Differential Offending Hypothesis Essay

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The United States’ governmental policies known as the War on Drugs contributed to increases of incarceration and arrest rates, notably of African Americans; although substance use and abuse rates of African Americans are lower than that of Whites. Kakade, Duarte, Liu, Fuller, Drucker, Hoven, Fan, and Wu (2012) addressed two main hypotheses: the “differential offending” hypothesis and the “differential treatment” hypothesis. Kakade et. al hypothesized for the “differential offending” hypothesis that overrepresentation of racial/ethnic minorities in the juvenile and criminal justice systems reveals racial differences in the prevalence, the seriousness and the consistent engagement in criminal behavior. Kakade et. al hypothesized for the …show more content…
al used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to examine the relationship of substance use and criminal behaviors with arrest among African American and Whites youths. Kakade et. al also examined the longitudinal effect of arrest in adolescents and having a education. The baseline sample included 6725 participants (aged 12-17 years), whom 4400 were White and 2325 were African American. The subsample consisted of 5796 participants who were reinterviewed in 2003, completing their general equivalency diploma (GED) or analyses examining high school. The subsample group was divided into 4 groups according to arrest history and race and compared the high school completion rated between the 4 groups. Kakade et. al evaluated arrest history for the baseline sample using a 3-category variable: no arrests, a single arrest, and multiple arrests. Participants were asked if they ever used alcohol or illegal drugs or if they ever sold drugs. Kakade et. al conducted follow-up interviews afterwards to obtain information on high school completion. The researchers compared the 2 racial groups on sociodemographic factors on substance use, arrest rates and non-drug-related illegal behavior for the group aged 12-14 years old and the group aged 15-17 years

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