The Disproportionate Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in ...

128
called an original gang member. That is a gang member coming in from
outside Sioux City and establishing something in Sioux City. From the
respect that we do not have a lot of original gang members, we have some
of those. What we don’t have is our own Sioux City kids being original
gang members. We still pretty much consider them on the wanna—be
crowd. But we have enough of the original gang members coming in and
trying to set up groups to start gang activity in Sioux City... . Our children
from Sioux City really need to be protected from these individuals coming
from outside and trying to set up gangs...
Because of the influx of different racial/ethnic groups moving into Sioux City and
problems this may or may have not caused for the juvenile justice system, decision
makers were asked if Blacks, Hispanics and Native American Indians have different
needs than Whites. Most of the decision makers felt that each of the racial/ethnic groups
do have needs that may be different than the needs of whites. Most of the personnel
believed that underlying minority needs is a better understanding of our culture and
language. A number of the decision makers also indicated that it is not necessarily their
responsibility to change to accommodate the needs of the varying racial/ethnic groups.
Some suggested that these differences not only have affected the likelihood of
delinquency and contact with the system but have also led to problems within the
schools.
Yeah. For example, Asian kids think that talking back to your parent is a
crime, very serious and the child should be severely beaten for it. For
black families that’s considered a normal thing. In Hispanic families, to
look up when an adult is talking to you is considered disrespectful. The
way I look at it, is I don’t think that they need to be treated differently. I
just think that we need to know that they are different.