Race,Crime, and Criminal Justice

Fifty years ago, the U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice under President Johnson did not frequently mention race and ethnicity in its discussion of and recommendations for the criminal justice system, but it did have a lot to say about race and crime. Through the use of arrest rates to measure racial differentials in criminal involvement, the Commission concluded that Blacks commit more crime as a consequence of Black people living in greater numbers in criminogenic “slum” conditions. To address racial differences, the Commission favored the Great Society programs of Johnson's War on Poverty. Contemporary criminologists continue to debate the racial distribution of crime, the causes of crimes, and the best policies to reduce crime and racial differentials. The Commission did not anticipate the current debate among scholars regarding how much racial disproportionality exists in the criminal justice system and its causes and consequences. The policies that led to mass incarceration have been significant drivers of continued criminal justice racial disparity. Those policies are inconsistent with the recommendation in The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967), upending the pursuit of a more fair and just system.     

Integrating Critical Race Theory and Postmodernism Implications of Race, Class, and Gender

This paper begins with an overview of criticalrace theory tenets, which in turn will befollowed by an overview of postmodernism. These bodies of knowledge consist of an arrayof ideologies; but for the purpose of thisarticle only the fundamentals of each will bediscussed. Thereafter, an integration ofthese two contemporary areas of thought willdemonstrate the constructive linkage ofcritical race theory and postmodern theory. Theintegrations that follow will emphasize how acollaboration of critical race theory tenetsand postmodern thought can contribute to asuccessful, and more importantly improved,analysis of the social constructions of race,class, and gender. In addition, theintersectional analysis presented willdemonstrate a more informative and betterunderstanding of the subtleties of blatant andmore hidden forms of race, class, and gender.     

Preventing Crime is Hard Work: Early Intervention,Developmental Criminology,and the Enduring Legacy of James Q. Wilson

Objective

The late James Q. Wilson (1931-2012) was a prolific scholar and made many important contributions to the field of criminology. Less well known, however, is that Wilson was a great advocate of early prevention of delinquency and later offending. This essay examines this aspect of Wilson's overall contribution to criminology.

Materials and methods

Narrative review of Wilson's research and writings on early crime prevention and developmental criminology.

Results

Three key events delineate Wilson's long-lasting support for early crime prevention: his 1983 "Raising Kids" article with its special focus on family-based prevention; his help to initiate and champion developmental and longitudinal research on offending in the 1980s and 1990s; and his influential writings and behind-the-scenes work on early prevention throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Conclusions

Wilson played an important role in advocating for early crime prevention. Without question, this is part of his enduring legacy to the field of criminology.     

The Context of Minority Group Threat: Race, Institutions, and Complying with Hate Crime Law

A wealth of research suggests a direct association between minority group size and government social control, such as arrest or imprisonment rates. Prior work in this vein, however, gives scant attention to (1) types of law that explicitly address intergroup conflict and (2) regional variation in the salience of minority group threat. At the same time, research on organizational responses to law indicates that institutional linkages to legal environments dictate policy innovation and compliance, yet the relevance of such linkages for law enforcement agencies is less clear. The present research investigates these themes by focusing on law enforcement responses to hate crime in the United States. Data from a sample of large municipal and county policing agencies and their degree of compliance with the federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act are analyzed. Main effects models show that compliance with federal hate crime law is less likely in places with larger black populations, an intriguing finding in light of extant work suggesting that both formal social control and race-based hate crime offending are typically more prevalent where more blacks reside. This effect of black population size on compliance with hate crime law, however, is contingent on region. A positive correlation in the Northeast contrasts with an inverse association in the South. The findings also suggest that organizational facets of law enforcement agencies, notably their engagement in community policing, are associated with compliance. The results elaborate and qualify group threat explanations of government social control and contribute to a burgeoning literature on the utility of organizational theory in the realm of law enforcement.     

The Intersection of Crime Seriousness,Discretion, and Race: A Test of the Liberation Hypothesis

Spohn and Cederblom’s interpretation of the liberation hypothesis asserts that with trivial crimes, judges are “liberated” to consider extra-legal attributes such as race when making sentencing decisions. The current study posits that this perspective may be too theoretically simplistic because it fails to distinguish between the concepts of discretion and uncertainty. In light of this argument, we examine the sentencing decisions of felony cases in the Florida circuit courts. Results indicate that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be imprisoned than whites, and males more so than females. Contrary to expectations, this disparity increases with crime seriousness. Consistent with the imprisonment model, blacks and males receive longer sentences and the effect increases with case seriousness. We found no evidence that the effect of offender extra-legal attributes depends upon the characteristics of the judges handling the cases. Suggestions for future research and implications for the liberation hypothesis are discussed.     

Running on Fear: Immigration,Race and Crime Framings in Contemporary GOP Presidential Debate Discourse

This analysis explores the use of “race-baiting,” known herein as “racially divisive appeals” (RDAs), and crime frames in Republican (GOP) presidential debate discourse during the 2008 and subsequent election cycles. RDAs which mobilize images of minorities as criminals, terrorists, or as populations engaged in voter or welfare fraud, are analyzed. While the strategic exploitation of racial animus in American politics has tended to be associated with the “Southern Strategy,” wherein GOP politicians wooed southern whites by fueling anxieties about blacks, this research finds that modern RDAs focus more on appealing to fears about immigrants. Reasons for this shift, as well some of the varied discursive techniques and narrative content of contemporary RDAs, are explored.     

Judging the Other: The Intersection of Race,Gender, and Class in Family Court

This critical ethnographic study of family court child maltreatment proceedings describes and illuminates the ways in which racial, gender, and class disadvantages can manifest on the ground as judges, attorneys, social service workers, and parents—joined often by gender but split by race and class—adjudicate cases. The findings suggest that intersectionality worked in ways that exponentially marginalized poor mothers of color in the courtroom. They were marginalized both through the rules of the adversarial process (which silenced their voices) and through the construction of narratives (which emphasized individual weakness) over structural obstacles as well as personal irresponsibility over expressions of maternal care and concern. Standard due process courtroom practices also communicated bias or social exclusion, especially in a courtroom split by race and class.