Selectivity In The Criminal Justice System

TLDR: This article found that white boys who have admitted violent offenses more often avoid arrest and court conviction tlian blacks, and that self-reported violent youths also reported more substance abuse and development of a delinquent life style at an earlier age.

Abstract: ly would seem to increase the likelihood of apprehension. Their own disruptiveness in the family would increase rejection by the family in time of legal need, and perhaps lead to total abandonment with the parental hope that an episode in jail would teach the youth a lesson. Coupled with unrealistic aspirations for future success, the youth who is apprehended seems socially more suceptible to involvement in the criminal justice system. The most striking finding concerning those arrested for violent crimes is the greater proportion of black youths in comparison to whites. Whereas there were no racial differences between offenders and non-offenders for self-reported violence, race came up as significantly differentiating the official violent offender from the youth without an offical record of violence. One must be cautious, however, because although more black youths than white had official records for violent offenses, these youths were not falsely arrested, but did, indeed, admit to such offenses. Thus, it seems that white boys who have admitted violent offenses more often avoid arrest and court conviction tlian blacks. One possible explanation for this is family support or more available legal aid resources. However, this topic deserves f ur ther systematic research rather than speculation. The profile of the self-reported violent offender is distinguished from that of the officially identified violent offender by more open and direct defiance against their parents. This one variable overshadowed all others, and by itself accounted for more of the total variance of the self-report profile than did all the independent variables in the analysis of officially processed violent offenders combined. Self-reported violent youths also reported more substance abuse. and development of a delinquent life style at an earlier age. Interestingly, those youths