DOJ Releases Findings of Misconduct in Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff's Office

The Justice Department announced its' findings today in a civil rights investigation into the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. The Justice Department found constitutional and civil rights abuses including discriminatory stops and arrests of Latinos. An excerpt of the press release follows and the full report is available here:

The Justice Department found reasonable cause to believe that MCSO, under the leadership of Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio, has engaged in a pattern or practice of misconduct that violates the Constitution and federal law. The investigation, opened in June 2008, was conducted under the provisions of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Title VI implementing regulations.

The department found reasonable cause to believe that a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct and/or violations of federal law occurred in several areas, including:

Discriminatory policing practices including unlawful stops, detentions and arrests of Latinos;
Unlawful retaliation against individuals exercising their First Amendment right to criticize MCSO’s policies or practices, including but not limited to practices relating to its discriminatory treatment of Latinos; and
Discriminatory jail practices against Latino inmates with limited English proficiency by punishing them and denying them critical services.

The Justice Department found a number of long-standing and entrenched systemic deficiencies that caused or contributed to these patterns of unlawful conduct, including:

A failure to implement policies guiding deputies on lawful policing practices;
Allowing specialized units to engage in unconstitutional practices;
Inadequate training;
Inadequate supervision;
An ineffective disciplinary, oversight and accountability system; and
A lack of sufficient external oversight and accountability.

In addition to these formal pattern or practice findings, the investigation uncovered additional areas of serious concern, including:

Use of excessive force;
Police practices that have the effect of significantly compromising MCSO’s ability to adequately protect Latino residents; and
Failure to adequately investigate allegations of sexual assaults.

While no formal findings of pattern or practice violations have been made in connection with these issues, the investigation remains ongoing.

New Report by National Institute of Justice: Crime and Victimization of Hispanic Adolescents

The National Institute of Justice has published a study that is an interesting read for those that work with Hispanic clients, especially youth in criminal justice. The report, entitled "Crime and Victimization Among Hispanic Adolescents: A Multilevel Longitudinal Study of Acculturation and Segmented Assimilation",is a study that illustrates the vast differences in the immigrant experience and how those differences affect Hispanic youth involvement in crime, both as victims and offenders. As it turns out, environment is a big factor: youth that live in inner-city poor neighborhoods tend to experience downward "cultural assimilation" and become involved in higher numbers in the criminal justice system. Here is an excerpt from the introduction. The report is free (available here):

This study represents a comprehensive effort to illustrate the divergent experiences of first-, second-, and third-generation Hispanic child and adolescent immigrants with respect to their self-reported violent victimization and involvement in criminal offending. This project is unique in that it synthesizes a vast amount of research toward the goal of understanding the complex linkages between immigration, culture, social structure, and criminological outcomes. Utilizing segmented assimilation to inform our study, we explore how neighborhood context, individual propensities, and situational factors impact crime and victimization among Latino youth. From a neighborhood perspective, segmented assimilation theory suggests that immigrant youth acculturate differentially depending on community context. Those who acculturate within disadvantaged, inner-city contexts, without strong family ties and support from other co-ethnics are likely to experience downward assimilation, resulting in more involvement in crime and other forms of deviance. We also examine how individual and situational factors impact the relationships between acculturation and crime and violent victimization. Using three well researched predictors of crime and victimization (i.e., delinquent peers, self-control, and parenting) we investigate how these influence the associations among assimilation status, acculturation context, and crime and victimization.