Race Juvenile Family, Community, and Racial Trends

Race Juvenile

Family, Community, and Racial Trends in U.S. Juvenile Criminal Justice

The subject of race and ethnicity as they relate and correlate to criminality and prison populations in the United States has been the subject of a great deal of study and commentary for many decades. It is unquestionably true that a disproportionate number of people of color are convicted of crimes than are Caucasians both on a national level and at the community level in the majority of the country; this fact is easily supported by a cursory review of criminal justice statistics and is not a matter of debate despite the contentiousness of the issue. What is debated are the reasons behind this skewed prison population/criminal element, and in an effort to address this debate the following paper will study the problem as it appears not amongst adults, but amongst the still-developing youth of the country.

Race, Ethnicity, and the Juvenile Court System

Just as there is a disproportionate number of minority adults accused of criminality and ultimately convicted of crimes in the United States, the same disproportion exists for minority youths (Piquero 2008; Jordan & Freiburger 2011). Race and ethnicity still unquestionably play large roles in community dynamics in many areas, and it has been suggested by researchers that such dynamics are possibly both the result of and contributors to higher rates of actual and/or perceived youth criminality amongst minorities (Dixon & Azocar 2006; Rodriguez 2007). There are essentially two possibilities for the higher rates of colored youths in the criminal justice system: actual differences in criminal involvement, or differences in selection of which crimes to prosecute and to what extent they should be prosecuted; most researchers agree that it is likely a combination of these two forces working to create the situation as it is observed in the nation today (Piquero 2008).

There is no question, of course, that youth criminality exists amongst minority populations, yet there is ample evidence that economic factors are far more influential when it comes to causing or creating the potential for criminality than race could ever be (Rodriguez 2007; Dixon & Azocar 2006). Increasing social disorganization, which is seen at much greater levels lower on the socioeconomic ladder for a variety of reasons, is highly correlated with increases in delinquent behavior, and delinquency can move into criminality both realistically and perceptually fairly quickly for both youth and criminal justice workers (Piquero 2008). These issues can create a vicious cycle in which minority youth are perceived as potential offenders, and so engage in delinquency and eventually criminality due to feelings of aggression and adversity towards a system that they feel is adversarial.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Court Decision

It is not simply within the juvenile court system that racial and ethnic disparities can be seen to exist, but referrals to court and criminal justice systems from outside institutions such as schools, community centers, etc., also show a disproportion towards minority youth (Rodriguez 2007). This can reinforce notions amongst both criminal justice workers and minority youths that the "system" is stacked against them and adversarial. This also creates difficulties for minority youths struggling to succeed in such institutions, which can itself contribute to criminality.

In addition to specific institutions that youths and the criminal justice system interact with on a regular basis, there are other large-scale external influences that almost certainly have an effect on the disproportionate number of minority youths that have entered the criminal justice system. The issue of economic status has already been mentioned as a certain contributor to social disorganization and thus increased delinquency and criminality; this correlation has not only been affirmed in research directed specifically towards minority youths but has been generally accepted as a truism in pretty much every human society (Rodriguez 2007; Piquero 2008). Other community-specific influences such as employment rates, access to appropriate activities and learning opportunities, and the degree of cultural cohesion or fragmentation that exists in specific locales and amongst specific ethnic populations can all also be contributing factors in real and perceived rates of minority youth criminality (Piquero 2008).

Media and Juvenile Crime

The media also plays a significant role in shaping the perception of youth minority criminality and thus potentially affecting the disproportion selection of crimes for prosecution and the severity of sentencing, both of which seem slanted against minority youths and black youths in particular (Dixon & Azocar 2006; Jordan & Freiburger 2011; Rodriguez 2007). One particular study found that black youths are over-represented not only as criminals but as violent and/or "remorseless" criminals in the Los Angeles area (Dixon & Azocar 2006). This study was especially interesting as it found that Latino youths were under-represented, while white youths were actually represented "fairly" (Dixon & Azocar 2006).