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Juvenile Justice System Analysis

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The United States of America’s criminal justice system has two main subdivisions: adult justice and juvenile justice. There were approximately 1.53 million prisoners across America in 2015, and 48,043 of those were juveniles (“Prisoners in 2015”; OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book). People in the juvenile justice system come from all different backgrounds and upbringings. However, it appears that people of some races/ethnicities are more likely to be in prison. This brings up the question: Who is more likely to be in juvenile prison and what factors contribute? Of the various aspects that may impact a person’s likelihood to be in prison–such as age, gender, and sexuality–the one trait that will be focused on is race/ethnicity. So, to answer the …show more content…
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were approximately 1.53 million prisoners across America in 2015 (“Prisoners in 2015”). This number includes both adults and juveniles within the prison system. As of 2015, 48,043 juveniles were in residential placement (OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book). According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), “CJRP [Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement] is administered biennially and col­lects information from all secure and nonsecure residential placement facilities that house juvenile offenders, defined as persons younger than 21 who are held in a residential setting as a result of some contact with the justice system (they are charged with or adjudicated for an offense)” (Hockenberry). The following statistics are all from the OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. About …show more content…
The Sentencing Project is an organization that takes raw data regarding the US prison system and analyzes it. They often present this data in graphs and tables that are easy to read. On the “About Us” page of their website, they state that, “The Sentencing Project has worked for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system for 30 years” (“About Us”). They take their data from a variety of government sources. The Sentencing Project presented the data that nationally (in 2015), for every 10,000 white youth, 86 were in residential placement. For every 10,000 black youth, 433 were in residential placement. And for every 10,000 Hispanic/Latino youth, 142 were in residential placement (“Black Disparities in Youth Incarceration”; “Latino Disparities in Youth Incarceration”). In other words, black youths are five times more likely to be in prison than white youth, Hispanic/ Latino youths are about 1.7 times more likely to be in prison than white youth, and black youth are three times more likely to be in prison than Hispanic/Latino youth. As stated before, 42% of juveniles in prison are black (OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book). However, in the same year (2015), black juveniles make up approximately only 14% of all juveniles in the US (Puzzanchera et al.). This means the ratio of blacks per whites in juvenile

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