The Role Of Latino Youth In The US Criminal Justice System

Throughout this first chapter of Latino Americans the key points in my opinion were the following. Starting with the origin story of the Americas, the book mentions there might not be a definitive starting point because there “500 nations in North America before a European ship ever dropped anchor off the Eastern Seaboard” (Suarez 3). The book from this point on chronologically starts narrating, first about 55 years before Protestant refugees from Mayflower ever stepped on American soil, a Spanish sailor Pedro Menendez de Aviles forced French protestants from their Florida coast settlement to then stablish St. Augustine. From this point the book continues to tell the stories of Juan de Oñate, from witnessing the founding of Santa Fe, the oldest capital of North America, to exploring more than half a dozen of American states, he is one of the most fundamental conquistadors who is the least

The American Criminal Justice System are sets of agencies and process made by the government to control crime and to penalize those who commit it. The justice system is different based one’s jurisdiction, meaning city, state, federal or tribal government or military installation. The Criminal System is divided into two main parts, the state and the federal. The state portion handles crimes within its state boundaries. The federal portion handles crime committed on Federal property or in two or more states (“Criminal Justice” 1). The American Criminal Justice System needs reform because of its emphasizes on incarceration punishment rather than Rehabilitation. Our justice system especially enforces punishment on blacks and Latinos resulting of overpopulation of prisons like Rikers Island for petty crimes. Also, another reform needed the juvenile cases. For example, juveniles who commit petty crimes shouldn’t be sent to adult prison and shouldn’t be near more dangerous and serious inmates.

Today, the Hispanic population has grown tremendously over the years. We have watched the Hispanics community growth rate grow faster than any other racial and ethnic group in the nation. The Hispanic culture and community has populated all around the United States, introducing new traditions and customs. I was traveling to different to city in the States, I notice the wide spread growth of Hispanic communities, For Instance in Miami the Cuban and El Salvadoran culture is heavy populate in the area. In New York the Puerto Rican culture is dominating through out the several boroughs. I have come around town and Hispanics are known for their good food, which tends to have more diverse people try new cultural customs. Hispanic or Latino

Racial inequality in the American criminal justice system has a strong effect of many realms of society such as the family life, and employment. Education and race seem to be the most decisive factors when deciding who goes to jail and what age cohort has the greatest percentage chance of incarceration. Going to prison no longer affects just the individual who committed the crime. Instead, the family and community left behind gain a new burden by one individual's actions. The United States still has a large disparity between Whites and Blacks and now a growing Hispanic population. This racial disparity in the educational

Hispanics, Mexicans, and Latin Americans do not only face discrimination on the roadways but also in areas of immigration law enforcement due to past incidents in America with people of their ethnicity. In 2010 an American citizen of Mexican descent and his family were coming back to America from a family trip to Mexico, when him and his family, including his eighteen month old son, were subjected to an additional screening and special search because of their origin. In New Jersey 2007 police referred around 10,000 individuals who they believed to be undocumented to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), and less than 1,500 of those referred to ICE had immigration offenses. Even though nearly ninety percent of those referred were legal residents or U.S citizens, they were all still jailed for a few days, resulting, once again in unjust treatment of American citizens because of the color of their skin (The Reality of Racial Profiling).

According to Victor Rios in his book Punished, it can be argued that minority youth are systematically targeted and mistreated. They are often victims of police brutality and racism. Constantly under surveillance, many of the black and Latino boys grow up fighting the “youth control system”. I believe that these components contribute to the factors in which the poor and minorities are often affected by the child welfare system and the cycle continually repeats itself.

The continual hyper-criminalization and racialization exhibited by various institutions against young black and latino boys has run rampant in the last decade. Youth in underprivileged communities across America today are subject to an inevitable web of punishment

Race is genetically mixed, socially filtered, and an inextricable subject of change. That’s why most Latinos prefer to identify themselves according to their country of origin. They are in some sense executing the strong national identity they are taught in school. The problem comes when they are asked if they are Hispanic or Latino, which is the current format that the Census Bureau uses to ask people about their “ethnicity”. With only linguistic connotations, this two words cannot define the whole Latino community. So, how can we better define their ethnicity?

The concept of hypercriminalization specifically leads Rios to question how punishment, surveillance, and the criminal justice system affect minority adolescent males. Additionally, Rios wanted to know how the roles of authority figures such as police, school teachers, parents, and probation officers influenced or hindered adolescent male’s lives. For the study, Rios decided to shadow and conduct in-depth interviews with forty adolescent males, both Latino and African-American between the ages of fourteen and seventeen at the time of recruitment, from neighborhoods around Oakland, California. Additionally, Rios observed and informally interviewed seventy-eight other adolescent males that were friends or acquaintances of the boys Rios selected to study in-depth.

Often times, people in America understand that minority youths are excessively represented in the justice system. Unfortunately, this occurs at every level of the justice system. Not only does it occur in from initial contact with the police, it continues through incarceration. In many cases, young juvenile minority are being discriminated, they come from corrupted developing countries with high levels of crime, and the majority of white youths are from wealthy families.

Research shows that African Americans and Latinos have been the victims of racial profiling by the criminal justice system. African Americans and Latinos are at a higher risk of being arrested, prosecuted and sentenced that Whites. The main cause of racial disparities occurs because law enforcement agencies believe that African Americans and Latinos are at high risk of engaging in crime and violence. During prosecutions and court hearings, the jury and judges give harsher sentences to minority groups. As a result, minorities view the criminal justice system as unjust since it favors whites. This research paper reviews relevant literature to show white privileges and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Additionally, the paper provides linkages between racial disparities in the United States criminal justice system and the law. In this regard, the main objective of the research paper is to give detailed insights on racial discriminations in the criminal justice system.

The Mass Incarceration in the United States is a major topic of discussion in our society and has raised many questions about our criminal justice system. There are few topics disputed as much in criminal justice as the relationship between race, ethnicity, and criminal outcomes. Specifically, the large disparities that minorities face regarding incarceration in our country. Minorities such as Hispanics and African Americans are sentenced at far higher rates than their white counterparts. There are multiple factors that influence this such as the judicial system, racial profiling by law enforcement, and historical biases (Kamula, Clark-Coulson, Kamula, 2010). Additionally, the defendants race was found to be highly associated with either a jail or prison sentence; with the “odds increasing 29 percent for black defendants, and 44 percent for Hispanic defendants” (King, Johnson, McGeever, 2010).

The color of justice covered a wide range of issues in the juvenile justice system. The short informational film brought to light the facets that causes a majority of African and Hispanic American juveniles to be detained in detention centers, instead of being written a citation or referred to a rehabilitation facility. There are various changes that can be made to protect juveniles from being stereotyped because of race or social economic standing, but to be realistic changes cost money and most criminal organization have cost limitations set by the government.

It seems throughout the past 30 years, black and ethnic minority young people’s experiences within the criminal justice system and the youth have been negatively associated.

Hispanic Americans suffered similar fate as African- Americans in racial profiling. The media portrayed them as part of gangs and selling drugs. This group is more likely to have a strong group identity and view the police officers as “gringos” or foreigners (Aguiree , 2004). They already look at the police officers with negativity due to increased activities of deporting illegal occupiers (Davis & Hendricks, 2007). The police officers may be influenced to believe that this group is at higher risk of breaking laws and do not understand Hispanic Americans’ culture.