Race and Crime

Re “The Bias of ‘Color Blind’ Juvenile Justice,” Opinion, June 27: Vincent Schiraldi cited studies that found that black youths were “more likely [than their white peers] to be detained, locked up on sentencing or sent to adult prisons, even with other factors equal.” Schiraldi rightly notes that “white middle-class youths” are at an advantage in numerous, important ways when they get into legal trouble. But it is not clear whether this is because they are white, because they are middle class or some combination of the two.

Race and class are clearly interrelated, but it cannot be assumed that one is a proxy for the other. I suspect that getting to the root of this, and many other, race-involved injustices will require an exploration of how many more minorities can be brought into the middle class.

ERIC GAMONAL

Woodland Hills