Race, Delinquency, and Justice: Guest Editor’s Introduction to Special Issue

• Author: Michael Leiber
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204009361175
• Published date: 01 July 2010
• Date: 01 July 2010
• Subject Matter: Articles

Editorial

Race, Delinquency, and Justice:

Guest Editor’s Introduction to

Special Issue

Michael Leiber

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In 2005, African American youths comprised 17%of the youths population but accounted for 30%

of arrests; an overrepresentation greater than for other minority youths. More specific, African

American youths were arrested for violent index crimes at a rate of 851 per 100,000, whereas the

arrest rate for these offenses among Whites was 176 per 100,000. For arrests involving property

crimes, the index rate for African Americans was nearly double the rate of Whites and five times

the rate of Asian youths. Similar minority youths overrepresentation, especially for African

Americans, exists in the juvenile justice system. The one exception is for involvement in probation

where minority youths are underrepresented. There is no clear consensus on why minority youths are

arrested and make up such disproportionate overrepresentation. Two explanations that have been

used to provide insights into this social problem are the differential offending perspective and the

selection bias perspective. The first is that minority overrepresentation reflects race and ethnic dif-

ferences in the incidence, seriousness, and persistence of delinquent involvement (the ‘‘differential

offending’’ hypothesis). The second is that overrepresentation is attributable to inequities—intended

or unintended—in juvenile justice practice and the delivery of services (the ‘‘differential treatment’’

hypothesis).

In this special issue, Race, Delinquency, and Justice, the article by Piquero and Sealock examines

whether general strain theory (GST) can explain delinquency for Whites and minority youths—

primarily African Americans. They found that GST offers an explanation that can aid in the under-

standing of the causal mechanisms leading to delinquent involvement irrespective of race/ethnicity

but nuanced differences also exist among minority youths relative to White youths. The next article

by Taylor, Esbensen, Brick, and Freng explores the measurement quality of Anderson’s ‘‘codes of

the street’’ and a description of the degree to which youths’ accept street code-related violence

across groups and contexts. Taylor and colleagues discovered among other things that acceptance

of street code-related violence was found to be lowest among Whites and Asian youths and greatest

among African Americans, Hispanics, multi-racial, and ‘‘other’’ races/ethnicities. They also

found that representing the image of themselves by which (youths) would like to be known—as

1

The Department of Criminology, University of South Florida

Corresponding Author:

Michael Leiber, 923 W. Franklin Street, Richmond, VA 23284, USA

Email: mjleiber@vcu.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

8(3) 167-168

ªThe Author(s) 2010

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DOI: 10.1177/1541204009361175

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