Racial minorities are disproportionately represented in the arrest statistics. Discuss the two views that attempt to explain this disparity

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Racial Threat Theory
As the size of the African American population increases, the amount of social control imposed against African Americans by police grows proportionately. Police will then routinely search, question, and detain all African American males in an area if a violent criminal has been described as "looking or sounding black"; this is called racial profiling. African American youth who develop a police record are more likely to be severely punished if they are picked up again and sent back to juvenile court. Consequently, the racial discrimination that is present at the early stages of the justice system ensures that minorities receive greater punishments at its conclusion. According to this view, then, the disproportionate number of minority youth who are arrested is less a function of their involvement in serious crime and more the result of the race-based decision making that is found in the juvenile justice system.

An alternative view is that although evidence of racial bias does exist in the justice system, there is enough correspondence between official and self-report data to conclude that racial differences in the crime rate are real. According to this view, racial differentials are tied to the social and economic disparity suffered by African American youths. Even during times of economic growth, lower-class African Americans are left out of the economic mainstream, causing a growing sense of frustration and failure. As a result of being shut out of educational and economic opportunities enjoyed by the rest of society, African American kids are vulnerable to the lure of illegitimate gain and criminality. Consequently, racial differences in the delinquency rate would evaporate if African American kids could enjoy the same social, economic, and educational privileges enjoyed by children of the white majority.