I have noticed that American police series on TV do tend to use lovely long words such as "correctional facility "Caucasian youths"" and those sort of long winded self-important sounding descriptives.
Great innit?
It's part of our all inclusive, non-offensive, make you feel you are special (just like everyone else) political correctness.
Punks no longer get sent to prison for punishment. Misguided youth are sent to correctional facilities to learn how to express themselves in ways that are more socially acceptable.
Blame Hollywood.....When police shows came on the scene there was this big push to be politically correct and an attempt to avoid insulting the sensitivities of minorities and increase awareness of civil rights by introducing the term "Mirandized" (being read your rights) into the American lexicon.
It was also where we began to hear terms like Afro-American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian, Juvenile, search warrant, probable cause and circumstantial evidence. It got it's start on early television shows like
Perry Mason, but when shows like
Dragnet and
Adam 12 came on the scene police catch phrases began to appear in the language.