Racial Bias In Juvenile Justice Essay

Racial bias affects the direct file of a juvenile being tried as an adult. Studies have shown inconsistencies in the juvenile justice system where race was the determining factor in juveniles taking on adult sentences. For example, the case with Studies show that the race of the juvenile defendant can influence a direct file’s decisions to charge them as adult.
Racism is the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. Characteristics like their skin color, facial features, and abilities like blacks can only play sports like football and basketball. Stereotype can be an example of racism. Like saying, all white
people are filthy rich, or Hispanics are on food stamps and black people are extremely poor. Racism is a huge issue that the society deals with today. It is mostly targeted towards African Americans in an America. There are many ways that racism has become a problem. Like in careers, social media, and in the everyday lives of Americans. Also in the education, system of the United States racism still exist.
The juvenile justice is a minor criminal system, and usually consist of young minors under the age of eighteen years’ old.
The juvenile system is created to protect the juvenile, and allow them to make changes in their lives without it following them into adulthood. “However, one major controversy in juvenile dispositions is the use of indeterminate sentencing, which allows a judge to set a maximum sentence” (Reuters). The process of the juvenile system is that the juvenile is taken in to custody, and then are held in a detention center until the decision is made whether the juvenile should be sent to adult court or in to the Diversion Program. The Diversion Program is a program that prevents juveniles from entering the juvenile system through a legal process (Juvenile Justice Process). Juvenile cases can only be transferred in only three ways, an indictment, waiver and a direct file (Juveniles Charged as Adults). An indictment is when the state can seek for a grand jury to indict at any age. A direct file is the decision of the prosecutor to transfer the case to the adult courts. A waiver is the request by prosecutor to the judge to transfer a child at least fourteen years hold to the adult court (Juvenile Justice Process). The judge looks over the child’s criminal history, and either denies or accepts the
waiver.
This decision can affect the life of a juvenile. Their life can be affect because they may not be able to graduate with their class in high school, if someone dies in their family they cannot go and see that person be buried because they are doing time in a county jail or in state prison. The parents can be affected because of court cost, lawyer payments, and mentally cause they may not see their child in a very long time. Race has influenced the courts decisions significantly, resulting in harsher sentences for people of different races, primarily, African American and minorities. In comparison to Caucasians, African Americans typically receive harsher punishments for similar crimes, or for crimes that are less severe. For instance, Shawn, 16-year-old, a Caucasian boy (Tobias, Martin), violently attacked his father stabbing him and pleading guilty to escape from being tried as an adult. Prior to the tragic incident Shawn had consumed marijuana, and had no recollection of stabbing his father. Police officers told Shawn that he could be charged with first-degree murder if his father had died and if his father were alive, he would be charged with attempted murder. With this case, the prosecutor pushed Shawn to be transferred to an adult court. While in the juvenile facility, Shawn was given benefits, such as attending college classes and counseling services because he was so disturbed.
Shawn’s prosecutor stated, “I think that it was a tremendous injustice that was done in this case. Not just the fact that we did not treat this individual the way that he should have been treated in my opinion. But that we have created the perception in the community that certain people are going to be treated differently in the system, because of where they come from” (Tobias, Martin), this statement is concrete evidence that the justice system is prejudice to the minorities and African American juveniles. Cases like this allows people to believe that because of their skin color, they can get away with certain things, and if they are not Caucasians they are guaranteed to be transferred to the adult court system. On the other hand, Marquese an African American and repeated defendant in the juvenile system, was considered a “frequent flyer” (Tobias, Martin). Because of this, Prosecutors believed that his latest but familiar offense should be transferred over to the adult system. In comparison we have two different crimes, two different races, both juveniles however Shawn’s case is extremely bizarre when compared to Marquese’s. Shawn’s case deals with an attempted murder of a human. Once an individual commits or attempts such a crime, one first reaction would be a mandatory sentencing 15 years to life, but Shawn receives minor consequence for his offense with benefits. This is a very controversial pre-sided decision. Meanwhile, in the case of Marquese “Prosecutors believed the juvenile system could do nothing more for him, and wanted him tried as an adult for his latest offenses, auto theft and residential burglary” (Tobias, Martin). The prosecutors infer that because Marquese has committed these crimes frequently and did not learn from his previous offenses he should be transferred to an adult facility and maybe now he will understand that committing crimes is serious. Although Marquese committed repeated crimes, his offenses were not as serve as when compared to those of Shawn. It is not fair to say on should “one can learn from their actions while the other doesn’t”. Here there is no sense of fair policy, relating back to racial bias between the different races.
An example of a just is the Manny case, Manny is a seventeen year old boy that has a history of criminal activity. Manny comes from a rough neighborhood, and he was a member of a Hispanic Norteno gang. He grew up without his father in his life, and started to make the streets his life. He believes that violence is the way to receive respect from his peers (Tobias, Martin). Manny took part in a violence act towards a pregnant woman; He and two other gang members hit her repeatedly in the stomach. At the age of fourteen, he pleaded guilty to rape. Because of his history, the District Attorney believe that he should be in the adult court and started a petition to get him to be tried as an adult(Tobias, Martin) .
Under California Law, the juvenile court must consider the level of criminal records, the severity of the crime, whether they can be rehabilitated within the time the juvenile court has to work with the minor (Tobias, Martin). Santa Clara County probation officer found Manny fit under the criteria of previous attempts to rehabilitate him because of the rape incident in the past, and found him unfit for the seriousness of the crime (Tobias, Martin). There was no evidence for the gravity of the offense. “In the summer of 2000, many pled guilty to seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He now has two adult violent felony convictions or "strikes." If he commits another felony--violent or nonviolent -- he could be sentenced to life in prison under California's "three strikes" law.”(Tobias, Martin). This a great example to show that it does not always depend on the race of the defendant, because Manny’s serve action in crime gave justice to the pregnant women. In this case it was dependent on the actions of the juvenile instead of the race or any other reason.
“There is no elderly real evidence to deny greater involvement that African American have in assaultive crimes” (Piquero, Brame). As such, these types of crimes also may guide minorities into the adult court system. Unlike Marquese there are crimes committed by African Americans that are more severe for example homicide, rape and kidnap. The system believes, of crime that is committed determines if the case is transferred to adult court. Moreover, the prior example given of Shawn and Marquese different crimes, and yet background and race determined their fate in the system.
Although it is based on the types of crimes that was made, cases where minorities, Whites and African-American commits the same type of crime whites gets the minimum sentence. Ninety-two percent of the youths transferred were black, although white youths had stern criminal involvement (Joseph). About half of white teenagers arrested on a drug charge go home without being formally charged and drawn into the system. Only a quarter of black teens arrested on drug charges catch a similar break (Bernstein).
Statistics show that race is a prime factor in the direct file to send a juvenile defendant to adult court or juvenile court. Hairston ( 1981) estimated that 71% of the youths transferred to adult court in New York were black (Joseph).

In conclusion, the people and especially the parent in society should help guide the juveniles. Set great examples for them like to be successful and let it be known that education is important. There should more programs to help the juvenile out of gangs, selling drugs or even taking them. In addition, not just the juveniles need helpful programs, the parents as well because the parents are very influential in this process. If a mom or dad is addicted to drugs or alcohol, it is more than likely the child will follow in those footsteps. Marquese’s mother was a drug addict that taught her so to steal