Another excerpt from our complimentary study guide for Oedipus el Rey:

Statistically, racial and ethnic minorities, particularly Hispanic and African American males, face a disproportionately high risk of incarceration in the United States. Hispanics are incarcerated at 1.8 times the rate of whites. There are also substantial racial and ethnic differences in the lifetime likelihood of imprisonment.

If incarceration rates remain the same, one in three African American males born in 2001 will go to prison during their lifetime, compared to one in six Hispanic males and one in seventeen white males. Among these three criteria, the effect of unequal incarceration on individuals is the most obvious in terms of its negative impact. Research on sentencing decisions in which incarceration is an option suggests that discrimination occurs in some cases. For example, African American and Hispanic males who are young and unemployed have been incarcerated more severely than similarly situated white males, even when severity of the offense and criminal history were taken into account.

Imprisoning men often has multiple implications for families, including going onto welfare; moving into more cramped quarters and new school districts; family disruption, including the arrival of new male roles into the family, replacing the inmate; and reduced time for maternal parenting due to taking secondary employment.
High rates of incarceration, especially in communities plagued by social isolation and deterioration, also reduce opportunities for legitimate success; this, in turn, encourages nonconformity in the forms of crime and gang membership. A common perception is that minority children commit a disproportionate share of all offenses, thus there exists disproportionate minority confinement. Whether the perception is factual is open to debate. The following are some of the less debatable causes.

Causes and correlates of Disproportionate Minority Contact in the Juvenile Justice system (DMC):
• Poverty;
• Single parent families;
• Segregation and stagnated socialization;
• Lack of cultural perspective and competence;
• High minority youth unemployment;
• Subjective decision-making in the juvenile justice system;
• Absence of or poor legal representation;
• Under-representation of ethnic/racial administrative and direct service providers;
• Lack of education;
• Overt discrimination and racism.

One of the problems DMC-reduction efforts face is that media coverage, particularly television news, disproportionately connects crime with race and ethnicity. Studies noted found that African Americans and Hispanics were overrepresented as perpetrators in news reports, especially those involving violent crimes, and underrepresented as victims. Media coverage also disproportionately connects violent crime with young people, particularly minority youth. An analysis of 840 newspaper stories and 109 network news segments in 1993 showed that 40 percent of all newspaper stories on children and 48 percent of network television news stories on children were about violence. The combination of a focus on violent crime, disproportionate linking of crime with people of color, and overrepresentation of young people (especially minority youth) in stories of criminal violence may have a significant effect on public attitudes toward crime, race, and youth.
 Unlike suburban White youth, urban African American and Latina/o youth residing in neighborhoods with police-identified gangs are more likely to be stopped and accused by law enforcement officers of being gang members. In Los Angeles, youth of color are regularly stopped, their contact information is collected, and then inputted into databases used by law enforcement to track gang members and youth affiliated or associated with gangs. Youth who are not gang members are habitually added to the database. Those who simply know or interact with (perceived) gang members run the risk of being classified as affiliates or associates, even though no such roles are recognized in street gang cultures. Such labeling is detrimental given that the gang label (and the police perceptions and stereotypes consistent with this label) might operate as a ‘master status’ or contingency that influences the workings of the legal process and rates of movement through it.

Sources:
Racial Disproportionality in the American Prison Population: Using the Blumstein Method to Address the Critical Race and Justice Issue of the 21st Century. By Assistant professor of Sociology, Missouri State University, Brett E. Garland; Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Cassia Spohn; and Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Wyoming, Eric J. Wodahl. http://www.cjcj.org/files/racial_disproportionality.pdf
http://www.cclp.org/documents/BBY/Donde.pdf
U.S. Department of Justice; http://www.ojjdp.gov/dmc/  and https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/218861.pdf
Abjection and the Cinematic Cholo: The Chicano Gang Stereotype In Sociohistoric Context
http://readperiodicals.com/201110/2508837481.html#b