Essay Sample on Disparities Among the Minority and Criminal Justice

Introduction

Rovner (2016) suggests that the increase in the number of committed disparities has increased because of an increase in the number of arrests made. During the 2003 - 2013 period, the number of black juveniles arrested which was double that of white juveniles' arrest dropped by 31% while that of white juveniles fell by 49%. Therefore, the growing commitment disparities are as a result of increased arrest disparities. It was found out that in the entire country, African Americans were four times likely to be committed to secure juvenile systems as compared to whit Americans. In some states like Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Utah, the ratio of black to white disparity was more than ten to one. Such figures indicated that African-American juveniles were ten-times more likely to be committed to a secure facility as compared to white juveniles.

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The National Research Council and Institute of Medicine panel (2001), has also acknowledged these disparities especially among the minority youth who are mainly black youth as compared to their white counterparts. The existence of racial representation which is described as disproportionate raises serval questions on the equality of treatment and fundamental fairness of these African American youths by the juvenile justice system, the courts as well as the police. This panel further indicates that what happens to these youths in the juvenile system may have consequences on the development of these youths as well as affecting their future.

The United States juvenile system is characterized by the disproportional confinement of black youths and other minority groups which has also been identified as an issue by the federal government. According to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, states were required to assess the level of confinement of all juveniles and especially the those from minority groups in the country and the event of disproportionate minority representation; they were expected to implement strategies to mitigate it. To ensure that states complied with these regulations, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention came up with the Disproportionate Minority Confinement program back in 1991 which tested different approaches towards addressing the problem. The pilot projects suggested that for the Juvenile Justice system to work, the government needs to focus on all aspects of the system instead of only focusing on confinement (Devine et al., 1998).

Years later, researchers are still trying to explain the continued overrepresentation of racial minorities in the juvenile system. Some researchers argue that racially disproportionate offensive behavior patterns are the main reason why the current disparity trends exist. Others say that these trends are as a result of biases among decision and policy makers in the juvenile justice system. Interestingly, many of these studies fail to put into account the role played by social injustice in crime production (Clarke, 1998).

Methodology

In the determination of the African American commitment disparities, the ratio for the white and black racial difference was calculated by comparing the rate of black juvenile commitments compared to the speed of white responsibilities by dividing the frequency of involvement of African American juveniles by the total number of African American in the juvenile system. Delinquency and crime among the youth are measured using the following sources of information; self-report surveys, official arrests and conviction statistics, and victimization surveys. In all three, there is evidence of high rates of serious offending in the young African American community. Nevertheless, when exploring the possibility that increased rates of racial disparity are as a result of racial differences in criminal conduct, it is crucial to accommodate the possibility of error in the crime data. In some instances, these errors could lead to the appearance that these racial disparities exist which if further examined, can be identified not to exist.

Results

There are various methods and studies that employ different sources of data, and in some cases, there is a disagreement in terms of the magnitude of differences in rates of involvement in young-people-related crime across the various racial, social class and ethnic categories. However, the majority of the research indicates differences in race. Official arrest data shows a substantial overrepresentation of black youth in the country as compared to the white youth. Self-reports indicate that racial disparity under the offending behavior category is lower as compared to the official arrests data, but black youths are still higher than other groups. Elliott (1994) takes a look at reports on offensive behaviors such as robbery, rape or aggravated assault from the National Youth Survey under the category of both race and sex by age 17 and came up with the following:

Sex\Race Black Americans White Americans

Male 36% 25%

Female 18% 10%

The following represents the percentage of young people reported to have committed a serious violent offense.

In a different study focusing on victimization from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which is also the third source of data on criminal behavior for juvenile offenders, the results are almost similar.

Analysis

Research indicated that black youth are overrepresented in all levels of the juvenile justice system, that is, arrest, secure detention, confinement in secure juvenile facilities, adult jails, adult lockups, the transfer to criminal courts and probation. The current disparity for black Americans is the driving force behind disproportionate minority representation. In another finding, various jurisdictions also contribute to the racial gap in the country. Black Americans experience higher arrest rates which are consequently followed by further juvenile system involvement as compared to the white Americans.

The juvenile justice system has in the past been linked to substandard living conditions that increase the risk of the youth getting involved in criminal activities. High poverty rates and poor social conditions are some of the significant contributors to increased racial disparity in the Juvenile justice system. Black children and adolescents are more likely to live in unfavorable conditions as compared to white children. Black children are also less likely to grow up in a household where one parent is fully employed. During the early years of childhood, black juveniles are more likely to experience poor health and health care conditions. Also, most of them are more likely to live in poor economic conditions which in most cases leads to segregation and neighborhood isolation with high levels of poverty as compared to white juveniles. Such poor neighborhoods have little racial heterogeneity as well as low mobility which is strongly associated with increased burglary and assault cases as indicated in the number of police calls made in such areas.

Conclusion and Risk Assessment

There exist strong predictors of violence among young people which include poverty and one-parent families, physical punishment, poor school achievement, young maternal age, and bad neighborhoods. The black race is exposed to various risk factors that are much more intense as compared to the white race. These different risk factors may also have multiplicative effects or consequences. Such effects might be as a result of enduring stigmatization or chronic poverty experienced by many of these young people. Also, there are several other ways through which the juvenile justice system affects the crime rate differences like where police increase their efforts and increase arrests. Nevertheless, it is evident that young black Americans are overrepresented in the Juvenile justice system and more needs to be done to counter the existing numbers. The government needs to pay more attention to these numbers and come up with alternatives to mitigate the situation.

References

"Race, Crime, and Juvenile Justice: The Issue of Racial Disparity." National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. 2001. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9747.

Clarke, J. W. (2018). The lineaments of Wrath: Race, violent crime and American culture. Routledge.

Devine, P., Coolbaugh, K., & Jenkins, S. (1998). Disproportionate minority confinement: Lessons learned from five states. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Elliott, D. S. (1993). (1994). Serious violent offenders: Onset, developmental course, and termination. Criminology, 32.

McCarter, S. (2018, July 30). Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System. Encyclopedia of Social Work. Ed. Retrieved 20 Mar. 2019, from http://oxfordre.com/socialwork/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.001.0001/acrefore-9780199975839-e-1289.

Rovner, J. (2016). Racial disparities in youth commitments and arrests. The Sentencing Project.