Why Does The Criminal Justice System Fail To Document Latino Encounters?

Latinos make up roughly 17 percent of the U.S. population, yet they are overrepresented in jails across the country and disproportionately victimized in acts of violence throughout the nation. As immigration takes center in the fight for the Latino vote during the 2016 presidential race, The Atlantic unveils that criminal justice reform is just as pressing of a matter.

According to the Department of Justice, one of every six Latino men can expect to spend time in jail within their lifetime if the rate of Latinos behind bars, which currently stands at 20 percent, continues. Additionally, the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at USC unearthed that Latinos under 30 are nearly three times as likely to become victims of homicide, the second-leading cause of death for Latinos between 15 to 24 years old, than whites. As alarming as these statistics are, significant data tied to Latino encounters with the criminal justice system remains unaccounted for.

“[A] great deal of data that would help policymakers and advocates understand Latinos’ relationship to law enforcement has yet to be collected—there is much more data about whites and blacks’ encounters with the criminal justice system,” The Atlantic writer Juleyka Lantigua-Williams reports.

Alex Piquero, criminologist professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, cites variability within the Latino community as an impediment to accurately understanding their relationship with the system. “Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Central Americans, they may not see and/or interpret the criminal justice system in the same way,” he states.

While he notes, “Hispanics care about the criminal justice system just as much as whites and African Americans,” he also marks generational gaps as a barrier in assessing how Latinos truly feel about law enforcement. According to limited studies, “first-generation immigrants actually have very strong, supportive beliefs about the criminal justice system” compared to their native-born counterparts.

“Why that could be the case, there are a lot of different philosophies but one argument that people have made is that some of the countries they are leaving from, they’re leaving very repressive style of criminal justice experiences and the legal systems,” Piquero explains. “When they come to America, America is the land of opportunity and so they see it as a chance to better themselves, their lives for themselves and their lives for their families.”

Yet, Piquero echoes that research grounded in Latinos’ experiences with the law is “a really thin knowledge base” since police departments have not committed to collecting data from the community. While he maintains that “it’s a very difficult piece of information to obtain,” one can’t help but raise an eyebrow. Perhaps excuses are the biggest barrier stalling a necessary undertaking.