DMC in USA
The disproportionate minority contact has its origin in the United States of America and afterwards has extended to the other criminal systems of the world. This term should be regarded as the rates of contact existing within the juvenile justice system of the particular state between the juveniles of particular group of people pertaining to the minority. At the same time, these rates differ dramatically in comparison to the rates of contact for white non-Hispanic juveniles. The article prepared by Dillard provides the analysis of the process of the development of the DMC system in the USA under the auspices of the federal government (Dillard, 2013). The author draws the attention to the perspective measures that may assist in the elimination of the DMC in the state in order to create the equal and fair treatment among the children involved in the criminal justice system. Simultaneously, the challenges in front of the process aimed to decrease the spread of DMC are identified and considered. Additionally, the author examines the influence of the DMC on the further behavior of the youth belonging to the minorities in the USA.
The issue of reduction the DMC in the USA is quite important problem for the population of the country as the minorities take approximately up to the third part of the citizens belonging to the youth. Since 2000, the state bodies of the country have decided to elaborate and implement the specialized programs such as Guilford Country DMC Planning Grant that should govern the increase in the rates under the DMC. However, there are several factors that deepen the extension of the DMC within the country. They are the following:
Diversified administrative practices;
Certain legislation that imposes the limitations and framework of the behavior in the society;
Unequal access to the sources provided by the government;
Impact of the social and economic development.
Besides, the wide range of the policies aimed to reduce DMC have appeared devastating and not fruitful. First of all, there is high level of negative public attitude to the efforts aimed to reduce DMC as the society can not accept the fact that any connection exists between the race and crime. Furthermore, the mass media tools do not support the attempts of the state bodies to resolve this problem, as the representatives of this force believe that there is no proper linkage between the race and ethnicity that should fall within the scope of the DMC. Finally, there is no desire among mass media channels to establish the connection that explains the linkage of the young people to the criminal offences taking place in the country.
Therefore, despite that fact that certain policies conducted in behalf of the state authorities in order to reduce the DMC exist, there are no results that may confirm the benefits from this type of the activity. Moreover, the society is concerned with the increase of level in the criminal prosecutions applicable to the young people.
References
Dillard, D. (2013). Limited Disproportionate Minority Contact Discourse may Explain Limited Progress in Reducing Minority Over-representation in the US Juvenile Justice System. Youth Justice, 13(3), 207-217. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1473225413505383
