A North Dakota Commission to study racial and ethnic biases in the courts released its final report with recommendations.
North Dakota Supreme Court Justice Carol Kapsner is Co-Chair of the commission.
“Many things we found were distressing in the sense that there seems to be a disproportion of the use of the minorities in our criminal system, especially those that are ultimately incarcerated,” Kapsner said. “We found that there is a disproportion in minorities who are receiving services in our juvenile court systems. We found there is a disproportion in the sense of under-representation in our drug courts; that’s concerning.”
The study with recommendations will go to the North Dakota Supreme Court. The court will then decide what to do with the recommendations. The court will normally create an implementation committee to see what recommendations are feasible, Kapsner said.
“The things that we would really like to get to work are our jury panels. We’re thinking that maybe they could be more inclusive,” Kapsner said. “We’re not sure whether we can work with the tribal situation and see if there are lists that the tribes maintain that would allow more participation by tribal members.”
Kapsner said she hopes many of the recommendations to be integrated into court culture.
“I would expect that this is a long-term process. And some of the recommendations that we made are really ongoing, forever kind of recommendations,” Kapsner said. “For example our education recommendations are recommendations that all court employees have education on an ongoing basis about cultural sensitivity; that’s forever.”
The study began in December 2009. All the members are volunteers.
