The Common Perception of Juvenile Offenders - Essay Example

The Common Perception of Juvenile Offenders The University of Illinois at Chicago has conducted an experiment that resulted in detection of prejudiced attitude to African American juveniles under the trial. It turned out that male judges acted prosecutive when a defendant was coloured, at the same time – white victim was protected more eagerly than a black one. Thus, a model where a victim was white and a criminal was black turned out to be mostly expected among the judges. The racial discrimination is prohibited by law and needs to be avoided (for example with not mentioning the race of defendants), but biased judgments still remain. The Certain reason for it cannot be distinguished strictly. Presumably such behavior is encouraged with the stereotypes, common for police and jurors and is rooted in the past where the slavery and beliefs of blacks being not as clever as whites and much more aggressive were wide-spread. Mass-media is also likely to influence such point of view, describing the evil nature of Black juvenile offenders and the misguided yet still innocent nature of White juvenile offenders». Thus shooting at school committed by a white adolescent would most likely be described as shocking, while same act committed by a black one - as expectable. There are no special explorations of for reasons of juvenile legal discrimination, but similar tests were conducted with adults and resulted in the theory of similarity-leniency, where people tend to show more empathy with ones whom they consider alike to their person. That was not the first experiment of a kind, still it was the first one conducted in order to prove the existence of racial prejudice directed onto coloured juveniles. The confinement of African American juveniles throughout the United States is abnormal. The rate of juvenile confinements for several years has decreased, and thus the predominance of arrests of coloured juveniles has become even more obvious. According to researches, coloured youth commits more crimes and is arrested twice as often as white juveniles. Still, the other reason for such misbalance was also caused by the difference in attitude to black or latin juveniles in comparison to white ones. It is bound not only with the biased attitude but also with the difference in the life circumstances of juveniles that result in stricter sentences. For example under the law of Minnesota, a punishment for trying crack cocaine is four years of confinement, while trying powdered cocaine leads only to probation period. Under the circumstances that predominant part of youth using powder were white, whereas coloured ones were caught at crack trying, such law difference could influence the statistics. Still, only ten percent of whites were sentenced for first-degree crimes, as for blacks this number reaches thirty-one percent. Whites often received lesser penalties for their misconduct. Moreover, according to the researches inside the system of mental health, it turned out that white children were more likely to be sent to correction facilities while black ones – sentenced, taking to account similar misconduct and mental disorder. The statistic, made in the process of a research still has shown that greater part of mentally inadequate kids were white. The comparative analysis has shown the following results: violent crimes are more common for African American and Latinos, but cases of such crimes are low, whereas each fourth juvenile arrest is bound with property, also they tend to violate curfew laws approximately three times more. Property crimes take the first place among juvenile crimes and black juveniles were more than two-and-a-half times often to be caught. Marijuana smoking level is the same for whites and blacks. Still drug-bound activities are also the place where black juveniles are more often to be caught, due to peculiarities in law and trade methods. Thirty percent of the United States’ people are black; sixty percent of imprisoned people are black too. Moreover, they are more often to be searched during a traffic stop, twice more often to be arrested and four times more often have experienced applying of force during the arrest. Black youngsters face stricter punishment at schools and are more often incarcerated – approximately seventy percent of arrested are coloured. Moreover, they are more likely to be sent to adult prison. A variety of organizations on different levels of power, for example, The Association of Black Psychologists, are gathering information, hold experiments and practically try to influence misbalance and prejudiced behavior directed to African-American juveniles. The current situation can gravely influence a future of black youth and, as a result, a future of a nation in common. For example, being transferred into adult court, a juvenile is deprived of a right to parole. African American juveniles constitute seventeen percent of the population and they make up sixty-five percent among people that received such sentence. In common it can be stated that African-American juveniles are more often being caught and sentenced, their punishment is stricter in comparison to one applied to white juveniles. And the issue is bound not only with extreme crimes as, for example, murder; drug dealing, property damage, minor offences of various types of minor offences are also judged more strictly when it comes to non-white juveniles. A variety of researches and experiments are made to prove the prejudiced behavior, and a lot is done in order to make justice not only fair but also equal for all. And, as it can be seen, a lot still needs to be done. References C. Stevenson, M., & L. Bottoms, B. (n.d.). Race Shapes Perceptions of Juvenile Offenders in Criminal Court. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Retrieved October 10, 2015, from https://www.uic.edu/labs/pll/stevenson-bottoms-in-press-jasp-word.pdf Drakeford, W., & Frank Garfinkel, L. (2000). Differential Treatment of African American Youth. Retrieved from http://www.edjj.org/Publications/pub_06_13_00_2.html Rovner, J. (2014). DISPROPORTIONATE MINORITY CONTACT IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM. Retrieved from http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/jj_Disproportionate Minority Contact.pdf Kerby, S. (2013, March 13). The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2012/03/13/11351/the-top-10-most-startling-facts-about-people-of-color-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/ Justice for All, Just Not Us: African American Youth and the Criminal Justice System. (n.d.). Retrieved October 10, 2015, from http://www.abpsi.org/pdf/juvenilejustice.pdf. Read More