Paying Attention to Race: Theoretical Developments

PAYING ATTENTION TO RACE: THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS

Race and the CJS

• In 2008, 1 in every 100 American adults were incarcerated• In 2009, when including probation and parole, 1 in every 31 American adults were

under correctional supervision

• Currently, there are 1 in 34 American adults under correctional supervision

• However, when disaggregated by race:

• 1 in 15 Black males age 18 and older were incarcerated

• 1 in 9 Black males aged 20–34 are incarcerated

• 1 in 11 Black adults over 18 compared to 1 in 45 White adults are under correctional supervision

• Lifetime imprisonment risk for Blacks is 1 in 3, while it is less than 5% for Whites

• These statistics indicate a problem of concentrated incarceration

• Imprisonment of young men from disadvantaged places is now a bedrock experience

Race and the CJS• Why is there such racial disparity?

• No racial differences in use or sell of drugs; however, Blacks are sent to prison more often and for longer prison terms

• Tonry argues that the racial disparities in prison are due to the War on Drugs

• Blacks are more involved in serious violent offense

• 6 times more likely to be murdered than Whites

• The firearm homicide rates for Blacks is 14.6 per 100,000 compared to 1.9 per 100,000 for Whites

Race and the CJS• Place matters as well

• Violent crime not evenly distributed across neighborhoods

• Disproportionately distributed in segregated Black neighborhoods marked with much poverty and surrounded by similar communities

• Sampson and Bean call these areas “killing fields”

Race and Theory• Given the centrality of race to violent crime, one would

assume race would be a concern in prevailing theories of crime

• Most treat race as a control variable in micro theories

• Argue for general as opposed to race-specific theories

• More attention paid to race in macro theories

• Racial invariance thesis—race holds no credibility as a cause of violence

• Reason for the lack of attention on race can be traced to the view that the causes of crime are the same regardless of race

• Argue that people engage in crime due to exposure to criminogenic social factors

Problem with the Generality Approach

• Can lead to race being ignored

• Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime

• Blacks and Whites enter crime for the same reasons

• Argue that racial differences should focus on differential child-rearing practices which is the source of low self-control

• Do not need ascribe differences to culture and strain due to structural inequality

• Their theory could be enhanced if bringing race into the picture and explaining why it is Black parents may struggle more in parenting practices

Racial Animus and Crime• Du Bois, in The Philadelphia Negro, addressed the role of

racial animus in crime

• Although subtle still dangerous

• Blacks unfairly blocked from advancement, which breeds an atmosphere of rebellion and discontent

Racial Animus and Crime• Enduring effects of racial oppression seen in persistence

of racially segregated impoverished neighborhoods

• Still have discrimination today

• 2/3 of Blacks believe discrimination is a big problem today and are more likely to see the criminal justice system as unjust than Whites

Race in Theory Today• Some scholars today have been paying attention to race

• Generally they focus on three major factors:

1. Structural theory

2. Cultural theory

3. Perceived discrimination theory

Structural Theory• Judith and Peter Blau spearheaded the idea of structural

explanations for racial differences

• Their 1982 article provided a theory linking racial differences in crime with between-race economic inequality

• Two types of economic inequality:

1. Achieved – based in educational attainment, etc. and seen as just

2. Ascribed – based on race, gender, etc., and seen as unjust

• Ascribed inequality leads to frustration, resentment, and higher rates of violence

Structural Theory• Blau and Blau found support for the effect of economic

inequality on overall violent crime rates in U.S. SMSAs

• But recent research has found little evidence that the degree of economic inequality between races is related to Black rates of violent crime

• Thus, contemporary structural theory does not aruge between-race economic inequality alone motivates high rates of Black violence

Structural Theory• William Julius Wilson suggests that, beyond economic

deprivation, the spatial arrangement of Black communities in relation to White communities is critical

• Details interrelated demographic, social, and economic changes in U.S. inner cities in the post–WWII era

• These shifts along with discriminatory policies created a structural milieu for many Black communities

• Shift from manufacturing jobs led to extensive loss of jobs in the urban core, which led to unemployment and delayed marriage

• Created predominately single parent, impoverished households

• Whites and middle-class Blacks fled leaving a concentration of economic disadvantage with Black communities being spatially and socially isolated

Structural Theory

• Sampson and Wilson provide an explanation of community-level racial differences in crime

• Extreme disadvantage and social/spatial isolation of the inner city serve to alter the cultural landscape of the inner city

• Cognitive landscapes or norms of standards, expectations of conduct, and tolerances of behavior, are shaped in the inner city where crime, disorder, and drug use are expected as part of everyday life

• These are ecologically structured norms—norms that stem from a disadvantaged context rather than a monolithic subculture

• Not that crime and disorder are valued but rather tolerated and accepted because mainstream behaviors in this environment are irrelevant which leads to high rates of violent crime

• If Whites lived in these areas, the racial differences would disappear (racial invariance hypothesis)

Structural Theory• Mixed support for the racially invariant effect of

concentrated disadvantaged

• Krivo and Peterson revealed that the effects of the measures of structural disadvantage on community crime were much more pronounced than the effects of the racial composition of the neighborhoods

• Black neighborhoods were more likely to be extremely disadvantaged, and the effects of extreme disadvantage on crime were not worse in Black neighborhoods

• Found differences in disadvantage were able to account for higher property crime rates but only could explain part of the differences in violent crime rates

Cultural Theory• Elijah Anderson: Code of the Street

• Ethnographic study of disadvantaged, predominately Black Philadelphia neighborhoods

• Delineated a street code or set of rules that govern public interaction in disadvantaged, socially isolated neighborhoods

• Provides rules of interaction because conventional rules are not helpful

• Street code prioritizes public displays of respect—commanding respect or “juice”


• Respect is hard to obtain and the street code provides guidelines how to achieve it

• Through the look (right attire, hair), sexual prowess, physicality, toughness, violence, payback, and revenge

• Violence is normative and valued and not just needed for respect but also for survival

• Self-protection is a must because socially isolated, even from police


• Not all in the inner city believe in the street code

• Two competing value systems: 1) street code and 2) decent code

• Street families have parents who are sporadic, ill-equipped, and aggressive in child-rearing and socialization into the code

• Decent code accepts mainstream values (hard work, self-reliance, education, religion) and instills in their children


• The street code consciously opposes mainstream values

• Moral distinctiveness of the street and decent code

• Decent individuals are the majority of residents but mimic the street code publicly (code switch)

• Code is not enduring but conferred through public mimicry

• It is situational rather than stable

• Code developed as an adaptive response to extreme disadvantage and social isolation


• Few data sources for community-level empirical tests of Anderson’s ideas

• Instead have neighborhood-level studies linking disadvantage to certain types of violence that are driven by the street culture

– or –

• Individual-level studies linking disadvantage in a person’s neighborhood to their personal adherence to a set of beliefs consistent with the street code and, in turn, their individual violent behavior

Cultural Theory• Kubrin and Weitzer, using St. Louis homicide data, found

community-level concentrated disadvantage was positively related to community rates of culturally retaliatory homicide, or those rooted in revenge or payback for disrespect

• Neighborhood-level disadvantage was more strongly related to culturally retaliatory homicides than other types of homicide lending support to Anderson’s ideas

Cultural Theory• Stewart and Simons tested Anderson’s idea with

individual-level data

• Neighborhood disadvantage positively affected street code beliefs

• Street code beliefs were related to violent behavior, controlling for neighborhood disadvantage and family characteristics

• Brezina et al. also showed an individual’s code-related beliefs was related to subsequent violent behavior

Cultural Theory• In a more recent Stewart and Simons study (2010), they

showed neighborhood-level street code beliefs affected violent behavior beyond the effect of individual-level street code beliefs

• Neighborhood-level street culture magnified the positive effects of individual-level street code beliefs on violence

Cultural Theory• Other research has examined the implications of

Anderson’s work on violent victimization as opposed to violent offending

• Argues adhering to the code deters violent victimization by gaining respect from potential assailants

• Stewart et al. found in fact that street code adherence increased violent victimization

Miller: Getting Played• Qualitative research on school-aged adolescents in

extremely disadvantaged/ distressed neighborhoods in St. Louis

• Negative stereotypes and sexual prowess in the street code validate the mistreatment of women

• Physical abuse, sexual harassment, and sexual assault

• Majority of young women interviewed witnessed violence against other women and young men had made sexual comments that made them uncomfortable

• The men interviewed defined such actions as play, fun, and status-enhancing within the male peer group, while the women interviewed saw it as playing too much

Miller: Getting Played• Youths in disadvantaged communities have few

opportunities for socializing with their peers that does not include some exposure to delinquent peer groups

• Drugs, gangs, and congregations of young men in public spaces are features of these neighborhoods

• Unsupervised parties is the primary mean of spending time with peer groups

• Heightens women’s risk for victimization

Miller: Getting Played• Black female adolescents are at a higher risk of

victimization than girls from other racial groups

• Their risk for nonfatal victimization is similar to Black adolescent boys

• Black girls’ risk for non-stranger violence is higher than that of any other group, including their Black male counterparts

Miller: Getting Played• Three facets of violence against women were present:

1. Exposure to public incidents of physical abuse against women, including domestic violence

• When describe an incident, often see victim as culpable and blameworthy

• Often expressed amusement, empathy, and a notion to stay out of it


2. Young women’s complaints of widespread sexual harassment

• Both with people they knew and with strangers

• Girls have a sense of ambivalence with boys they know (see it as both playful and problematic) and typically negotiate to keep from escalating or hurting the friendship

• Men say it is playing


2. Young women’s complaints of widespread sexual harassment

• Young women have more apprehension and less ambivalence about sexual harassment from adult men

• Heightened sense of vulnerability and fear

• Even the young boys saw the girls were victimized by older men

• Girls afraid of drug addicts or being mistaken for a drug addict


3. Sexual assault and coercion

• 54% reported sexual victimization (29% rape, 14% attempted rape, 43% pressured into unwanted sex) with 31% with multiple sexual victimizations—note average age of sample is 16

• Alcohol and drugs often used amongst peers

• Rape more common with adult men

• Girls have to watch what they are doing (drinking, walking places)

• Boys and men received status rewards in male peer groups

• Girls characterized as freaks

Miller: Getting Played• Three overarching themes:

1. Young men were much more likely to be active participants in neighborhood-based street networks

• Depictions of young men’s neighborhood risks were associated with gangs and drugs, and males dominated public space

2. Many facets of the neighborhood were structured by gender and these gendered frameworks were brought to their understandings of neighborhood violence

3. Neighborhood residents’ response to violence against women were unhelpful to victims, as were experiences with police

Perceived Discrimination Theory• Focuses on the unique worldview of Blacks and Whites

• Understands actual and perceived discrimination can have an influence on criminal behavior

Unnever and Gabbidon: A Theory of African American Offending

• Present the first coherent theory of African American offending

• Race-specific as opposed to a general theory— race and racism matters

• Argue Blacks perceive they live in a world that is rigged against them

• Nearly all Blacks believe they will encounter racial prejudice and discrimination in their lives

• Have a unique racial lens that informs beliefs and behaviors


• Blacks recognize the playing field is not level

• However, most African Americans fend of the deleterious consequences of racial subordination, but for a minority of Blacks, it provides an impetus to respond with attitudes and behaviors that increase the likelihood of offending


• Mounting evidence that perceived discrimination is associated with offending

• Unnever and Gabbidon argue that whether or not a person deals with actual or perceived discrimination with crime is due to racial socialization

• Racial socialization is specific verbal and non-verbal messages transmitted to younger generations for the development of values, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs regarding the meaning of race and racial stratification, intergroup and intragroup interactions, and personal and group identity

• Also includes passing on the knowledge needed to resist internalizing the prevailing pejorative images and evaluations of Blacks and to create a self-identity that includes blackness as positive and valued

• Teaches about discrimination and how to cope with it and strategies to succeed in mainstream society


• Argue that Black parents must racially socialize their children so they understand:

1. African American culture and how to interact with other Blacks

2. How to get along with other racial groups

3. How to cope with their minority status

• Provide children the skills to buffer the effects of having a collective spoiled identity


• Effective parents teach positive racial pride, prepare children for racial incidents, caution them, and teach them hard work leads to success

• Ineffective parenting results in racial encounters leading to anger, mistrust, embracing of the street culture, and increased involvement in crime


• Four pathways through which racial socialization can increase the possibility of crime

1. Parents who do not racially socialize their children put them at a greater risk for experiencing the deleterious consequences of racial injustices that are related to offending

• The absence of this makes it more likely youth will construct their racial identity and their feelings about racial injustices by interacting with their peers and other individuals in the neighborhood, on the streets

• Likely these peers will have developed deep resentments toward Whites and White-dominated institutions, such as the CJS

• These youths then inculcate the attitudes they are exposed to on the streets, develop weak bonds with institutions, and may then be more likely to offend



2. Blacks who are chronically exposed to CJ injustices and discrimination, and are stereotyped are more likely to offend if their parents taught them to distrust Whites and White-dominated institutions

• Parents that overly emphasize the mistrust of Whites and encourage their children to be overly defiant in the presence of racism are likely to develop stigma sensitivity and stigma consciousness

• Perceive discrimination directed at them, are vulnerable to the toxic effects of stereotype threats, and are less likely to want to prove the stereotype wrong

• Increases possibility of negatively reacting with anger and defiance



3. Black parents may increase probability of offending if the child is inadequately prepared to deal with racial injustices, called preparation for bias

• May stress inadequate responses

• May not provide effective coping skills



4. Black youth will develop weak bonds with school or employment if their parents:

• Did not culturally socialize them or instill a positive racial identity

• Ill-prepared them for racially biased encounters

• Encouraged them to mistrust Whites

• Underemphasized the teaching of egalitarian values


• Blacks have a unique worldview due to their peerless racialized daily experiences

• This unique worldview is reciprocally related to three core concepts:

1. Perceptions of CJ injustices

2. Perceptions of racial discrimination and the effects of being negatively stereotyped

3. Racial socialization practices


• Argues that the worldview shared by African Americans causes them to engage in the racial socialization of youth, but racial socialization further reinforces their unique worldview


• Most likely to offend when intensely perceive or experience CJ injustices, racial discrimination, being stereotyped, and experience racial socialization that increases the likelihood of developing weak social bonds and to react with negative emotions

• Least likely to offend are those that peripherally perceive CJ injustices, racial discrimination, and being negatively stereotyped and experience positive racial socialization practices that provide coping mechanisms by engaging in prosocial behaviors

Summary

• Criminologists often do not explicitly examine why Blacks are exposed to risk factors more so than Whites

• Only a few scholars focus on what it means to be Black in the U.S. and how this reality creates social and emotional experiences that could be criminogenic

Paying Attention to Race: Theoretical Developments

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