Introduction
Juvenile delinquency has long been a sensitive topic. It often encompasses the disciplines of morality, ethics, and criminal justice and law enforcement. The same is true for other hotly debated and related topics such as the over-criminalization of youths, youth policing, and the war on drugs and how it affects the mindset and social behavior of young people. There has also been numerous works that have been published about these topics. One of those was Punished Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. Punished was a book published by Victor Rios in 2011.
What makes this book a significant source of information on the topic of juvenile delinquency is the fact that it was written by someone who has a firsthand experience of growing and actually living in a highly disorganized and problematic community. Rios, the author of the book grew up in one of the ghettos in Oakland, California during the chaotic period of the 80s and 90s.
Being someone with a high level of conscientiousness, he managed to escape the unfortunate fate that many of his friends and former co-community members had. He worked hard to get a PhD degree at Berkeley. Living in such a chaotic and disorganized world, he knew that there was something wrong; something that was keeping the youths in such communities from being more progressive. This is why after he finished his studies, he returned to his hometown to study the said issue.
What he aimed to find out was how inner city young Latino and African American boys tend to develop their sense of self amidst the chaotic and disorganized society that see them as criminals and law breakers even though most of them have nothing so far to be tagged with such a hostile perception.
Development
This paper argues that the combination of Rios’ personal qualifications and method of describing, studying, and presenting facts about the issue was perfect in as far as the issue on the over-criminalization of youths who live in ghettos is concerned. This issue exists but it is often taken for granted by the media, policy makers, especially those who are heavily involved in the criminal justice and law enforcement industries.
Rios used the perfect style of delivering the main idea of his book. He did it by citing real life experiences, by going back to a highly disorganized environment using the mindset and knowledge of someone who was able to live (or in his case escape) outside the ghettos. Contrary to most studies and researches aimed at describing and or exploring a certain issue, his was not based on quantitative data. His was based on high quality qualitative data. Moreover, he did not use surveys and other unreliable forms of research instrument to gather information. Instead, he directly interacted with his subjects to make sure that there was no room for misinterpretations and misrepresentations.
The concepts that he used were clearly defined. For example, for someone who read the book, one would see that its main idea was that Black and Latino boys in the ghettos are being forcefully thrown into an abyss where they have no choice but to be delinquents and eventually criminals; and that this is being done by no less than the people who are in charge of fighting crimes and the people who want crime eradicated. All of the arguments he presented in the book’s chapters and pages were so far in line or directly related to that main idea. For example, he mentioned that “while being called a thug by a random adult may seem trivial to some people, when a young person is called a thug by a random adult, told by a teach that he or she will never amount to anything, and frisked by a police officer, all in the same day, this combination becomes greater than the sum of its parts” .
The information presented in his book cannot be refuted because of two reasons. Firstly, they were all based on his firsthand experience of living and going back to the ghetto and interacting with the people he studied. Secondly, they were in line with what the literature (i.e. academic journals and other sources) suggest.
One of the best ways to deliver the main idea that Rios presented in Punished is to compare society’s perception of Black and Latino youths (among other members of cultural minorities in the United States) and the actual description of this population group from someone who belongs to it (i.e. the author of Punished). According to a study published in the journal Child Development in 2006, there is an existing perceived discrimination on African American youths and this significantly affects, in a negative manner, their personality and more importantly, sense of self, or the way how they view themselves .
There are numerous factors that have contributed to this unfortunate outcome affecting even the youngest members of the country’s population. From the long list of possible factors that may have contributed to the development of such negative perceptions, parental support, level of behavioral control, and level of psychological control and emotional intelligence are typically identified as among the most important and significant .
In reality, however, according to Rios, apart from their delinquent behaviors, a large majority of Black and Latino boys think and behave just like other normal non-Black and non-Latino boys living in the country. In his book, he said that “many of the delinquent boys gave their peers ‘love’ for making it in school, getting good grades, and graduating” . This suggests that youths in the ghetto often have the same set of standards and values as other youths who live in higher class standards (e.g. middle class and elite groups). This means that the personality and mindset of the youths in the ghetto are not the ones pushing them to do delinquent acts but something else.
According to some studies, the combination created by under-education and over-criminalization of these youths is one of the factors that lead to delinquent and other negative behaviors. This was the case presented by the author of a study published in the journal Educational Studies . According to the authors of the said study, policy changes at the federal, state, and local levels must be made to make the justice and law enforcement system more equitable. In that case, those negative behaviors can be seen as a sign of protest or even rebellion to the government and society who voluntarily and summarily turned their back on them.
Over-criminalization is can range from legal sentences that are grossly disproportionate to the offense that was committed to legal charges without jurisdictional authority . For the youths living in the ghettos, one of the most commonly occurring evidences of over-criminalization is the excessive and often pre-textual enforcement of petty crimes and violations.
Other examples include the Stop and Frisk practice wherein a police officer or any law enforcement agent who is suspicious of a person (often based on race, social class, and gender) detains that person and runs several inspections (i.e. frisking) and checks to determine if he or she is carrying a concealed weapon or any illegal substance. Another example would be the Broken Windows Policing where the criminal justice and law enforcement industry resorts to overgeneralization that is often based on false perceptions.
So far, what the book accomplished is the same thing that others of its kind have and that is to open the eyes of the public. Hopefully, the government’s policy makers’ eyes get opened enough as well so that they may finally see and recognize this social issue for what it is. For someone who sees the genuineness of the evidences that Rios and other authors of similar works presented, no further work is needed because they are already conclusive. Instead of further studies, actions and reforms are more needed.
Conclusions
Punished was an outstanding and comprehensive book that summarized the life of Black and Latino boys living in the disorganized and chaotic communities, the ghettos. It outlined the real issues that affect young Americans; examples of which include over criminalization and the rather crooked perception of society on non-White youths or basically anyone living in an impoverished community.
What is commendable about Rios’ work is that he personally collected the data he used. Because of that, they can be effectively treated as facts and may therefore be irrefutable. As for the practical applications of this work in the field of criminal justice and law enforcement, it should finally serve as a guideline for policymakers to make realistic changes with the way how they do their jobs, especially towards the members of various cultural minorities. All the evidences are already present; all that they have to do is open their eyes to be able to recognize them.
References
Bean, R., Barber, B., & Crane, R. (2006). Parental Support, Behavioral Control, and Psychological Control among African American Youth The Relationships to Academic Grades, Delinquency, and Depression. Journal of Family Issues, 1335-1355.
Brody, G., Chen, Y., Murry, V., Ge, X., Simons, R., Gibbons, F., et al. (2006). Perceived Discrimination and the Adjustment of African American Youths: A Five Year Longitudinal Analysis with Contextual Moderation Effects. Child Development, 1170-1189.
Gonzalez, J., & Portillos, E. (2007). The Undereducation and Overcriminalization of U.S. Latinas/os: A Post-Los Angeles Riots LatCrit Analysis Abstract. Educational Studies, 247-266.
Rios, V. (2011). Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, New Perspectives in Crime, Deviance, and Law. New York University Press, 237.
Thornburgh, D. (2016). Overcriminalization: Sacrificing the Rule of Law in Pursuit of Justice. Legal Issues, Heritage.org, Retrieved from http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/2011/03/overcriminalization-sacrificing-the-rule-of-law-in-pursuit-of-justice.
