The Racial Politics of Youth Crime

This article examines the social and political origins of the shift towards more punitive sanctions in the juvenile justice system. I argue that “get tough” legislation targets Black and Latino youth specifically and generates support by playing on public anxieties about race and crime. The following content analysis demonstrates how the coded language and discourse of California Proposition 21 of 2000 racialized youth crime. The larger goal of this study is to shed light on how race and crime remain so closely connected in the American conscience.