African American Juveniles

Every night when the news comes on African Americans are constantly reminded of the rise in crime. The worst part of this is most of the crime such a robbery, theft, homicide, and the selling of illegal drugs are being committed by children younger than the age seventeen ( H. Morrison 2003). There is much more behind a juvenile committing the crime than just because they felt like doing it. There are such factors such as female headed households, abuse and neglect, broken homes, peer pressure to be someone that they aren’t, and looking for attention in all of the wrong places. African Americans in juvenile facilities are not only overlooked but are also misrepresented in the criminal justice system.

In total there are 36,740 out of 96,655 African American Juveniles in the criminal justice system. Out of all of these juveniles 13,510 have committed violent offenses such as criminal homicide, violent sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault, 9,630 have committed property offenses such as burglary, theft, and arson, 3,322 juveniles have committed drug offenses, 3,520 have committed public offenses such as using drugs and having sex for money voluntarily, 5,109 are technical violations,