The juvenile justice system was founded on and, until recently, developed around the idea that society should afford delinquents more leniency and rehabilitative care than adult criminals because of their lower levels of physical and cognitive development, and thus diminished culpability for law violations and higher amenability to treatment. The past four decades, however, have witnessed a sustained movement to recriminalize delinquency through the enactment of policies that treat juvenile offenders more like their adult counterparts. Barry Feld (1999, 2003) and others have argued that this punitive turn in juvenile justice is in part a result of the racialization of delinquency in the post-civil rights era. This study provides the first test of the key assumption underlying this thesis, namely that whites' support for getting tough with juvenile offenders is in part tied to racialized views of youth crime. Using national survey data collected in 2010, I examine whether the racial typification of delinquency is related to views about juvenile justice polices. Specifically, the analyses evaluate whether the perception that blacks commit a larger proportion of juvenile crime than whites is associated with (1) punitive attitudes toward juvenile offenders, (2) preferences for more punitive delinquency prevention policies, and (3) support for providing rehabilitation and treatment programs to youthful offenders. I also test the assumption underlying research on the relationship between modern or symbolic racism and views about crime policy that racial resentment is related to punitiveness because racists typify crime as a black phenomenon (see Unnever and Cullen, 2009; 2010). The results support Feld's argument and show that the perception that blacks commit a larger proportion of juvenile crime in comparison to whites is positively related to both punitive attitudes toward juvenile offenders and preferences for more punitive delinquency prevention policies. Additionally, and controlling for punitiveness, racial typification of delinquency is negatively related to support for juvenile rehabilitation. However, I find no evidence that racial typification of delinquency interacts with racial resentment to influence views about juvenile justice. The implications of the findings are discussed. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2011. / September 7, 2011. / Juvenile Justice, Public Opinion, Racial Typification of Crime / Includes bibliographical references. / Ted Chiricos, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Taylor, University Representative; Daniel P. Mears, Committee Member; Eric A. Stewart, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_253252 |
| Contributors | Pickett, Justin (authoraut), Chiricos, Ted (professor directing dissertation), Taylor, John (university representative), Mears, Daniel P. (committee member), Stewart, Eric A. (committee member), College of Criminology and Criminal Justice (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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