In the juvenile justice system, there are several current issues related to it. Evidence of bias is one of the outstanding issues affecting juvenile justice systems. Statistics in police arrests over juveniles have proven evidence of bias. African American juveniles between the age of 10 and 17 make up 30 percent of the youth arrested, yet the whole population of African American youth comprises only 15% of the total youth population ( Auspitz, 2018) ). Also, the double standards evident in the juvenile justice system often gives offenders from the minority ethnic group more profound sentences when compared to Native Americans on similar crimes.
Evidence of bias has long been a challenge for the juvenile justice system. For instance, since the 20th-century, two-thirds of the children sitting on a death row are comprised of juveniles from racial or ethnic minorities. Therefore, evidence of bias has made more juveniles from ethnic or racial minorities be punished and incarcerated compared to the whites. This act portrays that the juvenile justice system is biased, and the minority ethnicities are denied justice. Also, the juveniles from the minority racial or ethnic groups are often held with adults ( Campbell et al., 2018 ). Hence, these juveniles are subjected to sexual abuse and extreme violence at the hands of other detainees and guards.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Evidence of bias problems affecting the juvenile justice system can be reduced by educating the people and spreading concern to stop the unusual and biased practices of incarcerating millions of children from the minority ethnic or social group. Educating the people and spreading concerns can be achieved by conducting different campaigns and protesting against the selective or biased juvenile justice system. Supporting organizations such as Youth Advocate Program International is also another way of reducing evidence of bias in the juvenile justice system. These organizations protect the fundamental rights of children and shun selective justice in the juvenile justice system.
References
Auspitz, Z. (2018). Juvenile Status Offenses: The Prejudicial Underpinnings of the Juvenile Justice System. U. Miami Race & Soc. Just. L. Rev. , 8 , 1. https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/umrsj8§ion=4
Campbell, N. A., Barnes, A. R., Mandalari, A., Onifade, E., Campbell, C. A., Anderson, V. R., ... & Davidson, W. S. (2018). Disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system: An investigation of ethnic disparity in program referral at disposition. Journal of ethnicity in criminal justice , 16 (2), 77-98. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15377938.2017.1347544
