Native American children significantly more likely to be arrested, detained in Washington

For the past 30 years, it’s been clear: Native American children in Washington state are far more likely to be arrested and jailed than white kids.

The state’s courts and Washington Department of Youth and Families have acknowledged the justice system continues to hold back Native American youth, funding committees and producing action plans to address racial inequities in the juvenile legal system. Advocates have called for fewer arrests, many of which are discretionary. Lawmakers have demanded more data on juvenile arrests.

Yet the gaps have continually worsened. Data from the nonprofit Sentencing Project and the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention from 2019-23, the most recent available, shows that Native American children in Washington are more than 4.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers on average, up from 2.7 times more in 2001.

“As long as we’ve looked at data for Washington state, Native youth are much, much more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers,” said Joshua Rovner, a senior research analyst and the former youth policy director for the Sentencing Project, which researches incarceration nationwide.

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2025/11/16/native-american-children-significantly-more-likely-to-be-arrested-detained-in-washington/