Race and Ethnicity Juvenile Offenders 1 Axia College of University of Phoenix Race and Ethnicity Juvenile Offenders CJA 344 Race and Ethnicity Juvenile Offenders 2 Over time the crime rate for juvenile offenders has steadily increased Juveniles are being arrested for more violent crimes than ever before Gang related crimes murders assaults and rapes to name a few These crimes are limited to a single gender either both male and female juveniles are committing the acts This has become such a problem that for the first time in history record amounts of juveniles are entering the criminal justice system The term ethnicity pertains to cultural and physical characteristics used to classify people and place them in groups or categories considered to be different from others A race is a variety of species consisting of a distinct population with anatomical traits that distinguish it from other races Race and Ethnicity Overview 2006 Juvenile offenders are young people under a certain age as defined by law that commits a crime Each state has its own definition of a juvenile and its age limit In most states the age limit is 17 and some states set the age limit as low as 14 The Federal Bureau of Investigation considers anyone under the age of 18 to be a juvenile Juvenile Offenders 2007 para 1 The most recent statistics reveal significant racial and ethnic disparity in the confinement of juvenile offenders In 1997 minorities made up one third of the juvenile population nationwide but accounted for almost two thirds of the detained and committed population in secure juvenile facilities For black juvenile offenders the disparities were most evident Although black juveniles ages 10 to 17 made up about 15 of the juvenile Race and Ethnicity Juvenile Offenders 3 population they accounted for 26 of juveniles arrested and 45 of delinquency cases involving detention About one third of adjudicated cases involved black youth yet 40 of juveniles in secure residential placements were black Bilchik 1999 p 1 A study performed in 1998 gave us evidence that a differential rate of arrest for crimes as they related to race 71 of juvenile offenders under 18 are white whereas 26 are black The other 3 percent are a combination of Indian Alaska Native and Asian and Pacific Islanders One thing to keep in mind that sometimes the percentages of arrests do not fully represent the population totals Black youths were overrepresented considering they only make up 15 of the juvenile population White juveniles comprise 79 and the others make up 5 of the rest of the totals In regards to violent crimes black youths were responsible for 42 of the arrests white youths were responsible for 55 and the other races were responsible for the remaining 3 When black youths are compared to white youths the black youths are the often most overrepresented in arrests for robbery where they comprise for 54 and 43 for murder and non negligent manslaughter 49 are black and 47 are white In regards to arson this is much of the same black youths were least disproportionately involved where 18 of the arrests made were of black youths and 80 were of white youths Cothern Hawkins Laub Lauritsen 2000 p 3 In 2000 black youths accounted for about 32 of the United States juvenile population and 58 of youth in juvenile facilities Of the 78 of boys in juvenile facilities across the country nearly 60 are minority youth Nationally African American youth under age 18 accounted for 15 of the juvenile population but made up 26 of juvenile arrests 31 of referrals to juvenile court 44 of the detained population 34 of youth formally Race and Ethnicity Juvenile Offenders 4 processed by the juvenile court 46 of youth sent to adult court 32 of youth adjudicated delinquent 40 of youth in residential placement and 58 of youth in state adult prisons Between 1988 and 1997 the percent increase in the number of cases involving detention was more than two times greater for African American youths than for white youths For every year during that same period black youths were more likely to be detained than white youths for all offense categories Multicutural Issues n a Even though black juveniles comprise roughly 16 of the general population of youth current statistics show that black youths account for 38 of youth in juvenile placement 30 of juvenile court referrals and 58 of youth in adult prison Findings from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency NCCD show that black youth are detained at higher rates than whites and Latinos and Latino youth are detained at higher rates than whites The Sentencing Project which calculated state rates of incarceration by race and ethnicity determined that black youth are incarcerated at six times more than white youth while Latino youth are incarcerated two times more than white youth Some argue that disproportionate contact is because of the differences in how minorities are treated by the justice system with minority youth receiving harsher scrutiny and treatment than whites Others contend that there are racial differences in criminal behavior which minority youth simply commit more crime Hodgdon 2008 p 1 Findings from one study indicate that police officers are more likely to believe that minority youth commit offenses because of attitudinal or personality traits whereas they attribute white youths offending to social environment Another study looking at unconscious attitudes found that regardless of the officers race or stated attitudes toward minorities both police and probation officers exhibited unconscious racial stereotypes Race and Ethnicity Juvenile Offenders 5 that led them to perceive minority offenders more negatively endorse more culpability and harsher sanctions and believe that the teens were more likely to re offend The National Council on Crime and Delinquency NCCD found that black youth are more likely to be charged and sentenced to out of home placement for the same offense then white youth Multiple studies show that black youth are given more restrictive dispositions than white youth even when they have committed the same offense and have the same prior record Minority juvenile offenders are more likely to be transferred to adult court than white offenders even for the same offense Studies using self report measures of criminal behavior find that although white and minority youth generally self report similar levels of offending they report some differences in the type of crime committed with minorities