Connecting Critical Race Theory with Second Generation Legal Consciousness Work in Obasogie's Blinded by Sight

Sociologist and legal scholar Osagie Obasogie's study of how blind people “see” race reveals the usually invisible, taken‐for‐granted mechanisms that reproduce racism. In Blinded by Sight, he distinguishes racial consciousness from legal consciousness, though he notes their common emphases on studying how cumulative social practices and interactions produce commonsense understandings. I argue that there is much to be gained from connecting these two fields, one emanating primarily out of critical race theory and the other out of law and society scholarship. Legal consciousness offers an important avenue for bridging macro studies of race making with micro studies such as Obasogie's, which focus on individuals’ experiences and practices of constructing race and learning racism.     

Racial Bias and the American Criminal Justice System: Race and Presentencing Revisited

A controversy within criminology involves the extent to which race affects criminal processing. Investigators on different sides of the issue have relied predominantly on studies of sentencing, leaving largely unexplored the less visible area of presentencing. After a discussion of nine of the most prevalent shortcomings in previous research, this article critically examines the contemporary presentencing literature to ascertain the extent to which a discrimination thesis (DT) receives empirical support. It reviews the findings from 52studies conducted since 1970 that employ multivariate statistical analysis. Special attention is devoted to critiquing the methodological shortcomings of studies that support a nondiscrimination thesis (NDT). The implications of these weaknesses for the race/criminal processing nexus are discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Racial Construction of Urban Spaces in Britain and Pakistan

This paper details the articulations of a sample of South Asian Muslims from Lancashire, UK, and Karachi, Pakistan, in relation to their construction of the urban space in which they reside. In particular, theories of how urban spaces are ‘racially constructed’ and the impact of this on our understanding of racial and politically motivated violence are examined. The findings are part of a broader study which provided a comparative evaluation of the experiences of crime amongst two Muslim communities in the UK and Pakistan (Quraishi, Muslims and crime: A comparative study. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). The theoretical inspiration for this paper originates from the writings of Chicago School scholars such as Park, but more specifically from the works of Webster, Hesse et al. and Keith, who each explore the dynamic relationships between urban space, racial identity and victimization (Park, The nature of race relations. Chapter 7 in L. Back, J. Solomos (Eds.), Theories of race and Racism. London: Routledge, 1950; Webster, Youth crime, victimization and harassment. The Keighley crime survey. A paper in community studies no.7. centre Research. Department of Applied and community studies, Bradford and Ilkley Community College, 1994; Webster, Local heroes: Racial violence among asian and young people. Leicester: Leicester University, 1997; Hesse,et al Beneath the surface: Racial harassment. Avebury: Aldershot, 1992; Keith, Identity and the spaces of authenticity. Chapter 35 in L. Back, J. Solomos (Eds), Theories of race and racism. London: Routledge, 2004) The paper evaluates the construction of certain ‘no-go’ zones in the UK and Pakistan as perceived by Muslims. The comparative dimension enables an exploration of the divergence and convergence of processes accountable for a racially constructed interpretation of urban environments (Alexander, The asian gang: Ethnicity, Identity. Masculinity. Oxford: Berg, 2000; Desai, Spaces of identity, cultures of conflict: The development of new asian identities, Ph.D. dissertation, Goldsmiths’ college, University of London. In B. Bowling, C. Philips (2000) Racism, crime & theoutsiders. London: Longman/Pearson, 1998). Such processes are contextualized against the broader experiences of social exclusion, victimization and racism experienced by Muslim youth in everyday life (Quraishi, Muslims and crime: A comparative study. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005; Spalek, Islam, crime and criminal justice. London: Willan, 2002; Spalek, Muslims in the UK and the criminal justice system. Chapter 4 in open society institute (Eds.), Muslims in the UK: Policies for Engaged citizens.OSI/EU Monitoring & Advocacy Programme. Hungary, Budapest & New York, 2005).

行政决策视角中的政府改革和行政能力建设

决策视角中的政府改革和行政能力建设,必须多元联动,系统推进。     

Race and the Construction of Evidence in Homicide Cases

Research that attempts to document racial or gender disparities in the criminal justice system inevitably paints a distorted picture if only one point in the criminal justice process is examined. For example, studies that look at who is sentenced to death among a group convicted of first-degree murder will miss exposure of biases that occur at earlier stages of the criminal justice process. In this paper, we looked at prosecutorial files on over 400 homicide cases from Caddo Parish, Louisiana (the Shreveport area). Results indicate that even after controlling for aggravating factors, cases with White female victims result in thicker files than other homicides, indicating more prosecutorial effort in attempting to secure convictions in such cases. This, in turn, was related to more severe sentencing of offenders convicted of killing whites and women. On the other hand, cases with black victims resulted in the thinnest case files and the least severe sentences.     

The Politics of Racial Disparity Reform: Racial Inequality and Criminal Justice Policymaking in the States

Racial inequalities in criminal justice are pressing problems for policymakers. Prior literature suggests elected officials promulgate punitive, racially disparate criminal justice policies due to partisanship and racial fears, but scholarship has yet to explain how and why elected officials address racial problems in criminal processing. This article introduces the framework of racial disparity reform policymaking. A racial disparity reform is a policy that seeks to reduce distinctions in criminal justice institutions’ treatment of racial groups. Elected officials pursue these policies due to ideological beliefs in civil rights ideals and political interests in appearing to solve social problems. Using an original database of policy enactments, this article first presents the distribution and types of reform measures adopted by elected officials in all 50 states between 1998 and 2011. It then examines social and political explanations for when state legislatures and executives adopt racial disparity reforms. Policy enactment is predicted by worsening problems of racial disproportion in criminal processing, Democratic control of elected branches, and the absence of judicial efforts to improve racial fairness within a state’s criminal justice system. Similar dynamics encourage the development of different measures types within policies. Such ideological and problem-solving explanations for racial disparity reform show a potential for elected officials to forge more racially just criminal justice practices.     

法治建设应以社会和谐为导向

法治是社会主义和谐社会的重要特征,法治的进程必然影响着和谐社会的构建。在法治化进程中,只有以社会和谐为导向,法治国家与和谐社会的建设才能齐头并进,相得益彰。一、和谐与稳定所蕴涵的不同价值取向和谐与稳定是两个既有联系又有区别的概念。稳定是和谐的前提和基础,和谐社     

The Social Construction of Illegality and Criminality

In this article illegal immigrants, a relatively new group of immigrants living at the margins of society, are discussed. The question of the significance of crime for groups that are officially excluded from the formal labour market and public provisions, is presented within the framework of the Unknown City research project, conducted in the four largest Dutch cities (interviews with illegal immigrants; an ethnographic study to determine the extent of support by various ethnic communities; and an examination of the ways in which the restrictive policies towards illegal immigrants were implemented by the police, the Aliens Departments, and by professionals within public or semi-public institutions in the fields of education, healthcare and housing). Both the relatively limited involvement in crime in general and the differences between groups can be explained by the embeddedness of illegal immigrants in the labour sphere and the support by ethnic communities. Attention is paid to the social and legal construction of the illegal immigrant through new legislation and to the observation that illegality is increasingly linked to crime. The majority of illegal immigrants are not criminally active. One exception is the category that is active in the lower levels of the hard drug trade. The authors' analysis suggests that the perception of the criminal illegal immigrant first and foremost reflects the division between wanted and unwanted immigrants, which is the result of the shift towards a restrictive policy.     

The Bar Examination and the Dream Deferred: A Critical Analysis of the MBE, Social Closure, and Racial and Ethnic Stratification

In this article, the author applies social closure theory to help explain why more than a dozen states have recently enacted more stringent bar exam passing standards and why others are considering similar changes. While higher standards are usually advocated as a way to protect the public from lower student "quality," the author applies social closure theory and argues that changes in passing standards are a response to a perceived oversupply of lawyers, especially among solo practitioners. In the 1990s, crowding among solo practitioners reached record levels, and real earnings eroded substantially. The author then links this labor market analysis to a critical examination of the knowledge claims that justify the bar exam to the legal profession and the public at large. The article's conclusion is that the psychometric research sponsored by the National Conference of Bar Examiners consistently minimizes and obscures the disparate impact and unfairness of the bar exam for people of color.     

唐代民事法律主客体与民事法源的构造

从唐代法律体系和民事契约文书中,可以概括并揭示出制度与事实上的唐代民事主体、客体和民事法源的基本面貌及其构造。唐代民事主体是一不同类别的多层次结构,这—结构是相对开放的等级社会在民事法上的投影。民事客体由物、人(奴婢)和行为三类组成。民事法源由成文法和不成文法构成,并以礼(理)为指导,各种法源因此具有相通一致之处。     

比较的视阈：政府与市场

政 府 与 市 场的 关 系 一 直以 来 都 是 经济 学 界 所 激 烈 争 论 的 话 题 。 如 今 , 二 者 在 经 济 领 域 的 共 生 与 互 补 关 系已 然 成 为了 不 争 的 事实 , 然 而 ,人 们 对 二 者的 关 注 却 并没 有 因 此 而 终 止 。 随 着 政 府 失 败 的 出 现 , 各 种 各 样 关 于 政 府 改革 的 研 究使 得 政 府 与市 场 又 一 次成 为 了 世 人所 瞩 目 的 焦点 。 如 何 处 理 好 二 者 之 间 的 关 系 , 既 是 一 个 经 济 问 题 , 又 是 一个 政治 问 题。     

The Race to Punish in American Schools: Class and Race Predictors of Punitive School-Crime Control

Despite the general agreement that US schools have become increasingly punitive since the 1980s, researchers are uncertain about what types of schools use tough-on-crime measures. Some assert that punitive control is concentrated in poor, predominantly ethnic minority schools. Governing-through-crime scholars argue that US schools with mostly middle-class and white students are also punitive, but in less harsh ways using soft surveillance techniques. Relying on data from large, stratified samples of middle and secondary US public schools, we found that high rates of ethnic minority enrollment predicted heavy reliance on law enforcement and security personnel. As rates of student poverty increased, use of soft surveillance techniques as well as reporting students to the police significantly increased. Implications for governing-through-crime, racial control, and reproduction of inequalities theories are discussed.