Paper Example on Juvenile Delinquency in the African American Community

Introduction

The problem of juvenile delinquency is becoming a sore thumb, especially for the African American community. This issue is usually significantly higher in the African American youth population than the other races. This fact has been a subject of research, with those conducting the research seeking to find out the main reasons behind this issue. Numbers prove that African American youths have a disproportionate frequency of encounters with officers of law enforcement, proving the fact that profiling of people according to their races. A recent report by the Department of Justice shows that African Americans are usually on average, there times more likely to face searches during traffic stops than their white counterparts. This paper will discuss some of the underlying factors that contribute to the problem of juvenile delinquency in the African American community, namely; underemployment, inadequate opportunities, and the dysfunction of the family unit.

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There are a variety of factors that usually lead to cases of juvenile delinquency and that lead to difficulties of finding a particular solution when trying to solve this issue. Therefore, juvenile delinquency should be considered a vital issue whose solutions should be sought actively. The main causes of this issue are rooted deep in society and include physical and sexual abuse, mental health, substance abuse, socioeconomic status and educational deficiencies. The African American societies usually have, on average, more problems of juvenile delinquency than those of other races usually due to the low social-economic statuses in these societies.

As of 2013, Black teenagers were four times more likely to face commitment than white teenagers, Hispanic teenagers were sixty-one percent more likely, while Americans of Indian descent were three times more likely. In six states: Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Utah, the African American teenagers faced a more than ten times the likelihood of their white counterparts to get a commitment to secure facilities. This clearly shows, that the African American juveniles, all other factors being constant, have more likelihood of engaging in juvenile delinquency than their age mates from the other races.

The first factor that influences juvenile delinquency is underemployment among the African American population. Underemployment is usually a major contributor of poverty, which is one of the most common causes of juvenile delinquency (Siegel & Welsh, 2016). Poverty plays a major role in the lives of numerous teenagers who live in the urban centers. The effects of poverty are even felt by the children in metropolitan areas. The rates of poverty for children below eighteen years old in the country are around twenty percent. Even though children usually compose just twenty-six percent of the population, more than forty percent of the people who live in poverty are children below eighteen years old. The proportions of Black Americans population show even more discouragement compared to the national data, given that as of the year 2000, around thirty-two percent of children in the Black Americans population below eighteen years old had been living below the poverty level (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Being the strongest underlying cause of poverty in the African American society has really influenced the rates of Juvenile delinquency in this community.

Also, underemployment causes many adults in the African American community to work multiple jobs daily, hence spending most of their time away from their children. This directly leads to less supervision of the African American children by their parents, a factor which may lead to their behavior leaning on the negative side. Unsupervised children often get the chance to participate in actions or deeds that may be criminal and risky. This directly increases the cases of juvenile delinquency among this population compared to the communities of other races whose adults just have to work a few hours to achieve financial satisfaction and independence hence getting ample time to guide and supervise their children.

The second factor that aggravates the issue of juvenile delinquency among African American children is inadequate opportunities. Black American males are often the subjects and victims of stereotyping and categorization according to race, and this negatively affects the number of opportunities accorded to them. There are various factors that lead to this condition, but the most influential is the negative depiction of African American males by the media, both mainstream and social media. This negative portrayal usually results in the reduction of opportunities that the rest of the population wishes to accord to them.

Some of the negative characteristics that are usually portrayed by the media are negative aggressiveness, arrogance, violent, argumentative, predatory, and confrontational (Siegel & Welsh, 2016). This is usually utter discrimination as males from other races who engage in such behavior and malice is usually portrayed with lighter perception and as good people who are either mentally unstable or are troubled, or had no other options. Such negative descriptions usually lead to lack of opportunities for African Americans in all spheres of life, from educational opportunities like scholarships to career opportunities.

The limited opportunities for gainful engagements then make the black males especially the young ones to participate in other unlawful activities like stealing and drug dealing in a bid to earn income. Adolescents and preadolescents are at a higher risk of engaging in injuring others, carrying weapons, threatening people, and engaging in physical fights if their family is of a low socio-economic class (Firebaugh &Acciai, 2016; Rekker et al., 2015). They, therefore, become lawbreakers, portraying a further bad image of the black Americans, which makes other people fear to work with them, and the cycle continues. This results in many cases of juvenile delinquency among the African American community.

Family factors such as family dysfunctions usually play a role in the juvenile delinquency in the African American community as the environment in which a person grows and learns about life plays a significant role in directing the bearing of a person's life. The kind of family in which a child grows is usually manifested in their behavior and actions. In the past few decades, criminologists and sociologists have been emphasizing on the family's significance in influencing misbehavior among children and teenagers (Geismar & Wood, 1986). The highest number of families in with such characteristics is found in the African American communities, according to numerous studies and investigations. Studies have actually found out that children who get adequate supervision from their parents have a low probability of getting involved in any unlawful engagements (World Youth Report, 2003).

The main characteristics of dysfunctional family settings are premature autonomy, weak integration and internal linkages, lack of sufficient parental guidance, and conflict. Families with such characteristics have a high association with delinquency cases among children. The children who hail from a poor family usually end up having few opportunities to make it in life by being gainfully and legitimately employed and hence they are under high risks of social exclusions which may lead to unlawful behavior. This kind of suffering and disadvantage is usually very depressing and is mainly found among minorities in the American population, African American is the most affected by such vices. The African American society is particularly facing the problems of turmoil and insecurities, which contributes to the high number of juveniles and children facing neglect by their parents, and those facing violence and abuse at home (World Youth Report, 2003).

Inadequate educational opportunities and achievements usually influence the rates of juvenile delinquency among the African American communities in various ways. It has been a well-known fact that African American children and young people are usually disadvantages when it comes to attracting assistance and support that can help them in learning and propel them to realize their academic goals. Before the introduction of the affirmative action in the education sector, very few African Americans went to the institution of higher learning. This was mainly due to poor performances in the entry-level exams. The root of this problem can be traced to the fact that most schools that the normal or typical African American children attend are low-level schools where the ratios of students to teachers are very high and the learning material is barely adequate. According to Lahey et al (2004), when there is no reinforcement and assistance to learn information, it is usually very challenging to regurgitate information in academic environments as such material has not been learned in an adequate manner.

Conclusion

The lack of adequate academic opportunities leads to the lack of opportunities to precede the next levels of learning, which leaves the affected teenagers desperate and with no choice but to do whatever they can for survival, or to try and make it in life the "street way." This mentality causes them to engage in unlawful activities which land them in juvenile correctional centers if they are not yet old enough to face the regular law enforcement systems. This factor of inadequate education opportunities mainly affects children from the African American community as a high proportion of their families cannot afford a quality education. This ultimately leads to the rise in juvenile delinquency in the African American community.

References

Firebaugh, G., &Acciai, F. (2016). For Blacks in America, the gap in the neighborhood poverty has declined faster than segregation.

Geismar, L., & Wood, K. (1986). Family and delinquency. New York: Human Sciences.

"Juvenile Delinquency" (2003) World Youth Report. Pp. 188-211

Lahey, B.B., Pelham, W.E., Loney, J., Kipp, H., Ehrhardt, A., Lee, S.S, Willcutt, E.G, Hartung, C.M, Chronis A, Massetti, G. (2004) Three-year predictive validity of DSM-IV attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children diagnosed at 4-6 years of age. American Journal of Psychiatry. 161, 2014-2020

Siegel. L., & Welsh, B. (2016) Juvenile Delinquency. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2000). Current population survey, the Black population in the U.S.:March 2000, PPL 142.