NAU-Yuma author's book looks at diversity and crime

Everyone needs to be involved with diversity and as it relates to criminal justice, professionals need to understand why some people are involved with crime and the barriers they face, says an Northern Arizona University-Yuma author.
 
Dr. Larry Gould, NAU-Yuma campus executive officer, is co-author of "Investigating Difference: Human and Cultural Relations in Criminal Justice," recently published in a second edition.
 
The authors maintain that awareness of differences is no longer sufficient to deal with diversity. But understanding differences is a key to moving to a more civil society.
  
Gould cited certain minority populations police formerly had difficult relations with such as the Jewish Hasidic communities and the deaf and mute, with whom police now have improved relations. The Hasidic will not handle paperwork on their Sabbath, not even for parking citations, and the deaf and mute are noted for being apprehensive of police.
 
Thanks to diversity training, officers are now better able to interact, said Gould.
 
But diversity encompasses people's financial background as well, he noted. A person's economic status and ability to pay an attorney has a direct bearing on convictions - especially wrongful convictions, Gould said.
  
By and large, police and prosecutors do a good job of investigation, he said, but sometimes are overwhelmed by caseloads and may make a rush to prosecution. So there needs to be a safety valve, a mechanism to overturn wrongful convictions.
 
"We have the tools to overturn wrongful convictions, such as DNA samples," Gould said. "And police continue to develop much more sophisticated investigative techniques."
 
The problem of discrimination starts with privileges, Gould pointed out. And being white is an unearned privilege as well as being male or coming from a socially or economically advantaged background.
 
Historically, race, class and gender have been used as a means of assigning "real" value of people, often without the knowledge of the people to whom the value has been assigned, he noted. White males have tended to occupy positions to make decisions that have major consequences for American society.
  
Generally, crime is committed by the young against the young and most are male-on-male violations, he noted.
 
The criminal justice system has historically been run by the dominant culture to control the subordinate culture, Gould noted. That is the background against which criminologists are driving for change today and are succeeding with implementing greater diversity within civil institutions, he said.
 
The book came about when the school's Department of Criminal Justice was using five or six books to cover course curriculum, which the faculty found unsatisfying and decided to produce their own.
 
"The book covers a lot of areas you wouldn't find in one volume," Gould said.
 
And what is of special interest about the book is that an endowment has been set up, where the royalties pay for a yearly $1,000 scholarship for a criminal justice student from any of the NAU campuses.


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William Roller can be reached at wroller@yumasun.com or 539-6858.