Analyzing a Rhetorical Situation

   In my Juvenile Justice class we were required to read several articles. We would read two opposing views and discuss the value and truth to each of them. Then we would compare them to what we learned in class. All of them were on controversial topics and could lead to heated debates if asked moral and social views, but we always stuck to the facts. Criminal Justice classes try to avoid going into to heated debates about opinions.

 One article we discussed was “The Juvenile Justice System Discriminates Against Minorities.” In this article, William Raspberry tries to encourage the restructuring of the juvenile justice system to be less racist.  He felt moved by other press releases to the extent he too wanted his views to be heard. While his language use is less than desirable, it is pointed toward creating a public outcry. One use of language that stands out was his use of “hitting up relatives to raise bail money.”  His point was to raise awareness that racial disparities still exist in the juvenile system and need to be noted by the community and corrected.  

 His use of facts and statistics are rough and not proven. He points out the difference in white and minority arrest rates and the rates of conviction. This data could be true, yet he does not mention the area of arrest or if the officers were the same.  In the criminal field arresting officers have a lot of leeway. They do not have to arrest unless it is a serious offense. In smaller towns an officer is less likely to arrest a first time offender and even less likely to arrest someone they know.  In larger cities, it is less likely that an officer will know the child personally.  Raspberry does bring valid points to consider and would have the public’s attention, but fails to prove his point to a criminal justice major. There were too many unproven ideas and statistics. 

    Raspberry could have strengthen his argument by stating  what areas the arrests were in and where he received those statistics from. Raspberry otherwise brought valid points to the table and wanted people to really think about the situation. He ended with a situation and a question. This left the audience to rethink the way they generally see things. He opened the  minds of the reader, but left those of us with a criminal justice background doubting his credibility on the subject. When researched one will find that Raspberry has won several awards for his writings and wrote for the Washington Press. I found his writings somewhat lacking a structural backbone, but he mentions another article several times in his piece that was not included in our class assignment. He did getting the class discussion going with his topic and use of examples. Arrests and treatment of two juveniles charged with similar crimes can be much different depending on the state and local authorities. It can also be effected by press coverage of the crimes themselves. He points out two different times that a minority was arrested for a crime similar to a white juvenile and was treated much differently. Overall the article did effectively make those in my class think more deeply on the topic, but it did not paint the clearest picture.