MINORITIES ARE BEING INCARCERATED

Minorities are being incarcerated at a higher rate than the majority



Minorities are being incarcerated at a Higher Rate than the Majority

According to the 2000 Census, minority youth in the United States represent 23% of the total population aged ten to seventeen. However, this same group comprises nearly 52% of the population of juveniles who are detained or in some form of confinement. The numbers are even more alarming in states with larger minority populations. In the District of Columbia, minority youth represent 72% of the youth population and 97% of total youth who are detained (Myers, 1987).

However, in Maine, minority youth represent only 3% of the youth population and 3% of the detained youth population. Across the nation, individual states are struggling with this issue, and nearly all fifty states have a larger percentage of minority youth in detention than the percentage of minority youth in the state. The majority of research indicates that there is not a racial predisposition toward crime. How then do we explain variation in the percentage of minority youth detained from state to state (weighted according to the total minority youth population of a given state)? The terms “juvenile” and “youth” will refer to citizens of the Untied States between the ages of ten and seventeen. This is the age range as defined by the term “youth” on the 2000 Census. In the majority of states age ten is the youngest age at which a juvenile may be subject to punishment for the commission of an offense, and seventeen is most frequently the upper age of jurisdiction for juvenile courts. Minorities include African Americans, Hispanics, and American

Indians, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and those identified as “other race.” (Myers, 1990) Confinement includes detention of youth in any form. This could be a juvenile correctional facility, training school, or any other type of center in which the youth is not free to leave at his/her will. It does not include those youth on probation or serving community service hours as punishment for an offense.

Analysis will be constrained to states within the United States using the most recent census data. Because juvenile criminal activity is handled primarily at a state level, individual states will be the unit of analysis. Statistics from the 2000 Census will be used because this data provides the most current picture of the youth minority detention situation. Because there ...