In Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, Shaun Gabbidon explores the histories of Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa and their difficulties involving race, ethnicity, crime, and colonization. Gabbidon uses Tatum’s colonial model to explain the experiences of racial and ethnic minorities in these five selected countries and concludes that the colonial model suffices as the best criminological theory to understand the development of racial and criminal issues in these countries. Gabbidon then attributes minority oppression and overrepresentation in the criminal justice system to the colonial model and colonization in each of these countries. Gabbidon concludes that colonization had far-reaching effects on each …show more content…
Tatum’s colonial model is comprised of four stages. First, one racial group invades another, normally a minority group (whites) takes control of a majority population (people of color). Second, a colonial society is formed and the culture of the colonized people is subordinated. Next, the colonized people are governed and controlled by the colonizer. Finally, a caste system is devolved based on white supremacy. After the minority group is subordinated, the psychological consequences of colonization manifest themselves in the colonized population. The early histories and colonization of these countries were very similar. After colonization occurred in each of the studied countries, the native population was deemed inferior, their cultures were trivialized, and the natives lost many of their political rights. The natives and ethnic minorities were seen as “the problem,” and the criminal justice system was used to control these groups. Using the colonial model, Gabbidon examines the effects of colonization on the present day criminal justice …show more content…
The book was well organized with the first chapter introducing the international nature of racial and ethnicity issues, each of the next chapters focusing on issues involving race, ethnicity, and crime in a specific country, and the last chapter summarizing these findings and discussing the future surrounding these topics. Throughout the book, Gabbidon presents salient points that explain the inequalities and injustices that are present in these modern day countries. Gabbidon validates his theory by providing historical context, current population statistics, criminal justice statistics, and an analysis of crime and race relations for each country profiled. The data presented aligned well with Gabbidon’s objectives and supported his proposed theories. Gabbidon identified the international breadth of the problems involving race, ethnicity, and crime in the selected countries and provided a detailed explanation of the origins of injustice and inequality due to the colonial
Institutional racism, maintains the unequal outcomes in the criminal justice system result from the practice, resides in the policies, procedures, operations and culture of public or private institutions – reinforcing individual prejudices and being reinforced by them in turn’(Sveinsson, n.d.). This approach was generated by the Macpherson report, Stephen Lawrence, a young black
In many nation states, it is noticed that there is a disproportionate number of black people especially those youngsters going through the criminal justice system. The overrepresentation is illustrated by related data released by the U.S. Department of Justice and the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. In America, almost 3500 per 100,000 residents of the black male were sent to jail in 2013 which was over seven times more than the ratio their white counterpart had and in England and Wales, 8.5% of young black people aged between 10-17 were arrested during the same period .This essay aims to explore the reasons behind the ethnic overrepresentation in the criminal justice system and believes that the higher rate of offending for some race groups and the existence of systematic racist which partially stems from the contemporary media distortion are attributive to the overrepresentation.
In the first chapter of Randall Kennedy’s book Race, Crime, and the Law, he discusses and elaborates on the effect race has had on the development of criminal law, more specifically, covering specific issues within the justice system in relations to racial discrimination against African Americans (blacks). He uses the first chapter to give a basic overview of what each following chapter grasp; he starts by identifying the four major camps regarding the race question in criminal law. The four major camps include law and order, limiting governmental power, color blindness, and advancing the interests of blacks. First, the law and order camp, basically code words to appeal covertly to anti-Negro prejudice from those who are concerned about personal
The over-representation of black people in the UK prison population became an issue which needs to be addressed. The prison statistics shows that black people are over-represented and by analysing their population in the UK and a prison statistics it can be noticed that their number increases massively comparing to white and Asian people. The statistics focuses on adult male population, but by considering women and young black people, the evidences show that across all levels black people are over-represented. However, black people are not over-represented only in prison statistics, police practices shows that they are a main target for their actions such as stop and search under section 60 or when fighting in “war on drugs” even that their drug usage is lower than white people. Matthews (2009) and Sampson (1987) provide evidences that one of the reasons for over-representation is institutional racism within Criminal Justice system, police service as well as areas such as Council, education and housing. Newburn (2013) presents that there are specific crimes for which black people are more likely to commit as well as black people are less likely to plead guilty, including that often they leave in inner city cause that judges in those locations are more likely to give “heavier” sentences (Newburn 2013). Furthermore, turning point is given by Wacquant (2001) and his idea of hyperghettoization, he looks at the massive privatisation of prison and provide evidences that the prisons are turning into “ghettos” to keep uneducated, unskilled young black offenders in one place (Wacquant, 2001).
During the late sixteen century, when the first fleet arrived to Australia and discovered the free settlers or known as Australian Indigenous inheritors (The Aborigines), the community of aboriginal inhabitants since then have experienced vast levels of discrimination and racism against their gender, race, colour and ethnicity. The term over representations refers to the presents of minority or disproportionate ethnic aboriginal groups represented in the criminal justice system (CJS). This essay will further explain the relationship between aboriginal communities and policing discussed in Blagg (2008) and Cunneen (2007, the three major sources of concern in association to aboriginal over representation in CJS which include; systematic bias,
In the wake of President Obama’s election, the United States seems to be progressing towards a post-racial society. However, the rates of mass incarceration of black males in America deem this to be otherwise. Understanding mass incarceration as a modern racial caste system will reveal the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy America. The history of social control in the United States dates back to the first racial caste systems: slavery and the Jim Crow Laws. Although these caste systems were outlawed by the 13th amendment and Civil Rights Act respectively, they are given new life and tailored to the needs of the time.In other words, racial caste in America has not ended but has merely been redesigned in the shape of mass incarceration. Once again, the fact that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are under the control of the criminal justice system show evidence of a new racial caste system at work. The structure of the criminal justice system brings a disproportionate number of young black males into prisons, relegating them to a permanent second-class status, and ensuring there chances of freedom are slim. Even when minorities are released from prisons, they are discriminated against and most usually end up back in prisons . The role of race in criminal justice system is set up to discriminate, arrest, and imprison a mass number of minority men. From stopping, searching, and arresting, to plea bargaining and sentencing it is apparent that in every phases of the criminal justice system race plays a huge factor. Race and structure of Criminal Justice System, also, inhibit the integration of ex offenders into society and instead of freedom, relea...
Is race and ethnicity a contemporary issue in today’s modern criminal justice system, or is it an issue of the past. Race and ethnicity plays a huge role in our justice system, to say that is doesn’t would be false. We can look back through history and we can see many example of how much of a role it has played. There are many studies that prove that race and ethnicity is still a current issue in our contemporary criminal justice system. There are many debates about whether it does or does not still impact our justice system as well. We cannot deny that race and ethnicity impacts the operations of our justice system, not justice in our system, but in other systems around the world. In particular, race and ethnicity still impacts our system
The criminal justice system is full of inequality and disparities among race, gender, and class. From policing neighborhoods, and the ongoing war on drugs, to sentencing, there are underlying biases and discriminatory practices in the criminal justice system that impacts minority communities and groups. Fueled by stereotypes and generalizations, it is important to identify and discuss what crimes take place and who actually makes it up.
Alexander does an incredible job of covering the issue of race in today’s criminal justice system. We discussed in class that it is a relatively difficult issue to discuss and a sore point of our country, but she recognized the need for it to be addressed from start to finish and really paints a picture of how racially biased the laws are and have been since the days of slavery. I think an important framework to discuss race and the causes and responses to crime is something that Alexander deems the new caste system. She argues that our new system is the rebirth of a redesigned caste system. In her introduction, she notes that “to put the matter starkly: the current system of control permanently locks a huge percentage of the African American community out of the mainstream society and economy. The system operates through our criminal justice institutions, but it functions more like a caste system than a system of crime control” (Alexander, 2012, p. 13)
Criminalization is a concept connected to racialization with roots in colonialism. Race as we know it has no biological bias with some scholars claiming the term did not exist in the ancient world. In the ancient world, status was defined by wealth and religion instead of physical characteristics. As time progressed, Europeans began colonizing and race became the rationalization for their conquests. From this, a new social structure emerged based on skin phenotype with African slaves and Aboriginals at the bottom and Europeans at the top. This furthered the notion of racial superiority and divided people based on race and assigned them to social categories based on phenotype. Author Chris Weedon describes Western racism as defining people from the east as exotic, sensual, irrational and sometimes violent, and people of African descent as lazy, less intelligent, hyper sexual, and physically strong (Weedon, 1999, p. 410). Thus the historical view of colonization was that primitive blacks must be saved and or changed in order to m...
Sampson, Robert J. and Janet L. Lauritsen. 1997. "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States." Crime and Justice 21:311-74. doi: 10.2307/1147634.
Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.
These authors’ arguments are both well-articulated and comprehensive, addressing virtually every pertinent concept in the issue of explaining racially disparate arrest rates. In The Myth of a Racist Criminal Justice System, Wilbanks insists that racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is a fabrication, explaining the over-representation of African Americans in arrest numbers simply through higher incidence of crime. Walker, Spohn and DeLone’s The Color of Justice dissents that not only are African Americans not anywhere near the disproportionate level of crime that police statistics would indicate, they are also arrested more because they are policed discriminately. Walker, Spohn and DeLone addi...
Many inequalities exist within the justice system that need to be brought to light and addressed. Statistics show that African American men are arrested more often than females and people of other races. There are some measures that can and need to be taken to reduce the racial disparity in the justice system.
The majority of our prison population is made up of African Americans of low social and economic classes, who come from low income houses and have low levels of education. The chapter also discusses the amount of money the United States loses yearly due to white collar crime as compared to the cost of violent crime. Another main point was the factors that make it more likely for a poor person to be incarcerated, such as the difficulty they would have in accessing adequate legal counsel and their inability to pay bail. This chapter addresses the inequality of sentencing in regards to race, it supplies us with NCVS data that shows less than one-fourth of assailants are perceived as black even though they are arrested at a much higher rate. In addition to African Americans being more likely to be charged with a crime, they are also more likely to receive harsher punishments for the same crimes- which can be seen in the crack/cocaine disparities. These harsher punishments are also shown in the higher rates of African Americans sentenced to