Color Of Justice Movie Review: The Color Of Justice

The film The Color of Justice discusses the problems in the juvenile justice system today. We now have more minorities incarcerated yet the data shows that they are not the only ones out committing crimes. In the video it stated that in Connecticut the data stated that children of color were three times more likely to get in trouble with the law then white children. The film discusses the importance of educating juveniles on their rights to avoid future problems. The idea is to give juveniles the education to know what will happen in a police encounter so they are not scared of police. One of the major themes of this film is breaking the barrier between police officers and juveniles. Changing how juveniles view police officers is one of the major steps to breaking these barriers. Juveniles often see police and have a negative connection because of previous police encounters they have seen either with their family or with people in their neighborhood. In the film a role-playing exercise was successful in changing attitudes of how juveniles feel about police officers. Having juveniles understand

I found this film to be a good tool for people going into the criminal justice field. I think it is important for people going into this field or already in it to understand the importance of racial biasing. The exercise in the video that was used where they changed what the juvenile was wearing was very eye opening. Trained professionals were drastically characterizing the same person differently based on their appearance. I found this to be the most powerful part of the video and gave me a better understand how important it is to not judge someone based on his or her appearance. It is defiantly not only relevant in the juvenile system. People in the adult system are also characterized on how they look. I think the exercise they used in the film for juveniles would also be helpful for people dealing with adult