The Over-Criminalization And Inequitable Policing And Sentencing Of Latin@S Within The Judicial System Of The United States: The Latin@ Addition To The School-To-Prison Pipeline

This theoretical paper focuses on the creation of the overly criminalistic Latin@ stereotype in the United States as a response to growing numbers of immigrants threatening white hegemony. As a mechanism of social control, Latin@s have faced inequitable treatment within the judicial and school systems of the United States. This paper examines criminality literature and its focus on the white/black binary before a legal system evolution that controls Latin@s. Social, legal, and racial control of Latin@s has occurred via negative public sentiment, inequitable juror practices, biased judicial sentencing and leniency, over-policing, and the "War on Drugs."