The Impact Of Crime And The Criminal Justice System On Floridas Hispanics

This updated and expanded new edition resumes the theme of the first edition, and the findings reveal that race, ethnicity, gender, class, and several other variables continue to play a significant and consequential role in the legal decision-making process. The book is structured into three sections, each of which corresponds to a different body of work on Latinos. Section One explores the historical dynamics and influence of ethnicity in law enforcement, and focuses on how ethnicity impacts policing field practices, such as traffic stops, use of force, and the subsequent actions that police departments have employed to alleviate these problems. A detailed examination of critical issues facing Latino defendants seeks to better understand the law enforcement process. The history of immigration laws as it pertains to Mexicans and Latinos explains how Mexicans have been excluded from the United States through anti-immigrant legislation. Latino officers must cope with structural and political issues, the community, and media, as these practices and experiences within the American police system are explored. Section Two focuses on the repressive practices against Mexicans that resulted in executions, vigilantism, and mass expulsions. The topic of Latinos and the Fourth Amendment reveals that the constitutional right of people to be protected against unreasonable searches and seizures has been eviscerated for Latinos, and particularly for Mexicans. Possible remedies to existing shortcomings of the court system when processing indigent defendants are presented. Section Three studies the issue of Hispanics and the penal system. The ethnic realities of life behind bars, probation and parole, the legacy of capital punishment, and life after prison are discussed. Section Four addresses the globalization of Latinos, social control, and the future of Latinos in the U.S. Criminal justice system. Lastly, the race and ethnic experience through the lens of science, law, and the American imagination, are explored, concluding with policy recommendations for social and criminal justice reform, and ultimately humanizing differences. Written for professionals and students of law enforcement, this book will promote the understanding of the historical legacy of brutality, manipulation, oppression, marginalization, prejudice, discrimination, power and control, and white America's continued fear about racial and ethnic minorities.

This unique compilation of essays and entries provides critical insights into the Latino/a experience with the U.S. criminal justice system. Concerns about immigration's relationship to crime make accurate information and critical analysis of the utmost importance. Latinos and Criminal Justice: An Encyclopedia promotes understanding of Latinas and Latinos and the U.S. criminal justice system, at the same time dispelling popular misconceptions about this population and criminal activity in the United States. Unlike a traditional encyclopedia comprised solely of A–Z entries, this work consists of two parts. Part I offers detailed essays on particularly important topics. Part II provides brief, A–Z entries. Topics are crossreferenced to enable easy research. Among the wide range of topics covered are policing and police misconduct, incarceration, the war on drugs, gangs, border crime, and racial profiling. Historically important issues and events relative to the Latino experience of criminal justice in the United States are also included, as are key legal cases.

ETHNICITY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE ERA OF MASS INCARCERATION: A Critical Reader on the Latino Experience is designed as a Latino reader in criminal justice, covering a much broader spectrum of the Latino experience in criminal justice and society, while giving readers a broad overview of the Latino experience in a single book. Considering the shifting trends in demographics and the current state of the criminal justice system, along with the current political “climate,” this book is timely and of critical significance for the academic, political, and social arena. The authors report sound evidence that testifies to a historical legacy of violence, brutality, manipulation, oppression, marginalization, prejudice, discrimination, power, and control, and to white America’s continued fear about ethnic and racial minorities, a movement that continues in the twenty-first century—as we have been witnessing during the 2015-2016 presidential race, highly charged with anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican political rhetoric. A central objective of this book is to demystify and expose the ways in which ideas of ethnicity, race, gender, and class uphold the functioning and “legitimacy” of the criminal justice system. In this mission, rather than attempting to develop a single explanation for the Latino experience in policing, the courts, and the penal system, this book presents a variety of studies and perspectives that illustrate alternative ways of interpreting crime, punishment, safety, equality, and justice. The findings reveal that race, ethnicity, gender, class, and several other variables continue to play a significant role in the legal decision-making process. With the social control (from police brutality to immigration) discourse reaching unprecedented levels, the book will have broad appeal for students, police officers, advocates/activists, attorneys, the media, and the general public.

Historically, most studies that have explored the experiences of criminal defendants in the American criminal Justice system, whether it is in the area of policing, courts, or corrections, have focused almost exclusively on race. Hispanics have resided in the United States since 1598 and recently bypassed African Americans in the general population for the first time in history. In this context, this book will examine the Hispanic experience in the criminal justice system by exploring a series of crucial factors. Major topics include: Hispanics and the American police, policing the barrios, immigration lockdown, the dynamics of arresting Hispanics, criminalizing Mexican identity, Latinos and the 4th Amendment, the exclusion of Latinos from Grand and Petit juries, the penal system and the critical issues facing Hispanic prisoners, probation and parole, the legacy of capital punishment, life after prison, and the dynamics of education and globalization in America. This text presents a variety of studies that illustrate alternative ways of interpreting crime, punishment, safety, equality, and justice. The findings from these studies reveal that race, ethnicity, gender, and class continue to play a significant role in the legal decision-making process. Hispanics in the U.S. Criminal Justice System is written for professionals and students of criminal justice and law enforcement in helping to understand the historical legacy of brutality, manipulation, oppression, marginalization, prejudice, discrimination, power and control, and white America’s continued fear about racial and ethnic minorities.

How Latina girls and women become entangled in the criminal justice system Despite representing roughly 16 percent of incarcerated women, Latina women and girls are often rendered invisible in accounts of American crime and punishment. In Latinas in the Criminal Justice System, Vera Lopez and Lisa Pasko bring together a group of distinguished scholars to provide a more complete, nuanced picture of Latinas as victims, offenders, and targets of deportation. Featuring Cecilia Menjívar, Lisa M. Martinez, Alice Cepeda, and others, this volume examines the complex histories, backgrounds, and struggles of Latinas in the criminal justice system. Contributors show us how Latinas encounter a variety of justice systems, including juvenile detention, adult court and corrections, and immigration and customs enforcement. Topics include Latina victims of crime and their perceptions of police officers; the impact of the US “crimmigration” system on undocumented Latina women; and help-seeking among Latina victims of intimate partner violence. Additionally, key chapters highlight the emergence of legal reforms, community mobilization efforts, and gender-sensitive alternatives to incarceration designed to increase equitable outcomes. Lopez and Pasko broaden our understanding of how gender, ethnicity, and legal status uniquely shape the experiences of system-impacted Latina girls and women. Latinas in the Criminal Justice System is a timely and much-needed resource for academics, activists, and policymakers.

According to some politicians and much of the mainstream media, immigrant populations only contribute crime to their communities. Seen as unmotivated and unemployed, these immigrants are thought to be a threat to society's moral fiber, and a burden to its justice system. Ramiro Martinez tells a very different story in Latino Homicide. Studying five major cities--Chicago, El Paso, Houston, Miami, and San Diego--Martinez reveals Latino homicide rates to be markedly lower than one would expect, given the economic deprivation of these urban areas. Far from dangerous or criminal, these communities often have exceptionally strong social networks precisely because of their shared immigrant experiences. With fascinating case studies drawn from police reports and actual cases, Latino Homicide refutes negative stereotypes in a coherent and critically rigorous analysis of the issues.