Latina Feminism Movement Analysis

Latina Feminism Movement

“Latina feminism is a group of social theories that analyze the historical, political, social and economic roles of American, Chicana and Hispanic women in the United States ( Gazzar, 2014). It is complex transnational in nature at often. Being a Latina means that one has a cultural identity and ethnicity shared by those from or with origins in Latin America.

Latina Feminism in the United States started to take shape following the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements which saw all oppressed people, the gay, women and other ethnic groups coming forward and using solidarity to spark social changes in the middle of the 20th century. Despite the Latina women taking leadership in the other movements, their contributions

whose family is originally from the three mentioned areas. The criminal justice system in the U.S. has discriminated against the Latino over time. Many proposals and strategies to address the disparate treatment of Latino/as within the criminal justice system remain unimplemented Latinos constitute the second largest ethnic and racial group in the US whites with a population of 50.5 million meaning that one in every six people in America and one in four children aged 18 years and below are Latino. Despite the fact that Latinos represent a similar proportion as whites, they are dramatically overrepresented as crime victims in our courts, jails and prisons. According to research, they receive harsher treatment in arrests, pretrial proceeding and sentencing than whites charged with same offenses (Morin & Delgado, 2009). By being both vulnerable to crime and being disadvantaged in all phases of the criminal justice system, they are poorly served by current practices and policies. Matters are made worse by circumstances that arise when a large share of the Latino population is foreign born. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than US born individuals yet law enforcement and criminal justice practices can be harsh unnecessarily for the immigrants (Morin & Delgado,

A 2005 analysis of felony defendants in urban courts found that Latinos were less likely to be released on their own recognizance and when they were offered bails, the amounts set were significantly higher (averagely $ 25000higher) than African Americans or whites in similar circumstances. Given the option to post bail, only 33% of Latino defendants were able to do so compare with 47% of African Americans and 58% of whites. The same study found that 51% of Latinos were incarcerated compared to 32% of whites (Gazzar, 2014). A 2004 analysis of the rulings in urban courts across the country found the likelihood of incarceration for Latinos 44% higher than whites when convicted of property crimes and for drugs 53% higher than whites. Latinos are impacted deeply by mandatory minimum sentences as found in a 2011 report in which it was found that Latinos were more convicted of an offense receiving mandatory sentence than any other ethnic group. Similar to the disparities found at the pretrial and sentencing periods, a 2009 study of 15 states data over 15-year period found that the Latino rates of re-arrest and conviction after release were similar to those of whites but Latinos were punished with incarceration at levels higher than whites. Latinos make up two-thirds of the people listed in California’s gang injunctions database. The three year rates of recidivism were only 59.9% for Latinos