Race and Justice

Sever, Brion; Elg, Eric; Ellis, Sydney

doi: 10.1177/2153368718802354pmid: N/A

There is a growing area of research today focusing on how the demographics of law enforcement officers and criminals are depicted. This research has concentrated on portrayals by the media, popular culture, criminal justice textbooks, training manuals, and other literature surrounding criminal justice. There is little known, however, about the way the race and gender of police and criminals are represented on social media. This study attempts to fill this void by examining police Facebook pages in the 171 largest cities in the United States. Specifically, 20,152 images of police and criminals on these police Facebook pages are examined to determine whether there are disparities in representation based on race, gender, and other variables. We found that female and minority officers are appropriately represented in the images of police on Facebook pages in relation to their actual representation in the field. In contrast, images of criminals tend to be disproportionately composed of Black males. Implications for the recruitment of minority officers and other relevant issues are discussed.

Panditharatne, Senuri; Chant, Lisa; Sibley, Chris G.; Osborne, Danny

doi: 10.1177/2153368718796119pmid: N/A

Although trust in, and cooperation with, the police is critical to effective crime prevention, the relationship between citizens and police can be tenuous, especially for ethnic minorities. However, the impact that membership in multiple marginalised groups has on attitudes toward the police has received limited attention. We address this oversight using a national probability sample of New Zealand adults (N = 11,669) to examine how the intersection between ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) affects trust in, and willingness to cooperate with, the police. As hypothesised, minorities trusted the police less than did ethnic majority group members. However, ethnic group differences in trust in the police were heightened at low (vs. high) levels of SES. In turn, trust in the police mediated the relationship between minority status and willingness to cooperate with the police. These results demonstrate that (low) SES exacerbates the already fragile relationship between ethnic minorities and the police.

Smith, Justin J.; Peck, Jennifer H.; Dobrin, Adam

doi: 10.1177/2153368718785234pmid: N/A

Prior research regarding the relationship between officer race and job satisfaction in correctional environments has revealed mixed findings. Additionally, the link between perceptions of the promotional process and how such perceptions may vary by race has received little empirical attention. Therefore, the present study examined racial differences in perceptions of promotional criteria using a sample of sworn deputies in a large jail located in the South-Central United States. Results indicated few racial differences in perceptions of promotional indicators and workplace environment, suggesting that racial discrimination among staff in correctional settings may not be as prevalent in this location compared to findings from earlier studies that suggest differing perceptions and discrimination patterned by race. Implications for the findings in terms of understanding the role that race plays among correctional staff for guiding future research, programming, and policy are discussed.

Davis, Brandon R.

doi: 10.1177/2153368718785229pmid: N/A

U.S. criminal justice policies have created the uniquely American style of mass incarceration. Since 1973, America has seen a sustained and substantial rise in its incarcerated population and the formation of a carceral state. Currently, the United States imprisons 2.23 million people, which amounts to 23% of the world’s total incarcerated population. The most important takeaway is that the carceral state is an institution of predation, and predatory institutions create, maintain, and reproduce difference through the use of violence. I argue that the racial state is the predatory state, but the predatory state is not necessarily always the racial state. The predatory state is different from the racial state in that is applies violence toward various intersections of marginalization. This article contributes to the theoretical development of the concept of predation by its machinations through the institution of criminal justice. I discuss the predatory state, violence, and race. Next, I examine some of the ideas surrounding the collective knowledge, memory, and guilt, as well as the epistemologies, of race. Additionally, I discuss racial ignorance and selective knowing. Lastly, I offer Ferguson and Baltimore as case studies in the relationship between predation, identity, and violence as they affect criminal justice.

Francis, Jenny

doi: 10.1177/2153368718780219pmid: N/A

This article uses the concept of “institutional humanism” to explicate how the ideology of humanism is deployed through a biopolitical “discourse of disposability” to dehumanize, objectify, and animalize racialized and criminalized refugee youth in Canada, setting them in opposition to mainstream Whites who are deemed normal, rational, and autonomous—in essence, human. This article identifies four mechanisms of disposability: the expulsion of criminalized refugee youth from school and the labor market, the “revolving door” of the criminal justice system, the creation of deportability, and disinvestment in programs for youth. The treatment of criminalized refugee youth as disposable is part of an epistemological and ontological exercise that creates and enforces a boundary between those defined as human and those who are excluded from the set of “bodies that matter.” The study was conducted through qualitative interviews with criminalized refugee youth and professional adults who work with them. The interview data are set within the web of theoretical relationships among humanism, posthumanism, animalization, institutional policy, and categorizations based on race, gender, class, ability, age, and immigration status, demonstrating how these theoretical nodes attain bolder relief when operationalized under performativity.

Mitchell, Ojmarrh

doi: 10.1177/2153368720934535pmid: N/A