Racial and Gender Differences In this paper I will discuss the differences in racial and gender in our juvenile offending patterns that comes from our text book. I will explain how our juvenile offenders operate in the United States and how our system handles them. The professional terms that is used to describe them and some terms used from the streets.
Racial:
Some juvenile offenders commit acts of crimes due to where they come from and not having much money to do anything else. Research has shown that 90 percent of teen violent crimes have been committed by African American males and 80 percent by Hispanic males. A lot of these teens fall under the “choice theory.” Here is where these teens choose to commit a crime or not. There are not that many positive activities going on in their neighbor so they chose to start their own fun by weighing their options. They come up with the idea of gaining more than getting caught and being punish for their actions. A lot of these teens come from lower class neighborhoods called “ghettos” and are mostly filled with African American and Hispanic children. The text talk the economics need\opportunity is one motivation that causes crime from these neighborhoods. The kids in these neighborhoods feel there are no opportunities for anything positive, living in these poor conditions. You have those who are using drugs who need to get high so they result in a criminal act to support their habits. When you look at the European American children; their parents have money which allows them to live in a better neighborhood. When they have the need to get high they can afford to do so without resulting in committing a crime. The theory of these juveniles committing criminal acts due to the lack of capable guardians can be seen on both sides. You have the rich white kids who parents are never home and they always buy their children any and everything they want. These kids can feel there is no type of guardians around and the only way to reach and get their parents attention is to commit a crime. Then you have the lower class home where mommy is the only one raising the child and she cannot be home because she has to work 15 hour shifts to just put food on the table. These kids feel that if mommy is not around to tell me what to do they will just do what they want to do. Both cases the child has no respect for authority and finds themselves going against anyone who approaches them.
Gender:
From the time of crimes just being committed by men are long gone. The rises of women committing crimes have changed the way society looks at crime. Young women have played their role in the juvenile offense area. Study shown by 2004, girls accounted for 30 percent of all juvenile arrests (Snyder, H, 2005). In 2005,