Racial Prejudice and Juvenile Delinquency
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Racism has been a debated issue in the United States as well as in other countries across the world (Lins et.al, 2017). And although racism is illegal, people of color and other religious sectors are being discriminated against in structures institutions. There have been grave concerns on how the minorities can be saved from these prejudices and although the measure has been adopted to eliminate the manifestations of prejudice and intolerance they often tend to sprout out in our contemporary society (Bulatao & Anderson, 2004). They are various forms of preconceived opinions targeted to religions ore race without any reason or even experience. Religion and race prejudice are often two elements of prejudice that are hard to distinguish. The feelings developed in prejudice are often associated and said to be caused by the way an individual is nurtured and how the parents bring them up. The possibility of a parent passing prejudice to the next generation is often high and the major cause of prejudice. Prejudice can as well be caused by a single bad experience with certain groups (Lins et.al, 2017).
A number of people have hard different experiences in regions that their religious practices are barely tolerated. In the 20th century, prominent people like Samuel Goetz who describes his experience in Europe where his parents were abducted by German special forces never to be seen again (Bulatao & Anderson, 2004). He described the events that were basically because they were a Jewish family in Poland. The Jewish then were not allowed to go to school, parks, and even theatres. Sam was taken to concentration camps as well as ending up in the Austrian Alps before he moved to the States earning a doctorate in optometry.
In Islam, two opposing religious branches are the Sunni and Shiite. Prior to 2005, the Shiite family in Iraq could not leave their home to go to the market as they felt unsafe going out as the Sunnis often clubbed the Shiite religious leaders who were in the neighborhood. The graffiti depicted the message that the Shiite should leave the town. In trying to develop the aspects of prejudice, the above narrations show how Sam and the Shiite have been victims of prejudice. 2001, the 9/11 attacks as well created a different feeling among the residents towards the Muslims who were in the united states after one of their own claimed responsibility for the attack. The Muslims narrated their accounts as some of them were being looked at in weird ways and other being called names (Bulatao & Anderson, 2004).
Although 19 years have passed, the commemoration of the victims every year is somehow shifted to be about the Muslim faith in some groups and even politicians. The aftershocks of 9/11 have commonly been seen targeting Muslims with the so-called war on terrorists (Bulatao & Anderson, 2004). There are different religions in different regions of the world, the religious have distinct beliefs, structure, and leadership. It is often through these religions that a person’s character is defined as setting a based for generalization (Lins et.al, 2017). As people tend to elevate their religion to be the “one” true system of belief and faith, the conviction of superiority arises which leads to the occurrence of prejudice. In history, there are a lot of wars recorded to be in the name of religion and even God. As prejudice is only depicted to start as conflicts other issues such as economic strife and political unrest elicit (Lins et.al, 2017).
There has been a strong correlation between parents and children in terms of racial and religious attitudes (Pirchio et.al, 2018). Most research articles have noted that children are often receptacles of parental influence thus making parents to be the first influencers of prejudice. New data has been developed to show that even though parents omitting derogatory statements aimed at other cultures, racial prejudice is accidentally passed to kids as they intend to internalize the parent’s biasness (Pirchio et.al, 2018). From the studies, children often learn and acquire prejudice from their parents who privately harbor implicit biases towards other races. These new findings show how efforts of kicking out prejudice are futile unless the parents address their own biases. Parents have been regarded as vehicles of prejudice transmission (Pirchio et.al, 2018).
There are automatic behaviors, stereotypes, and unconscious beliefs through which parents pass prejudice to their children which doe not involve direct explicit communication and actions against particular groups. This, however, doesn’t mean that the children are not biased on their own (Pirchio et.al, 2018). Several studies have shown children as young as three years display prejudice through the preference of people and faces that are similar to their own. Few studies have shown the strong correlation between parents and their children on racial attitudes as others have weak similarities to display bias that is ethnic (Pirchio et.al, 2018). Children tend to copy adults’ behaviors that are implicit but automatic towards certain groups easily rather than what they think and say about the groups (Pirchio et.al, 2018).
The view of all possible causes of action is a just course that is to be taken into consideration by any police as well as the courts. Successful integration into the community is one of the basic objectives of juvenile, thus through consideration of the unintentional prejudice transmission to children, the courts would be able to assess and administer appropriate punishment for the behavior of the young teenagers (Zimring, 2018). Through the circumstances in which the parents try to imply that the children had no ill intentions for their attack. However, through his actions in which Mr. Evans ignored the fact that MR Hafiz had suffered a concussion shows how they unconsciously portray bias towards Muslim individuals. In order to provide the interventions and preventions for these hate crimes, the police and courts need to understand this societal problem (Zimring, 2018).
To stamp out these forms of bias for parents who want to raise tolerant children, they ought to ensure that the subtle hints of their bias are controlled in ways that their children can not be able to internalize (Suttie, 2016). Avoiding the “us vs them” expressions could be a great start. The universal values of humanities, tolerance, and benevolence in the world can be achieved through diversity in education that is a strong key to overcoming prejudice. The schools, police, and other institutions to educate and prevent racial prejudice they ought to actively involve other diverse communities by enrolling and hiring people of diverse ethnical backgrounds actively (Suttie, 2016).
In educating and helping to prevent actions against persons of different ethnic or racial backgrounds, schools need to involve cooperative learning that would essentially form cross-racial friendships. unlike the traditional individual performance academic practices, cooperative learning would help in increased performance capacity that would as well create new relationships that would strengthen the bonds between individuals of different backgrounds. Schools should as well include social-cognitive skills training as well as have an anti-bias curriculum that according to research has shown consistent positive outcomes that appear to be effective (Zimring, 2018).
To educate the children and prevent racial prejudice, the institutions should often develop and expose the positive images of the other groups (Suttie, 2016). Rather than the stereotyping nature of the Muslims that is mostly depicted in movies as terrorists, they ought to be portrayed as admirable individuals. This may have little impact but few studies show how it is impactful. Helping in the creation of cross-group friendship has been considered an important factor that aid in the reduction of prejudice. The fact that one has friends from the other groups often removes the empathy barriers which in turn reduces prejudice increasing the caring. Through the adult cultivation of cross-group friendships, the children can easily copy and mimic their actions as they tend to have a strong impact on the bias (Suttie, 2016).
The institutions should explicitly talk of racism and their effects just like how black parents often tell their children about the importance of race and how they can possibly deal with bias they are often faced with. Parent bias impact on kids is not to be underestimated thus the need to ensure that parents are aware of these impacts and see into how they can work on the bias by themselves (Suttie, 2016).
Using juvenile justice principles, teenagers ought to be treated in a manner that would promote their reintegration to having a constructive role in society (Zimring, 2018). Through the core elements of juvenile justice that would be the prevention of delinquency and intervention. Although these do not resort to judicial proceedings, the just outcome would be the trial of the teenagers as they commented on crimes of assault and extensive property destruction. In light of ensuring public safety objectives, the juvenile justice has to restrain the offenders in order to achieve the safety objectives as they respect the principles of justice in relation to the rights of the children (Zimring, 2018). Teenagers should take responsibility for their actions and should as well be taught in ways that could reduce their chances of committing hate crimes again once they are back to society.
Racial and religious prejudice is prevalent and pervasive in the current society as it was in previous centuries. Today, research shows that although parents are not only the contributors to prejudice transmission to children, they are vital in the process as children tend to watch and learn from their actions. They, therefore, influence the activities and actions of their children involuntary through the automatic bias response even though they might not utter the derogatory terms. The police and courts should put into consideration the circumstances under which children are applying the prejudice instilled by parents in order to give the correct form of punishment. Schools and other institutions as well can help in reducing prejudice by promoting collaborative activities and enrolling people of color actively. The best outcome for the case is to allow the teenagers to own their actions that are criminal in nature and for the benefit of public safety.
References
Zimring, F. E. (2018). American juvenile justice. Oxford University Press.
Suttie, J. (2016). Four ways teachers can reduce implicit bias. Greater Good, 1-9.
Pirchio, S., Passiatore, Y., Panno, A., Maricchiolo, F., & Carrus, G. (2018). A chip off the old block: Parents’ subtle ethnic prejudice predicts children’s implicit prejudice. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 110.
Bulatao, R. A., & Anderson, N. B. (2004). Prejudice and discrimination. Understanding racial and ethnic differences in late life: A research agenda, 76-85.
Lins, S. L. B., Lima, T. J. S. D., Souza, L. E. C. D., Lima-Nunes, A., & Camino, L. (2017). Racial prejudice and social values: how I perceive others and myself. Psico-USF, 22(2), 309-321.
