The Racialization of Crime and Punishment

Abstract

The current explosion in criminalization and incarceration is unprecedented in size, scope, and negative consequences—both direct and collateral—for communities of color. These macro systems exist in relationality to the micro dynamics of living in the midst of police scrutiny, economic marginalization, and political disenfranchisement. Critical race theory is a guide for pedagogy and praxis in exploring the racist and classist foundations of current micro and macro injustices. Using Supreme Court opinions and the voices of political prisoner/prisoners of conscience as evidence of the dominant text and the dissent, this article explores the following issues: the roots of U.S. law, criminal justice, and mass imprisonment in classism and racism; the political economy of the criminal justice system and the prison industrial complex; the intersectionality of injustices rooted in micro and macro systems; and the role of prisoners of conscience/ political prisoners in inspiring resistance to micro and macro injustice.

Structural racism as the fundamental cause of the academic achievement gap

“…Thus, when we use the term structural racism, we refer to a social system in which race is a central principle of social organization that serves to sort individuals into positions of relative advantage and disadvantage based on their racial category. Research has shown how structural racism permeates nearly every important social institution in the United States (Reskin, 2012) such as criminal justice (Brewer & Heitzeg, 2008), financial markets (Cohen, 2013), health and medicine (Lukacho, Hatzenbuehler, & Keys, 2014), and the economy (Marable, 1983).…”

Anti‐racism in U.S. early childhood education: Foundational principles

“…These theoretical analyses, along with empirical studies, point to the inescapable fact that racism remains an enduring reality of U.S. society. Scholars have highlighted ongoing racial inequities in housing (Lipsitz, 2006;Oliver & Shapiro, 2006), health care (Feagin & Bennefield, 2014) and the criminal justice system (Alexander, 2010;Brewer & Heitzeg, 2008;Davis, 1998). Some have also applied critical race theory to examine how institutional racism affects the educational opportunities and experiences of racialized students in the U.S. context (e.g., Dixson & Rousseau Anderson, 2018;Howard, 2008).…”

Imagining Obama: Reading Overtly and Inferentially Racist Images of our 44th President, 2007–2008

“…The term ''anti-Black'' or ''antiblack'' racism is used with considerable regularity by race scholars throughout a wide variety of disciples. I see it most often in the social sciences, including Giroux (2003); Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith (1997); Muhammad (2010); and Brewer and Heitzeg (2008), who wrote, ''whereas all communities of color suffer from racism in general and its manifestation in criminal justice in particular, 'Black' has been the literal and figurative counterpart of 'White.' Anti-Black racism is arguably at the very foundation of White supremacy'' (p. 627).…”