In our own work, we find that race can have a sweeping effect even when people consider the same crime. Prompting people to think of a single black (rather than white) juvenile offender leads them to express greater support for sentencing all juveniles to life without parole when they have committed serious violent crimes. Thinking about a black juvenile offender also makes people imagine that juveniles are closer to adults in their blameworthiness. Remarkably, this was true for both people who were low in prejudice and those who were high in prejudice and for both liberals and conservatives.
So that’s a separate issue, teens of all colors should be tried the same way, a teen committing a murder, no matter their skin color, should be tried as an adult.
But they aren’t, for the same reason people with different levels of intellectual and emotional competency aren’t tried in the same way.
a teen committing a murder, no matter their skin color, should be tried as an adult
An individual who fails to demonstrate the core competencies of an adult should not be tried as an adult, because this individual is not functioning as an adult.
But the question we ask after that is… how does race influence the perception of competency? And the answer is that darker skinned people are presumed to be more mature and more intellectually competent than their lighter-skinned peers, without respect to their behaviors or history.
Ok but again that’s two separate issues (people of different color being treated differently during trial vs certain crimes where the perpetrator should be tried as an adult if they’re close enough to being one) and your point about demonstrating adult competencies opens the door to adults being tried as children because they can’t demonstrate adult competencies.
People of all colors should be treated the same by the justice system, I totally agree, that means that if a black 16 y.o. was to be treated as an adult in a murder case then so should a white or asian or first nation, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be trialled as adults.
people of different color being treated differently during trial vs certain crimes where the perpetrator should be tried as an adult if they’re close enough to being one
The issue that unites them is the perception among prosecutors and judges of black people as exceptionally competent and mature.
People of all colors should be treated the same
The question that courts use to determine adulthood is not skin color but psychological maturity. The bias to that answer is caused by maturity being tied back to a perception of skin color.
Simply announcing “All people of the same age should be treated the same” precludes us of the ability to test for psychological maturity. Ignoring senility, mental illness, heavy metal poisoning, and a host of other physiological and sociological factors when determining culpability does little more than to transform a suspect into a scapegoat.
But then the whole engine of prosecution appears to be a means of displaying a muscular state apparatus rather than actually reducing incidences of harm. The purpose of legally “trying someone as an adult” is simply to remove tools from the defense and grant more power to the prosecution. It is designed to give the DA more leverage in extorting a plea bargain from the defendant.
The Race Factor in Trying Juveniles as Adults
So that’s a separate issue, teens of all colors should be tried the same way, a teen committing a murder, no matter their skin color, should be tried as an adult.
But they aren’t, for the same reason people with different levels of intellectual and emotional competency aren’t tried in the same way.
An individual who fails to demonstrate the core competencies of an adult should not be tried as an adult, because this individual is not functioning as an adult.
But the question we ask after that is… how does race influence the perception of competency? And the answer is that darker skinned people are presumed to be more mature and more intellectually competent than their lighter-skinned peers, without respect to their behaviors or history.
Ok but again that’s two separate issues (people of different color being treated differently during trial vs certain crimes where the perpetrator should be tried as an adult if they’re close enough to being one) and your point about demonstrating adult competencies opens the door to adults being tried as children because they can’t demonstrate adult competencies.
People of all colors should be treated the same by the justice system, I totally agree, that means that if a black 16 y.o. was to be treated as an adult in a murder case then so should a white or asian or first nation, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be trialled as adults.
The issue that unites them is the perception among prosecutors and judges of black people as exceptionally competent and mature.
The question that courts use to determine adulthood is not skin color but psychological maturity. The bias to that answer is caused by maturity being tied back to a perception of skin color.
Simply announcing “All people of the same age should be treated the same” precludes us of the ability to test for psychological maturity. Ignoring senility, mental illness, heavy metal poisoning, and a host of other physiological and sociological factors when determining culpability does little more than to transform a suspect into a scapegoat.
But then the whole engine of prosecution appears to be a means of displaying a muscular state apparatus rather than actually reducing incidences of harm. The purpose of legally “trying someone as an adult” is simply to remove tools from the defense and grant more power to the prosecution. It is designed to give the DA more leverage in extorting a plea bargain from the defendant.