Beyond Anomalies: Rethinking the Conflict Perspective on Race and Criminal Punishment

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Forces. AbstractResearch on race and punishment for crime has produced inconsistent findings. Most previous reviews of the literature have been focused primarily on the numerous methodological flaws that may give rise to such inconsistencies. In this paper I suggest that inconsistent or anomalous findings in this area of research may also result from problems of conceptualization and theory. More specifically, it is argued that the conflict perspective must be substantially revised to begin to account for various anomalies observed by empirical researchers. Such a need for revision is the consequence of both problems in the original formulation of the perspective and its oversimplification within the empirical literature. One of the most widely debated issues in the criminological literature is whether there is racial bias in the administration of justice. In addition to numerous empirical investigations, there have been efforts in recentyears to review previous studies and to determine where the weight of the evidence lies (Green 1971; Hagan 1974; Hagan and Bumiller 1983; Hardy 1983; Kleck 1981; Spohn et al. 1981-82).As in other areas of social research, most studies of racial bias in the administration of justice involve black-white comparisons. Reviews of empirical investigations have shown a large number of these studies to report significantly greater rates and levels of punishment for blacks than for whites.1 Others report no significant differences between the races. Still others find that in certain instances, whites receive significantly more punishment for crime than do blacks (e.g., Bernstein et al. 1977;Bullock 1961;Gibson 1978;Levin 1972). This latter finding is often described as an anomaly or inconsistency given the theoretical model that has guided research on this topic.

Racial prejudice, perceived injustice, and the Black-White gap in punitive attitudes

“…More recent explications contend that the criminal justice system targets crime by Blacks and other subordinate racial/ethnic groups and punishes them more harshly than Whites (Chambliss, 1999;Hawkins, 1987;Mitchell & Sidanius, 1995;Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2000). A number of macro-level studies of the criminal justice system support the group threat/group conflict perspective.…”

The impact of race on the adjudication of sexual assault and other violent crimes

“…Specifically, studies showed that the impact of extra-legal factors such as the defendant's sex, race, and class varied according to crime type, region of the country, and characteristics of victims (Blumstein, 1982;Hawkins, 1987;Myers & LaFree, 1982). Rather than uniform effects, demographic variables may produce different outcomes (e.g., leniency or punitiveness) depending on the situation.…”

Victim's perceptions of initial police responses to robbery and aggravated assault: Does race matter?

“…Several theoretical works have proposed that the imposition of the law in the United States is a selective process that operates to the disadvantage of poor and minority defendants (Black, 1976(Black, , 1989Chambliss and Seidman, 1971;Flowers, 1990;Hawkins, 1983Hawkins, , 1987Quinney, 1979). Employing a conflict perspective, most of these theorists argue that differential application of the law is not an aberration but, rather, the norm in our society.…”