Juvenile Delinquency Among Minorities (LA Commons)
Author: Brandon Hao
Date: February 18th, 2021
Introduction
For my project on social inequality in Los Angeles, I plan to research juvenile justice. I have been interested in improving the social and economic conditions for young people to reduce delinquency in the future. The question that I am researching is:
“What are the social and economic factors that cause higher incarceration rates among minority youth in Los Angeles?”
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, 85% of the victims of violent juvenile crimes are African-American and Latinx males. More than half of juveniles who have committed assault at age 16 have been arrested for the same crime since age 12. Even worse, it has been projected that the delinquency rate will increase by approximately 40% in the next decade in Los Angeles. The main factors that are attributed to juvenile crime are the extensive amounts of socioeconomic factors, including wealth inequality, structural racism, and oppression among the upper and lower classes (caste system).
The Impact of Poverty and Income Inequality
Poverty and income inequality have always been issues in the United States that are associated with many societal problems. Institutional racism is defined as racism regarded as the acceptable practice among society. The lack of resources, such as job opportunities, education, and medical services, impedes success as adults. Even among the employed, African-American men only make around 72% of the amount of white men in the same occupation. This unequal pay deeply affects the academic performance of children, nearly doubling the risk of incarceration. Gentrification has resulted in driving minority groups into homelessness. Situations similar to these cause juveniles to commit crimes to obtain status, money, and some sense of power that has been stripped away by the wealthy. Studies have shown that adolescents who have experienced such trauma are four times more likely to become alcoholics, inject drugs, and smoke tobacco. As a result, they tend to make reckless choices that can lead to a pathway of crime.
The Dangers of High Inequality
High levels of inequality can be detrimental to society by fostering resentment and conflict. It undermines community and erodes a sense of common fate and mutual obligation among people. Intense inequality causes resources to be highly concentrated towards the rich, causing the remainder of people to live a disproportionate quality of life. This phenomenon especially happens when democracy is hindered by the mass influence of wealthy elites over the majority of people. Social disorder is a heavy burden on everyone due to its detrimental effects, which must be dealt with by police, contributing to juvenile delinquency. When there is an intense amount of social inequalities, decreased economic efficiency occurs as a result of more work discipline required. This directly relates to the lack of incentives that expose more minority and underprivileged youth to criminal behavior.
Racial Hierarchies and Their Impact on Juvenile Justice
Racial hierarchies have been a predominant factor associated with the prison population, particularly among juveniles. Researchers have argued whether crime rates indicate that Jim Crow laws still remain present today. A notable example is the killing of George Floyd in 2020; police brutality results from the false instinct that Black people are more prone to violence. In the city of Los Angeles, Black residents are arrested at the highest rates for minor infractions such as loitering, drinking in public, and sleeping on the street. Although comprising only approximately 10% of the population, African-Americans received 63% of citations for loitering and 27% for being intoxicated in public. Similarly, Latinxs are also disproportionately cited, despite representing nearly half of the Los Angeles population. This pattern of enforcing petty laws against California’s Black, Latinx, and unhoused residents has been conducted by the Lawyers’ Committee, revealing that these citations are based on local statutes used as tools for penalizing poverty and applied in racist and classist ways.
Disparities in Incarceration and the War on Drugs
African-American men serve nearly seven times the amount of time for the same crime as white men on average. Even more alarming, Black males have a 1 in 3 chance of being incarcerated throughout their lives, compared to 1 in 18 for whites and 1 in 6 for Latinx. Unsurprisingly, the highest disparity among arrest rates between minorities and whites is found in drug offenses. This data is associated with the “war on drugs,” a collection of crime policies formed by conservative political forces from the late-1970s to the early-1980s. A group of people from the United Nations indicated that “the war on drugs has operated more effectively as a system of racial control than as a mechanism for combating the use and trafficking of narcotics.” These regulations were considered repressive in combating crime and disorder during that time. In reality, the Black population does not use drugs at higher rates than the white population. In fact, research has shown that there are higher rates of drug use among white high school students than other races.
Educational Disparities and Their Consequences
Throughout the past century, African-American and Hispanic students have considerably lagged behind their white peers in terms of academic achievement. This disparity is caused by home environments, school factors, and the way Black students are treated by teachers and school administrators. Studies illustrate the differences in how Black and white students experience a typical school day. For instance, teachers are less likely to spot Black students who excel academically. It was found that Black students were 54% less likely than white students to be recommended for gifted-education programs, despite having the same grades and standardized test scores. Additionally, when giving feedback on assignments, teachers would usually give more constructive feedback on a poorly written essay by a white student than by a minority student. Consequently, poor educational attainment contributes to an increased juvenile crime rate among young people of color. People without a bachelor’s degree or higher are more than five times more likely to become incarcerated than those who do.
The Role of Family Structure in Juvenile Delinquency
Over half of Black and Hispanic children live with a single parent, a leading factor associated with juvenile delinquency. Family structure is one of the most prominent indicators of determining a person’s future conduct in society. Parents teach children to refrain from unacceptable behavior, delay gratification, and be respectful to authority. Antisocial and aggressive behaviors may begin as early as preschool or in the first few grades of elementary school. In addition to criminal behavior, children from single-parent households are much more likely to engage in suicide, depression, and drug abuse. Such family types often involve rejection and lack of parental supervision. Nine times out of ten, single parents lack a parent–child relationship because they have inadequate time to help their children deal with feelings of frustration and loneliness. Furthermore, especially without a father figure, children are likely to develop feelings of confusion, anger, and despair that can cause them to react in ways they might not have previously encountered.
Healthcare Access and Crime Prevention
Not surprisingly, access to healthcare drastically reduces the likelihood of exposure to crime. According to the National Academy of Medicine, more than 11% of Black people did not have government health insurance coverage in 2017. Most people who are or have been through the criminal justice system suffer from serious health problems. Approximately three in five prisoners and juvenile delinquents have a substance abuse problem. Additionally, a majority of inmates are in serious psychological distress and have a history of mental illness. Prisons and juvenile detention centers do not offer a sufficient amount of treatment options for them. However, by increasing the availability of healthcare in communities, people will begin to seek help before they end up becoming arrested. Another plan involves reducing demand for illegal drugs, which will also reduce violent behavior and unlawful activities such as theft and robbery. As a result, a treatment program known as Medicaid has drastically decreased the crime rate by welcoming an additional 20% of people to mental healthcare.
Addressing Inequality in Juvenile Crime
Inequality in juvenile crime is caused by a broader set of societal issues, including food, education, healthcare, and family. We as a nation must establish initiatives to reduce the structural racism that frequently occurs. Many states have begun implementing projects to help diminish racial inequalities in the juvenile justice system. One requirement that has been enforced is to separate race and ethnicity categories when surveying youth, preventing the reporting of incomplete data. By providing more accurate results, officials will gain a more thorough understanding so that they can provide more culturally and linguistically competent interventions. Structured tools, such as detention risk assessment instruments, can help intake staff make objective decisions based on criteria such as prior failure to appear, current charges, and previous violations of conditions of release. As a result, by reducing individual discretion, unconscious bias will be will be ameliorated by having racial and ethnic disparities reduced. Establishing more diversion programs and community-based alternatives to incarceration, jurisdictions have been able to reduce the number of youth of color in their juvenile justice systems. In order to obtain a bright and diverse future, we have to enforce liberty and justice for our young citizens of every race, location, and cultural background. Inequality along with structural racism have been issues that our country has struggled with since the days of our founding fathers. Reducing offenses in the juvenile justice system will eventually lessen the number of adult criminals incarcerated.
