Examples Of Differential Treatment

Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) states minorities (such as African Americans or Latinos) have a disproportionate amount of contact with the criminal justice system when compared to their white counterparts. Two perspectives that explain this disproportionality are differential offending and differential treatment. Differential offending argues there is an actual difference in offending between races; DMC is a result of minorities committing more crimes than their white counterparts (Hindelang, R2). Differential treatment maintains there is no difference in offending between races; DMC is a consequence of minorities being treated more harshly in the criminal justice system than whites (Hindelang, R2).
One cause of differential offending
Elements of differential treatment can be seen in conflict theory. Conflict theory states that crime is defined by those in power within a community: when people with little power do something those in power do not like, then that particular action is seen as deviant/criminal (E3, Set 4 Slide 4-8). This ties into differential treatment, whether a person is arrested or convicted of a crime depends not on the action the individual committed—it depend on the type of person the individual is. For example, Beckett et al. found that in Seattle minorities were more likely to be arrested for drug charges than their non-Hispanic white counterparts; even though there were non-Hispanic whites in possession of more harmful drugs (such as heroine) than the drugs minorities were caught with (cocaine) (R25). In this instance, law enforcement officers are treating minorities more harshly than non-Hispanic whites, which leads to an increase in DMC. This is also an indicator of racial threat hypothesis.
Racial threat hypothesis stems from conflict theory and maintains that when a minority group reaches a certain percentage of the population, non-Hispanic whites view that minority group as a threat and exert more formal social control through law enforcement action (Eitle et al, R19). As a result, if one county has more DMC than another it is because the county with higher DMC has people in power exerting
Between the two counties, Sierra had the lower DMC juvenile arrests with 0.93 and Luna had a higher DMC level of 2.03. My first variable, percent Latino in total population, reflects how much of the population of a county is made up of Latinos. In order to calculate this I used U.S. decennial census data. I obtained the number of Latinos in one county then got the number of the total population. I then divided the number of Latinos by the total population and multiplied that by one hundred to get a percentage. I then repeated the same process for the other county. I found that Luna County had a higher percentage of Latinos than Sierra with 57.7% of the population being Latino;Sierra had a Latino population of 26.3%. Since Luna has a higher level of DMC—along with a higher percentage of Latinos, it may indicate that Latinos are being treated more harshly by law enforcement officials and are consequently experiencing more arrests than non-Hispanic whites. Consequently, it would make sense for less Latinos to be present in Sierra which has lower