida.

The study from the Delores Barr Weaver Foundation examined all 67 Florida counties and the discipline numbers for the more than 300,000 Black girls attending K-12 public schools. Researchers for the study looked at emotional health, arrests/incarcerations and first contact with law enforcement. Some of the sources for the information came directly from the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Dr. Vanessa Patino Lydia was one of the researchers for the study.

“For the last decade or longer since I’ve been tracking juvenile justice trends, we know that Black girls have been overrepresented at every point in the juvenile justice system, but we wanted to dig deeper,” she said.

In Florida, 15 counties stood out more than others when it came to arrests, according to the report. In the Tampa Bay area, Pinellas County had some of the highest numbers for the amount of Black girls who had their first contact with law enforcement in school or the community.

“Pinellas County actually is one of the 15 counties and what we found was Black girls represent 19%. So they’re like one in five of the general population but they represent 55% of all girls who are arrested, so half, and they represented 86% of the seven girls who were sent to lock up,” Patino Lydia said. “Majority of these charges are for fighting, the charges of battery or for disorderly conduct.”

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According to Pinellas County Schools arrest numbers, 14 white females were arrested last school year. In comparison, there were 76 Black girls arrested that same school year.

“The numbers haven’t gotten any better, I’ll just let you know that, and there’s still work that we have to do,” Pinellas County Schools Police Chief Luke Williams said.

Williams said he read the report from the Delores Barr Weaver Foundation and looked at the overrepresentation of Black girls arrested in his district.

“It absolutely bothers me because I know that every child has potential and if they don’t take advantage of what’s in front of them now, it can manifest itself later on in life,” he said. “What we’ve been working on from a district standpoint is to make sure that the playing field is leveled and we’re not tipping the scales and that every kid, be it a Black female or a Asian male, they all have the proper opportunity to go out and be successful in the classroom and successful in life.”

Chief Williams said he also sees ways the numbers can be reduced for all children being arrested.

“We’d like for the district administrators, the principals, the assistant principals to actually do their jobs and that is to not bring law enforcement into a code of conduct issue. So if it’s something that’s a violation of a school rule, something that’s non-criminal, the police officers should not be involved with the situation,” he said. “And in the past, we found that had been moreso the case than not. So we’ve been working on making sure that the district and the district employees are educated as well as the police officers that are placed in our schools.”

In Central Florida, when the researchers looked at the amount of Black girls under the age of 12 being arrested, they also found similar trends. In Flagler County, out of all of the girls under the age of 12 arrested, all were Black. In Lake and Marion Counties, 67% of girls under 12 arrested were Black. In Orange County, 48% of girls under 12 arrested were Black.

Patino Lydia pointed out some of the trends that stuck out in her research and a case in Central Florida where a six-year-old Black girl was arrested.

“I would say two big trends were incredibly shocking to me. One was the precipitins of the Kaia Rolle story. She was arrested outside of Orlando I believe at the age of six last year, making her the youngest black girl arrested last year (2019). What we found was that same trend of the 'adultification' of Black girls entering into the juvenile justice system,” Patino Lydia said.

The word "adultification" is mentioned 15 different times in the study. Researchers describe it as a form of dehumanizing and robbing Black children of their childhood or innocence and seeing them as more independent or older than they are, holding Black children more accountable, treating them as if they’re less deserving and giving them less chances. In the study, examples of the adultification of young Black girls show that's playing a role in discipline and high arrest numbers in schools.

Patino Lydia said those findings tracked with the information she continued to uncover.

“We found over 500 girls that were ages 12 and younger who entered the juvenile justice system who were being arrested and 55% or the majority of the girls were Black, and the younger they were the more likely they were to be black," she said.

The study examined the 2018-2019 school year and the 2019-2020 school year. Since the pandemic had more children out of school, experts say the numbers after March 2020 may not paint a clear picture.

“While we were doing the research, we were looking at the 2018-19 data and in the midst of our research the 2019-20 data was released,” Patino Lydia said. “Mind you, this is the last three months of the pandemic and schools shut down. What we found is in those three months, from March, April, May and little bit of June when schools were closed, it contributed to a reduction of at least 250 Black girls not being arrested in schools in just that small time period alone.”

The study gave recommendations to reducing these numbers:

• Pass public policies that improve well-being and address the disparity in justice system entry points
• Use community data specific to the experiences of Black girls to inform local decisions
• Identify and implement best practices and solutions that other states and jurisdictions are using to reduce systemic disparities for Black girls

Improving available data to inform practice and policy reform was one recommendation. Researchers say with the right information and data for racial disparities, each county and more specifically each school would be better equipped to see why current practices are creating racial and gender disparities and are failing to help all girls.