Racial Bias in the Juvenile Justice System

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Jehad Saleh September 12, 2012 Prof. Hakim English 102 Racial Bias in the Juvenile Justice System In the Criminal Justice System, people are taken into custody and normally they are of minority background. This is also true for the Juvenile Justice System in the United States. Most juveniles that are in these detention centers come from poverty backgrounds and areas where they seen violence everyday. The reason for this may be caused by the fact that most of these kids don’t have a father figure in their lives to keep them off the streets. Most people though don’t realize this and automatically think because of the color of their skin that they are a lost cost. The Juvenile Justice System is becoming more bias when it comes to sentencing minorities over Caucasians and we should not care about the color of their skin, but the crime that was committed. There are more than 2,500 juveniles in the United States that are serving life without the possibility of parole. Most of these juveniles come from backgrounds that most Americans don’t hear about. The juveniles’ age range from 13-16 years old and most are African American. The Sentencing project did a survey of more than 1,600 individuals who are “lifers’ and these are the results. * One in three of the respondents were living in public housing prior to incarceration. * 79 percent reported witnessing violence in their homes. * Almost half (46.9 percent) of those surveyed experienced physical abuse, including almost 80 percent of girls. * One in five reported histories of sexual abuse, and 77.3 percent of female prisoners reported abuse as girls. African Americans are twice more likely to be senetenced with life without parole for murdering a Caucasian than a Caucasian murdering an African American (Meza). The United States is still somewhat raciest when it comes to sentencing minorities
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