OUR MOTIVATION

Addressing Problems & Finding Meaningful Solutions with Our Youth & Our Community.

St. Paul Youth Services addresses issues that are gaining increased public attention and putting our youth, their families, and our community’s well-being at risk: criminal justice reform, alternatives to suspensions, and Minnesota’s glaring inequities by which the same actions lead to different consequences based on a young person’s race, gender, socioeconomic status, or neighborhood.

Here are the facts.

 

Suspensions & Expulsions in Minnesota

Black students are 8 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white students in Minnesota schools (MN Department of Human Rights, 2022)

Black students and students with disabilities in Minnesota are referred to law enforcement at rates nearly double the statewide average, (Center for Public Integrity, 2021)

IMPRISONMENT & JUVENILE DETENTION CENTERS

Indigenous youth are nearly 12 times more likely than white youth to be sent to juvenile detention or treatment facilities in Minnesota. Black youth are over eight times more likely than white youth to face detention, and Latino youth were 2.7 times more likely (Minnesota Sentencing Project, 2021).

54% of suspensions and expulsions in Minnesota last year were Black, even though they only make up 18% of the student population (Minnesota Department of Human Rights, 2022).

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES

The 4-year high school graduation rate in Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS), 2021:

Data: 53% American Indian, 57% African-American, 59% Latino, 70% Asian American, 77% White (Saint Paul Public Schools, 2022).

AFRICAN-AMERICAN YOUTH & THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM

In 2020 and 2021, 46 percent of juveniles arrested in the U.S. were Black, 37 percent were white, and 16 percent were Latinx. (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2022)

However, 61 percent of youth in the U.S. who are tried as adults in the U.S. were Black (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2022).