Black Males, Impulsivity, and Externalizing Behaviors: A Black Criminology Analysis

Unnever, James D.; Chouhy, Cecilia

doi:10.1080/07418825.2020.1789200

Cited by 8 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 126 publications

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“…Rather, the contemporary day-to-day negative experiences that African Americans personally or vicariously have with the criminal justice system cause them to be cynical of the criminal justice system. (Unnever, 2019, pp. 89–90)But the same author admitsthat their racialized legal cynicism is transmitted across generations – racial socialization – because African Americans continue to personally or vicariously experience profound racist encounters with the criminal justice system on a daily basis (e.g., stop and frisk, driving while Black, or shot while walking away) (Brunson, 2007; Brunson & Miller, 2006; Brunson & Weitzer, 2009; Unnever et al, 2017).…”

Section: Black Rage and Legal Cynicismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In short, the peerless racialized legal cynicism among African Americans results from their incomparable grounded lived experiences with what it means to be a Black person living in a systemically racist society. (Unnever, 2019, p. 90; see also Henning, 2017, pp. 64–65)This leads to an explanation of offending: ‘the core hypothesis generated from A Theory of African American Offending is that the more the Blacks perceive personal or vicarious forms of racial injustice, the more likely they are to offend’ (Unnever, 2014, p. 2).…”

Section: Black Rage and Legal Cynicismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Black Rage and Legal Cynicismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The victims, in this case Black people generally, and those who are most sensitive to injustice specifically (cf. Unnever & Chouhy, 2020), are depicted, somewhat inconsistently, as so cognitively damaged by racism that they commit crimes. They are agents, but abnormal ones, whose incapacities absolve them.…”

Section: Conclusion: Blaming the Victim Or Denying Agency?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Explaining away crime: The race narrative in American sociology and ethical theory

Turner

2020

European Journal of Social Theory

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Rates of crime for Blacks in the United States in the post-slavery era have always been high relative to Whites. But explaining, or minimizing, this fact faces a major problem: individual excuses for bad acts point to deficiencies, in the agent, which are perhaps forgivable, such as mental deficiency or a deprived childhood, but at the price of treating the agent as less than a full member of the moral community. Collectivizing excuses risks implying group inferiority. The history of attempts to provide an explanation of crime that mitigates blame without undermining full participation to the moral community is long and convoluted, leading to the presently widespread claim that crime is itself a product of victimization through pervasive racism. Three basic strategies – rejection of comparison, attribution to racially invariant causes and explanation by reference to uniquely Black conditions, such as subculture or extreme stigmatization – are identified and their ethical implications distinguished.

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Section: Black Rage and Legal Cynicismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Black Rage and Legal Cynicismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Black Rage and Legal Cynicismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conclusion: Blaming the Victim Or Denying Agency?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Explaining away crime: The race narrative in American sociology and ethical theory

Turner

2020

European Journal of Social Theory

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“…The primary thesis of Unnever and Gabbidon’s (2011; see also Unnever, Gabbidon, & Chouhy, 2017) Theory of African American Offending is that, due to pervasive experiences of discrimination, Black communities have developed a shared worldview toward White-dominated institutions that include legal cynicism toward the justice system, an accumulation of ill feelings toward pro-social institutions, and the general belief that they have been or will be discriminated against by White individuals or institutions. This worldview creates an emotional roller coaster wherein an individual cycles between “anger–defiance–hopelessness–depression,” limiting self-control and increasing his or her motivation to offend (Unnever, 2016; Unnever & Gabbidon, 2011, p. 176; Unnever et al, 2017).…”

Section: Theory and Prior Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking the Theory of African American Offending: A Qualitative Exploration of Racial Socialization Processes and Their Effects on African American Male College Students

Said

Feldmeyer

2019

Race and Justice

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In 2011, Dr. James Unnever and Dr. Shaun Gabbidon introduced a Theory of African American Offending, which posits that African American offending is motivated in part by common experiences of racism. They argue that these experiences contribute to a shared worldview that includes both an accumulation of bad feelings toward pro-social institutions and legal cynicism toward the justice system, leading to decreased social bonds and a greater predilection toward delinquency. They also suggest that racial socialization can help to mitigate these effects of racism. Previous studies have found support for this idea, but few have examined the mechanisms by which racial socialization takes place. The current study uses qualitative interviews to explore the racial socialization process among a sample of Black male college students in a Midwestern public university. The findings reveal that racial socialization processes vary widely among male college students in terms of content (police contact, dating, safety), sources (parents, grandparents, peers, and other adult role models), timing, and the effect on social bonds to White-dominated institutions. Implications of the findings for the research on race, racial socialization, social problems, and criminological theory are presented and discussed.

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The social foundations of racial inequalities in arrest over the life course and in changing times

Sampson,

Neil

2024

Criminology

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Although racial disparities in criminal justice contact are long‐standing and the subject of continuing public debate, few studies have linked early‐life social conditions to racial disparities in arrest over the life course and in changing times. In this article, we advance and test a theoretical model of racial inequality in long‐term arrest histories on a representative sample of nearly 1,000 individuals from multiple birth cohorts in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Large Black–White disparities in arrests from ages 10 to 40 arise from racial inequalities in exposure to cumulative childhood advantages and disadvantages rather than from race‐specific effects. Smaller but meaningful Hispanic–White gaps follow a similar pattern, and the same explanations of racial disparities hold across different offense types and across birth cohorts who came of age at different times during 1995 to 2021. These findings indicate that inequalities in early‐life structural factors, which themselves are historically shaped, trigger processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage that produce racial disparities in arrests over the life course and that persist across different points in contemporary history.

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Black Males, Impulsivity, and Externalizing Behaviors: A Black Criminology Analysis

Cited by 8 publications

References 126 publications

Explaining away crime: The race narrative in American sociology and ethical theory

Explaining away crime: The race narrative in American sociology and ethical theory

Unpacking the Theory of African American Offending: A Qualitative Exploration of Racial Socialization Processes and Their Effects on African American Male College Students

The social foundations of racial inequalities in arrest over the life course and in changing times

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