HCR 25 Text

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 25
(By Delegates Webste r, Manuel, and Schoen )
[Introduced February 9, 2004; referred to the
Committee on Rules.]

Requesting the three branches of state government to cooperate and encourage leaders of the state, county and municipal governments to identify and affirmatively address minority issues and racial disparities in the areas of civil rights, health, education, housing, social issues, employment, economic development and criminal and juvenile justice systems in West Virginia in the interest of equality.

Whereas, House Concurrent Resolution No. 76, adopted by the West Virginia Legislature in 2002, recognizes and outlines a number of employment, social, health, educational, criminal justice and economic problems confronting African Americans and their communities in this state; and
Whereas, Select Committee B on Minority Issues was created by the Joint Committee on Government and Finance as part of the 2003 legislative interims to consider House Concurrent Resolution No. 76 and to study and make recommendations and offer solutions to address problems identified in House Concurrent Resolution No. 76; and
Whereas, According to the 2000 Census, African Americans comprise approximately 3.2 percent of the state's population and more than 5 percent of the population in seven counties; and
Whereas, The West Virginia Legislature should be committed to connecting communities, exploring strategies for racial and social equality and taking proactive steps to remedy the effects of past discrimination on African American children, adults and families; and
Whereas, Prevention of discrimination in civil rights, the justice system, education, health care, economic development, employment, business development, housing and community and family services is preferable to attempting to remedy the consequences of discrimination; and
Whereas, There is a wide disparity between African American and Caucasian public school students in West Virginia with regard to standardized testing scores, indicating a significant achievement gap which widens with tragic consequences for a number of African American students as they progress in school; and
Whereas, On the 2003 ACT college entrance examination, which is used by the PROMISE scholarship program to determine eligibility for college scholarships, African American students' success rate was significantly lower than that of Caucasian students; and
Whereas, African American children have been overrepresented in special education programs in schools in Kanawha County, the only area of the state for which statistics were provided to the Committee, and underrepresented in advanced education programs and programs for performing or gifted students; but the Kanawha County Board of Education has established programs to identify and include all qualified students, without regard to race, in special programs to enhance performance and to address the academic achievement gap between African American and Caucasian children at early stages of the public education process; and
Whereas, The percentage of African American teachers and educational professionals in many of the state's public schools is disproportionately lower than the African American student population, to some degree depriving minority students of important African American role models and advocates in educational settings; and
Whereas, Training assistance and education programs with affirmative outreach to African Americans combine to help prevent racial discrimination; and
Whereas, African Americans in West Virginia experience a disproportionately higher incidence of health risk and mortality from cancer, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and HIV; African American women tend to be diagnosed with breast cancer at later stages than Caucasian women; and the teen birth rate and the infant mortality rate among African Americans is twice that of Caucasians; and
Whereas, The percentage of African American children in the care and/or custody of the Bureau of Children and Families in 2003 was more than twice the percentage of African Americans in the general West Virginia population; and
Whereas, Business ownership among African Americans in Charleston, West Virginia, the only area of the state for which statistics were provided to the Committee, is proportionately less than minority business ownership nationwide; and
Whereas, The unemployment rate of African Americans recently has been about twice the unemployment rate for Caucasians and significantly higher in some counties with a greater concentration of African American population; and
Whereas, Statistics provided by the State Equal Employment Opportunity Office indicate that the percentage of minority employees among the full-time state government employees under the control of the Department of Administration is approximately the same as the percentage of African Americans in the state's population as a whole; and
Whereas, The West Virginia Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights has found continuing reports of racial discrimination in hiring, tension between law-enforcement officers and African American citizens and hate crimes and violence against minorities, including reported incidents of harassment of racial and ethnic minorities in schools; and
Whereas, The West Virginia Human Rights Commission reports that two-thirds of the hate crimes reported between 1992 and 2000 were racially motivated; and
Whereas, The West Virginia Legislative Auditor's Performance Evaluation and Research Division (PERD) reports that there is a scarcity of minority and female state troopers, especially in upper ranks, with only 16 (2.6 percent) of 606 troopers being female and only 3 (1.3 percent) of 606 troopers being African American; that the percentages of female and African American officers in county sheriff's departments are even lower; and that the state's 10 largest cities employ, on average, only 4.6 percent female officers and 3.9 percent African American officers, even though most of those cities have significantly greater populations of African Americans; and
Whereas, The West Virginia State Police have voluntarily sought to determine and monitor their own efforts relating to racial profiling sensitivity during routine traffic stops; and
Whereas, According to data voluntarily collected and provided by the West Virginia State Police, between October, 2002, and March, 2003, motor vehicles operated by minority drivers were stopped by state troopers at a rate roughly comparable to the percentage of minorities in the general state population. After being stopped, 63 percent of minority drivers were ticketed or arrested, compared to 51 percent of Caucasian drivers, and warnings were issued to 37 percent of all minority drivers, compared to 49 percent of Caucasian drivers; and
Whereas, West Virginia enjoys both a low juvenile crime rate and one of the nation's lowest juvenile detention rates, yet the percentage of minority youth in the West Virginia juvenile justice system exceeds the national rate of minority youths in the juvenile justice system; and
Whereas, In West Virginia, African Americans make up only 3.2 percent of the general population, but account for one third (1/3) of the adult prison population, one fifth (1/5) of the juveniles placed in detention and admitted to correctional facilities, and over one half (1/2) of the juveniles transferred to adult jurisdiction for major felonies; and
Whereas, There is a great and immediate need for comprehensive data collection and analysis on a multiyear basis and for continuing examination and review of solutions with regard to racial disparities in the areas of civil rights, health, education, housing, social issues, employment, economic development and criminal and juvenile justice systems; therefore, be it
Resolved by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the three branches of state government should cooperate and encourage leaders of the state to identify and affirmatively address minority issues and racial disparities in the areas of civil rights, health, education, housing, social issues, employment, economic development and criminal and juvenile justice systems; and, be it
Further Resolved, That county boards of education should be encouraged to aggressively recruit minority teachers and other professionals to work in the public school system; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Department of Education and county boards of education be given greater flexibility to employ teachers who are trained or experienced in working with African American children and parents; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Legislature should provide funding for professional development to improve teachers' effectiveness with African American students and parents; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Legislature should provide more funding for academic enrichment programs in locations where there are concentrations of poor and minority students, including more early preschool programs and after-school programs; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Department of Health and Human Resources should increase access to education in welfare-to-work programs and evaluate placement and referral policies; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Governor continue the mission of the Governor's Minority Students' Strategies Council to collect and analyze information from other states and organizations regarding effective policies and strategies for closing the academic achievement gap between Caucasian and minority students and to prepare an annual report for the Governor, the State Board of Education, the Higher Education Policy Commission, the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability and the public, outlining issues, recommendations and strategies to close the academic achievement gap; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Department of Education be required to review its Policy No. 2421, 126 CSR 18 (1996) governing peer harassment and violence against minority students, to study the extent to which the Policy has been implemented in public schools throughout the state and to take necessary steps to ensure complete implementation of the Policy in all public schools as soon as reasonably possible; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Department of Education and county boards of education themselves, with the input of the local communities, should provide hate crime prevention and response programs in schools and antibias training and education for students and teachers, including mechanisms to ensure harassment is reported before problems escalate, and that there are appropriate responses to incidents of harassment when they do occur; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Legislature should direct resources to support community-level partnership and innovation to address racial and ethnic disparities in health care; and, be it
Further Resolved, That all governmental agencies, institutions and corporate bodies at state and local levels should be encouraged to regularly collect, analyze and report to the Department of Administration data relating to racial disparities among children, adults and families in West Virginia; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Department of Administration should review and, if necessary, establish or reform state procurement policies and practices to assure that they meet federal and state requirements and that they effectively encourage meaningful participation of African Americans and other minorities in the process of competing for and awarding of state contracts for goods and services; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the State should continue to support and expand small business incubator programs like the one in place at Bluefield State College to encourage new and minority small business development; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the State should undertake initiatives to encourage African American business ownership similar to those efforts used to encourage greater rates of business ownership among women; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the State should assist community and economic development corporations to provide effective technical and business advisory services to minority-owned and -operated enterprises; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Governor and the Legislature should encourage industry, banks and other private businesses to hire African Americans and to encourage businesses to be more aggressive in establishing diversity-conscious practices as employers and for their operations; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the State should encourage traditional and nontraditional lending institutions to be more creative and favorable to lending in minority communities and to minority persons, especially for business enterprises; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Legislature should encourage small business start-up and expansion and provide funding to assist African American and other minority vendors to meet bid bonding requirements; and, be it
Further Resolved, That workforce investment boards should be accountable for educating poor and minority persons for jobs better than low-paying service jobs; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the West Virginia State Police and local law-enforcement officers should be trained and required to collect data regarding stops of motor vehicle operators which affect everyone's precious right of privacy in their motor vehicles, which data should include information on the stops and arrests of African Americans; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the West Virginia State Police and local law-enforcement agencies be required to provide diversity training for officers, including training to recognize and report hate crimes; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the West Virginia State Police be required to develop, in writing, goals for increasing the number of women and African Americans for all grades of officers and staff and to report annually as to its efforts and success in meeting those goals and be encouraged to employ African American and other minority persons as recruiting officers; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Legislature, the Governor and the Supreme Court should increase support for criminal justice research and for the development, maintenance and continued assessment of data related to the effectiveness of the court system in the areas of criminal sentencing, juvenile adjudication and community-based corrections; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Legislature should protect and maintain the confidentiality of juvenile records pending a study on the adverse impact of the release of such records on the employment and higher education opportunities of minority youth; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals should continue to study issues related to minority youth, including the highly disproportionate number of minority youth transferred from juvenile to adult jurisdiction in the criminal justice system through its Task Force to Study Perceived Racial Disparity in the Juvenile Justice System and to study and develop similar research projects with data collection in regard to adult offenders; and, be it
Further Resolved, That state agencies should study racial disparities in a number of areas to reduce gaps in educational achievement and in the overrepresentation of African Americans in adult prisons and juvenile facilities and encourage all participants in the educational and justice systems, including teachers, principals and other educational personnel, probation officers, juvenile referees, judges, justices, prosecutors, attorneys, law-enforcement officers, detention and correctional officers, caseworkers, social service providers, agency staff and members of the community to join in the study and development of policies and programs to address racial disparities; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Legislature, the Governor and the Supreme Court should take immediate steps to develop, implement and fund a collaborative and comprehensive community-based plan to study and correct overrepresentation of minority children and adults in the state's criminal and juvenile justice systems, with particular attention to prevention of juvenile crime through mentoring, diversion, recidivism-reduction strategies, in-school and after-school programs, entrepreneurial education, job training and placement alternatives, community-based sentencing for nonviolent offenders and transition and reentry programs for offenders upon completion of their sentences; and, be it
Further Resolved, That state agencies and the Legislature should be encouraged to propose specific legislative proposals where appropriate to facilitate these recommendations; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Legislature should continue to study minority and racial disparity issues in 2004; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Clerk of the House is hereby directed to forward a copy of this resolution to the Governor of West Virginia, the Justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, the President of the West Virginia Senate and the Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates.

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