Application: Disproportionate Minority Contact or Confinement
Hello Discussion week 2
Application: Disproportionate Minority Contact or Confinement
Disproportionate minority contact or confinement (DMC) involves the overrepresentation of minorities in the criminal justice system. It is difficult to know exactly what causes DMC and multiple factors seem to contribute to the issue. Some scholars (e.g. Hawkins, Leonard) argue that DMC points to potential discriminatory practices built into the criminal justice system. Other scholars (e.g. Kakar) argue that DMC may occur due to poor family structure and lack of economic opportunities for minorities. Most likely, the root of the issue is multi-faceted and requires a variety of approaches to address it. DMC is a complex concept in criminal justice, and it is important for you as a current or future criminal justice professional to think about strategies to decrease and prevent it in the future.
The assignment (2-3 pages):
- Describe three factors that might contribute to disproportionate minority contact or confinement (DMC) and explain how.
- Describe at least two approaches that might decrease DMC in the criminal justice system and explain how.
- As a current or future criminal justice professional, describe two strategies you might employ to prevent DMC in the future, and explain why you selected these strategies.
Support your Application Assignment with specific references to all resources used in its preparation. You are to provide a reference list for all resources, including those in the Learning Resources for this course.
Application: Disproportionate Minority Contact or Confinement
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Introduction
Disproportionate minority contact or confinement (DMC) involves disproportionate juveniles that are members of a minority group that come in contact with the juvenile justice system. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act required states to participate in this program that would enable addressing juvenile delinquency prevention and fostering improvement of the efforts for dealing and reducing DMC (U.S Department of Justice, 2009; Piquero, 2008).
Contributing factors to DMC
The criminal and juvenile justice system has observed continuous racial and ethnic differentials whose explanations have been offered by researchers and policy makers. Some factors that contribute to disproportionate minority contact or confinement as argued by commentators is the fact that the system is colour-blind and the justice system is racists (Piquero, 2008). Kakar on the other hand, explored the causes of DMC from a clientele perspective through a focused group discussion and it revealed a multifaceted complexity of causes that include system, social, family or parental, individual, education and economic factors (Kakar, 2006).
Some analyst also believe that this system is very unduly and discriminatory. According to David Cole’s review of high profile cases and decisions that have been met in the criminal and justice process, he discovered that there are two systems of justice in the United States. One is for the privileged that are largely whites and the other is for the less privileged that are consistent of largely blacks (Cole, 1999). Walker et al (2003) noted that the criminal justice is neither racial nor systematically biased. They assessed that the difference in treatment varies in stages of the criminal justice process. The overrepresentation of minorities occurs at every stage due to the number of crimes they have committed for an extended period of their lives. Committing acts like violence puts one in the justice process and that is biased as opposed to drug related charges (Piquero, 2008). This revealed the system factors that contribute to DMC.
Anderson affirmed that life among the poor in ghettos have discrimination and racial residential segregation due to the oppositional culture of the street whose norms are conspicuously opposed to those of the mainstream society (Anderson, 1999). This attributed to the
Approaches that would decrease DMC in the criminal justice system
Compliance with a DMC reduction model would help states examine the existence of disproportionality in their jurisdictions. If there exists DMC, there will be step by step model that would guide in the DMC reduction efforts. The first stage is the ident...