Perceptual Biases, Graffiti and Fraternity Crime: Points of Deflection that Distort Social Justice

Although the official, law-enforcement policy in Bloomington, Indiana, categorized graffiti as vandalism, prominently displayed graffiti produced by Indiana University's student organizations escaped criminalization. This article documents the differential, criminal justice treatment of graffiti vandalism based on the group producing it thereby reaffirming the existence of a class-based system of justice. This article also uncovers a hidden bias inherent in Chambliss' “The Saints and the Roughnecks” by arguing that university students, whose graffiti do not receive negative sanctioning, represent Saints at the college level who exhibit criminal behavior. University-level lessons about how the crimes of the privileged go unprosecuted or become transformed into civil rather than criminal events could very well pave the way for further crimes after graduation rather than the “Saintly” adulthood implied by Chambliss. More research into the alternate system of justice used with regard to university students could shed light on both the problems and possibilities encountered when implementing alternate systems of social justice. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.