A juvenile offender can be defined as an offender who is too young to be tried as an adult. The age at which a person can be tried as an adult varies between states, but is ordinarily the age of seventeen or eighteen. For certain serious offenses, such as homicide or sexual assault this age can go down. Juveniles tend to think that they can get away with crimes because they are young. However in all actuality they won't never get away with it. Someone where down the line they or someone in charge of them will suffer the consequences for their behavior. .
When crimes are committed by juveniles, those who do not know the situation and majority of the public are quick to assume that the offenders are of the African American race. The public see that juveniles of color in particular have high rates of contact with the police. This is because the younger generation tend to be out on the streets more than adults especially during late nights and early mornings. This brings nothing except trouble because there is nothing to do at this time of night for juveniles so they look for something to get into. They get themselves involved in gangs and begin to participate in gang related activities, etc. This leads to crimes getting committed and them again coming in contact with the police. Not only does this occur with African Americans but it occurs with juveniles of all races. It's just the African American juveniles who the public see as the troublemakers or the instigators of the crimes. .
The public believes that juvenile offenders who are always committing crimes are African American because this is what the media puts out there. Majority of the time when there is a crime being committed, the media gets involved before they even know the full details of what happened. This leads to them disbursing false information to the public and the public takes it and runs with it because of course they believe the media knows everything.