The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime,
and Justice
Wiley Handbooks in Criminology and Criminal Justice
Series Editor: Charles F. Wellford, University of Maryland College Park.
The handbooks in this series are comprehensive, academic reference works on
leading topics in criminology and criminal justice.
The Handbook of Law and Society
Edited by Austin Sarat and Patricia Ewick
The Handbook of Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice
Edited by Marvin D. Krohn and Jodi Lane
The Handbook of Deviance
Edited by Erich Goode
The Handbook of Gangs
Edited by Scott H. Decker and David C. Pyrooz
The Handbook of Criminological Theory
Edited by Alex R. Piquero
The Handbook of Drugs and Society
Edited by Henry H. Brownstein
The Handbook of the Criminology of Terrorism
Edited by Gary LaFree and Joshua D. Freilich
The Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Criminology
Edited by Ruth Ann Triplett
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice
Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr., Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity,
Crime, and Justice
Edited by
Ramiro Martínez, Jr., Meghan E. Hollis,
and Jacob I. Stowell
This edition first published 2018
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at
http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Ramiro Martínez, Jr., Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
Registered Office
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
Editorial Office
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products
visit us at www.wiley.com.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print‐on‐demand. Some content that
appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty
While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no
representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work
and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives,
written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or
product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not
mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or
product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the
publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein
may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further,
readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when
this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of
profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or
other damages.
Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Martínez, Ramiro, Jr., editor. | Hollis, Meghan E., editor. | Stowell, Jacob I., 1973– editor.
Title: The handbook of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice / edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, Jacob I. Stowell.
Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2018. | Series: Wiley handbooks in
criminology and criminal justice | Includes index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018011940 (print) | LCCN 2018012642 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119113690 (pdf) |
ISBN 9781119113775 (epub) | ISBN 9781119114017 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Crime and race–United States. | Discrimination in criminal justice administration–
United States. | Discrimination in law enforcement–United States. | United States–Emigration and
immigration–Government policy. | United States–Race relations.
Classification: LCC HV6197.U5 (ebook) | LCC HV6197.U5 H36 2018 (print) | DDC 364.3/400973–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011940
Cover Image: © Vialeta Novik / Getty Images
Cover Design: Wiley
Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Contents
Notes on Contributors
ix
Introduction: Past, Present, and Future
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
1
Part I An Overview of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice
Introduction
Ramiro Martínez, Jr. and Meghan E. Hollis
11
13
1
Intentional Inequalities and Compounding Effects: The State
of Race and Justice Theory and Research
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez‐Whitney
2
Ethnicity and Crime
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
39
3
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context: An Overview
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
65
4
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty‐First Century
Janice A. Iwama
87
5
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
6
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth: A Review
of the Evidence and an Agenda for Future Research
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
7
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
17
105
129
147
vi
Contents
8 The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez‐Schuldt
Part II Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Race,
Ethnicity, Crime, and Criminal Justice
Introduction
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
9 Racisms and Crime: Racialized Elaborations of General
Theories of Offending
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
10
What Was Old Is New Again: An Examination of Contemporary
Theoretical Approaches Used in Race, Ethnicity, Crime,
and Justice Research
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
173
203
205
209
227
11
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
Malcolm D. Holmes
12
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass: Nonrecognition
of Self‐Presentation as Racialized Experience
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
279
13
Examining the Intersections of Gender and Sexual Orientation within
the Discipline: A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
303
Part III Examining the Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and
Criminal Justice System Involvement
255
327
Introduction
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
329
14
Policing Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
M. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse
331
15
Ethnographic Reflexivity: Geographic Comparisons of Gangs and
Policing in the Barrios of the Southwest
Robert J. Durán
16
Ethnicity, Immigration, and the Experience of Incarceration
Kathryn Benier and Suzanna Fay‐Ramirez
17
The Puzzle of Prison Towns: Race, Rurality, and Reflexivity
in Community Studies
John M. Eason
353
371
393
Contents
Part IV Examining the Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and
Gender in the Study of Crime and Criminal Justice
vii
411
Introduction413
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
18 LGBTQ Populations of Color, Crime, and Justice:
An Emerging but Urgent Topic
Vanessa R. Panfil
415
19 Gender and Crime: Black Female Crime
Andrea Leverentz
435
20 Intersectionality, Immigration, and Domestic Violence
Edna Erez and Shannon Harper
457
21 A Case Study: Neighborhood Factors and Intimate and
Non‐intimate Aggravated Assaults
Amie L. Nielsen, Kristin Carbone‐Lopez, and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
Part V Comparative Approaches to Studying Race, Ethnicity,
Crime, and Justice
475
505
Introduction507
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
22 Repatriation
Shirley Leyro
23 Mass Deportation: Forced Removal, Immigrant Threat,
and Disposable Labor in a Global Context
Andrea Gómez Cervantes and Cecilia Menjívar
509
527
Conclusion547
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
Index551
Notes on Contributors
Kathryn Benier is a criminologist at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Her
core research areas are hate crime, racial intolerance and prejudice, youth gangs, and
the harms of criminal victimization. She holds a PhD in Criminology from the
University of Queensland, with a dissertation on the neighborhood context and
­consequences of hate crime.
Scott Wm. Bowman is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at
Texas State University. Dr. Bowman earned his PhD in Justice Studies from Arizona
State University, with an emphasis on racial and socioeconomic inequalities. His
current teaching and research interests include race and crime, socioeconomic
status and crime, hip‐hop and positive youth development, and juvenile justice. His
recent research appears in various academic journals and books on a variety of
criminological and sociological topics, including an edited two‐volume book on
race and prisons entitled Color behind Bars: Racism in the US Prison System.
Randall R. Butler is Program Coordinator for the School of Criminology, Criminal
Justice and Strategic Studies at Tarleton State University. He also serves as director of
the Advisory Board for the School of Criminology. His PhD is in American History
and he holds additional graduate degrees in Criminology and Criminal Justice,
History, and Library and Information Sciences. Dr. Butler is also a commissioned
peace officer in Texas. His research interests include policing history, criminal
procedure, Native American policing, and the process of marginalizing Native
culture and youths. He has had a long‐term research affiliation with the Navajo
Nation Division of Public Safety and Dine’ Youth Program. Dr. Butler has published
in Law Enforcement Executive Forum, Journal of Gang Research, and Criminal Justice
Studies. Before joining TSU, he was Program Coordinator in the Department of
Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Texas at Arlington. Prior to
that he was Director of the Criminal Justice Program at Southwestern Adventist
University.
x
Notes on Contributors
Kristin Carbone‐Lopez received her PhD in Sociology from the University of
Minnesota. Dr. Carbone‐Lopez taught at the University of Miami and then, later, the
University of Missouri‐St. Louis. Her research primarily focuses on intimate partner
and sexual violence, and more specifically on the links between victimization and
offending. Dr. Carbone‐Lopez has interviewed dozens of women in correctional
institutions about their experiences of victimization and their relationship to their
own criminal involvement.
Stacy De Coster is an Associate Professor of Sociology at North Carolina State
University. Her recent research focuses on the family and peer contexts of
delinquency and on inequality and crime, with particular emphasis on gender, race,
and intersections of gender, race, place, and crime. She currently is conducting
research on how reentering women negotiate identities as mothers and daughters.
Kevin Drakulich is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and
Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. His research examines neighborhood
social processes related to race, crime, and justice, as well as perceptions of race,
crime, and justice both within neighborhoods and more broadly. He was named a
W. E. B. Du Bois Fellow by the National Institute of Justice in 2014, and was also the
recipient of the 2014 New Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology’s
Division of People of Color and Crime.
Waverly Orlando Duck is an urban ethnographer whose primary research examines the social order of neighborhoods and institutional settings. He received his
PhD in Sociology from Wayne State University. Professor Duck then served as a
visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and held a postdoctoral appointment at Yale University, in addition to serving as the Associate Director of the Yale
Urban Ethnography Project, where he is currently a Senior Fellow. Professor Duck
has also served as visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at the University
of Wisconsin‐Madison and at the Waisman Center, a research clinic dedicated to
examining childhood psychopathology. His academic areas of interest are urban
sociology, inequality (race, class, gender, health, and age), qualitative methods,
culture, ethnomethodology, and ethnography. His research has appeared in the
journals Ethnography, Critical Sociology, Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, Crime, Law and Social Change, and African American Studies. His
recent book, No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug
Dealing, challenges the common misconception of urban ghettos as chaotic places
where drug dealing, street crime, and random violence make daily life dangerous for
everyone. No Way Out explores how neighborhood residents make sense of their
lives within severe constraints as they choose among very unrewarding prospects.
Robert J. Durán is now an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University after being
an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee. His areas of
research concern racism in the post–civil rights era and community resistance, from
gang evolution and border surveillance to disproportionate minority contact and
Notes on Contributors
xi
officer‐involved shootings. He is the author of Gang Life in Two Cities: An Insider’s
Journey (2013) and his forthcoming book is The Gang Paradox: Inequalities and
Miracles on the US–Mexico Border.
John M. Eason is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Texas
A&M University. In his prior position at the School of Criminology and Criminal
Justice at Arizona State University, he received the 2012 Rural Sociological Society
Young Scholar Award. After receiving his PhD from the Department of Sociology at
the University of Chicago, he also served as the Provost’s Postdoctoral Associate in
the Department of Sociology at Duke University. His research interest challenges
existing models and develops new theories of community, health, race, punishment,
and rural/urban processes in several ways. First, by tracing the emergence of the
rural ghetto, he establishes a new conceptual model of rural neighborhoods. Next,
by demonstrating the function of the ghetto in rural communities, he extends concentrated disadvantage from urban to rural community process. These relationships
are explored through his book Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and
Prison Proliferation.
M. George Eichenberg is a Professor of Criminal Justice with the School of
Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Strategic Studies of Tarleton State University. He
has a practitioner background in policing and juvenile corrections. His research
includes police operations and management in small agencies, as well as social
­control and criminal justice ethics.
Edna Erez is Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois at
Chicago. She has a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an MA
and PhD in Criminology/Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her areas of
research include victims in justice proceedings, violence against women, t­errorism
and transnational crimes, and technology in criminal justice. Professor Erez received
over 2 million dollars in research grants from state and federal agencies in the United
States and overseas. Her publication record includes over a hundred scholarly articles,
book chapters, and research reports. Professor Erez serves as associate editor of Victims
and Violence, coeditor of International Review of Victimology, and as an editorial board
member of other legal studies and criminology journals.
Suzanna Fay‐Ramirez is a Senior Criminologist at the University of Queensland
School of Social Science. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of
Washington, where she concentrated on comparative perspectives of crime,
­immigration, and neighborhood action. Her current work expands this comparative
context of crime and considers how different people perceive crime and criminals,
particularly in the neighborhood context.
Andrea Gómez Cervantes is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the
University of Kansas. Currently she works as the Research Assistant at the Center for
Migration Research at the University of Kansas. She received an American
xii
Notes on Contributors
Sociological Association Minority Fellowship (2017–2018) and a National Science
Foundation Dissertation Improvement Award (2017–2018). Her BS in Sociology
with a minor in French was earned at Grand Valley State University in 2011. Her
research investigates immigrants’ integration, immigration policy, and social
inequality. In her current work, she explores the intersections of legal status and
race/ethnicity via the spillover effects of immigration law on the everyday lives of
immigrant families and communities in the United States.
Shannon Hankhouse is the Director of Waco Outreach Programs and an Assistant
Professor in the School of Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Strategic Studies at
Tarleton State University, where she has been a faculty member since 2004. She
holds a BA in Criminal Justice from the University of South Florida, an MCJ with an
emphasis on Corrections from the University of South Carolina, and an EdD in
Higher Education Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. Her research
interests are largely focused in three key areas: criminal justice education, theory
testing focused on routine activities theory and social disorganization theory, and
studies of the criminal justice processes.
Shannon Harper is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago
department of Criminology, Law, and Justice. She has a Master of Public
Administration from the University of Colorado Denver, and has published on
domestic violence and sexual violence in professional journals, including Feminist
Criminology and the Journal of School Violence. Her research interests include intimate partner homicide, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, criminal justice
policy, courtroom decision‐making, and criminal/family law.
Meghan E. Hollis, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice
at Texas State University. Her current research focuses on the intersections of race,
ethnicity, gender, crime and justice; police organizations; and communities and
crime (with a focus on social disorganization and routine activities theories). Dr.
Hollis has published in numerous academic journals, including Sociological Focus,
Crime, Law, and Social Change, Journal of Experimental Criminology, Security
Journal, Journal of Community Psychology, Policing: An International Journal of
Police Strategies and Management, International Criminal Justice Review, International
Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, and Crime Prevention and
Community Safety. She is the Reviews Editor at Crime Prevention and Community
Safety, and received the Sage Junior Faculty Professional Development Teaching
Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 2017. She has also coauthored systematic reviews for the Cochrane Collaboration and Campbell
Collaboration, and has authored and coauthored several book chapters.
Malcolm D. Holmes is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Wyoming. His
research primarily analyzes the relationship of race to criminal justice outcomes,
particularly how the racial and spatial composition of cities affects the police use of
violence. His work has appeared in a number of criminology and sociology journals,
Notes on Contributors
xiii
as well as in Race and Police Brutality: Roots of an Urban Dilemma (edited with Brad
W. Smith, 1998).
Janice A. Iwama is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the
University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned her PhD in Criminology from
Northeastern University and BA/MS in Justice, Law and Criminology from
American University. Her research primarily focuses on examining local conditions
and social processes that influence hate crimes and racial profiling, particularly
against Latino and immigrant populations. Her work applies a theoretical framework to improving our understanding on hate crimes and racial profiling across
communities while considering demographic, economic, and political spatial and
temporal changes in the United States.
R. Steven Jones is a Professor of History at Southwestern Adventist University in
Keene, Texas. He holds both an MA and PhD in history from Oklahoma State
University, and BA in mass communication from Northwestern Oklahoma State
University. Professor Jones has published a Civil War monograph, The Right Hand of
Command (2000), and has under contract a book on criminal anthropologist Cesare
Lombroso, coauthored with Dr. Randall Butler and Dr. Alex del Carmen. He has
authored many book chapters and articles on American military history and war
and society, and he has worked as an online writer and editor on American foreign
policy. His research interests include American military history, criminal justice,
politics, and popular culture.
Lindsay Kahle received her BA in Psychology and her MA in Sociology from
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, before pursuing her PhD in Sociology from
Virginia Tech. Dr. Kahle’s research interests include youth inequality, school violence and victimization, the intersections of gender and sexual orientation within
criminology, and LGBTQ youth. Dr. Kahle now serves as the postdoctoral fellow for
the Laboratory for the Study of Youth Inequality and Justice, as well as an Instructor
at Virginia Tech. Her courses stretch across interdisciplinary boundaries and cover
topics such as social problems, criminology, and LGBTQ issues. Her publications
center on victimization among youth, with particular focus on bullying, homophobic bullying, dating violence, and sexual assault among LGBTQ youth. Her
research has been published in peer‐reviewed journals such as Criminal Justice
Studies, Journal of Child and Family Studies, Victims and Offenders, Sociological
Spectrum, Violence and Victims, Gender, Place, and Culture, Journal of Interpersonal
Violence, and Journal of Criminology. Most recently, Dr. Kahle was awarded the 2017
Outstanding Graduate Student Award for the Academy of Criminal Justice Science’s
Victimology Section.
Sanna King is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of
Hawaiʻi, Mānoa. Her dissertation research is on youth punishment in Hawaiʻi, particularly looking at racialization, colonialism, and gender in the coupling of schools
and jails.
xiv
Notes on Contributors
Joshua LePree is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University
of Colorado Boulder. With a focus on ethnographic and qualitative methodology,
his work investigates the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, and migration, particularly among Mexican immigrants. His work has been published in The Social
Science Journal and Florida Atlantic Comparative Studies Journal.
Andrea Leverentz is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of
Massachusetts Boston. Her research centers on the impact of crime and incarceration on individuals and communities. Her book The Ex‐Prisoner’s Dilemma: How
Women Negotiate Competing Narratives of Reentry and Desistance (2014) looks at
how women talk about and manage competing messages about what it means to
return to their communities post‐incarceration, and how their experiences are
shaped by their roles as women, Black women, mothers, daughters, sisters, romantic
partners, and employees. Currently, she is analyzing interview and observational
data from a project funded by the National Science Foundation on the neighborhood context of prisoner reentry, both from the perspective of men and women
returning from prison and from residents of receiving communities. Together, these
data provide valuable information to better understand the impact of community
context and residential change on desistance, how communities view and respond to
returning prisoners, and how people who have been incarcerated understand and
experience their neighborhood context. In addition, she is analyzing how these
experiences are raced and gendered.
Shirley Leyro is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Borough of Manhattan
Community College–City University of New York. A critical criminologist,
Dr. Leyro’s research focuses on deportation effects, including the impact of the fear
resulting from the vulnerability to deportation. Her research interests include immigration, social disorganization, and crimmigration. She is currently working on two
funded research projects studying the impact of the vulnerability to deportation on
college students. Dr. Leyro is coeditor of Outside Justice: Immigration and the
Criminalizing Impact of Changing Policy and Practice, as well as a contributor to the
same volume. She is also a member of the Leadership Team for the Latina Researchers
Network.
Jennifer Lutz is a PhD student at North Carolina State University. Her current
research focuses on the social control of corporate malfeasance and differential sentencing outcomes of corporate organizations.
Daniel E. Martínez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of
Arizona. He is a co‐principal investigator of the Migrant Border Crossing Study,
which is a binational research project focusing on unauthorized migrants’ border
crossing, apprehension, and repatriation experiences. His research and teaching
interests include criminology, juvenile delinquency, race and ethnicity, and unauthorized immigration. Martínez also does extensive research on migrant deaths
along the US–Mexico border.
Notes on Contributors
xv
Ramiro Martínez, Jr. is a Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal
Justice and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern
University. Professor Martinez is a quantitative criminologist. Within that broad
arena, his work contributes to violent crime research. Over the past 15 years,
Professor Martinez has received several honors and awards. In 2011, he was a
recipient of the Division on People of Color and Crime (DPCC) of the American
Society of Criminology’s Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding scholarship
in the area of race, crime, and justice. In 2007 he was a recipient of American Society
of Criminology DPCC’s Coramae Richey Mann Award for outstanding scholarship
in the area of race, crime, and justice. In 2006 he was a recipient of the Florida
International University Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, and a Visiting
Scholar, Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Houston. He previously received the American Sociological Association’s Latina/o Section Award for
Distinguished Contributions to Research and a W. E. B. Du Bois Fellowship from
the National Institute of Justice. Since 2004 he has been a member of the Racial
Democracy, Crime and Justice Network working group, funded by the National
Science Foundation, at the Ohio State University. At the national level, Martinez
serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals and recently completed a
three‐year term as a member of the Sociology Advisory Panel at the National Science
Foundation.
Ricardo Martínez‐Schuldt is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on how
sending states, through consulate offices, facilitate the integration of migrants, as
well as how local contexts impact the needs of immigrant populations and enable or
constrain consular efficacy. In addition, he conducts research on neighborhood and
city‐level correlates of crime, with an emphasis on immigration–crime nexus.
Cecilia Menjívar is Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of
Sociology and Co‐Director of the Center for Migration Research at the University of
Kansas. She has examined the effects of the immigration regime on immigrants’ lives,
both on the legislative and the enforcement sides. Her most recent book, Immigrant
Families (with Leisy Abrego and Leah Schmalzbauer), was published in 2016.
Amie L. Nielsen received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Delaware in
1997. She is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Miami.
Her research focuses on criminology, homicide, immigration, and race and ethnicity, and has appeared in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, Journal of Adolescence, Journal of Drug Issues, and the Journal of
Contemporary Criminal Justice.
Vanessa R. Panfil is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University. Her work explores how intersections
of gender and sexuality structure individuals’ experiences with gangs, crime, victimization, and the criminal and juvenile justice systems. She coedited the Handbook of
xvi
Notes on Contributors
LGBT Communities, Crime, and Justice (with Dana Peterson, 2014) and authored
The Gang’s All Queer: The Lives of Gay Gang Members (2017).
Philip M. Pendergast is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the
University of Colorado Boulder. His research has focused on applying novel statistical
techniques to a variety of topics regarding social inequalities, including crime, health,
obesity, substance use, education, and subjective well‐being. His work has appeared
in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior and Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Anne Warfield Rawls is Professor of Sociology, Bentley University, Professor of
Socio‐Informatics, University of Siegen, Germany, Senior Research Fellow, Yale
University, Center for Urban Ethnography, and Director of the Harold Garfinkel
Archive. She is a principal investigator on the research project funded by the German
Research Foundation (DFG), “Scientific Media of Practice Theory: Harold Garfinkel
and Ludwig Wittgenstein,” that supports a multiyear research collaboration between
the University of Siegen and the Garfinkel Archive. She is the author of books and
articles on Durkheim, including Epistemology and Practice (2009), and has edited
and introduced several volumes of Garfinkel’s work. Professor Rawls has focused on
the importance of equality in everyday “constitutive” practices for grounding
modern democratic public life—an insight she traces to Durkheim and Garfinkel.
Her research and articles show how inequalities of race interfere with achieving
mutual understanding in modern contexts, and she has also published on the importance of constitutive practices—their origin in Durkheim and elaboration in
Garfinkel—in French, German, Italian and Russian, with a forthcoming book on
Developing a Sociological Theory of Justice: Durkheim’s Forgotten Introduction to The
Division of Social Labor, to be published in French.
Eric Rodriguez‐Whitney is a PhD student at the School of Criminology and
Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. His research interests include race and
inequality, criminal justice legitimacy, and crime politics.
Jill Leslie Rosenbaum is a Professor of Criminal Justice at California State University,
Fullerton. Her research interests focus on issues of female delinquency and the victimization of women. She has participated in numerous local and statewide assessments of incarcerated delinquent girls, rape crisis organizations, and services for
victims of child abuse and domestic violence. Professor Rosenbaum has published
numerous articles and book chapters on female delinquency. Her articles have
appeared in several criminal justice and criminology journals, including Women in
Criminal Justice, Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, and Youth and Society, and
she coauthored Implementing a Gender Based Arts Program for Juvenile Offenders
(with Shelley Spivack, 2014).
Jeremy Slack is an Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of Sociology
and Anthropology at the University of Texas, El Paso. He received his PhD in
Geography from the University of Arizona in 2015. Slack is a co‐principal investigator
Notes on Contributors
xvii
of the Migrant Border Crossing Study. His research focuses on deportation and the
problems forced removal creates for individuals and their families, the connections
to place that are severed, and how it has intersected with drug‐related violence on
the border. Research interests include state theory, illegal and illicit activity, the US–
Mexico border, drug trafficking, violence, participatory/activist oriented research
methodology, and public scholarship.
Jacob I. Stowell is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal
Justice at Northeastern University. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the
University at Albany-SUNY. He is originally from California, where he received
his BA in sociology from California State University-San Marcos. His research interests are guided by two general themes; communities and crime. More specifically, he
is interested in the variation in patterns of violence across immigrant and nonimmigrant neighborhoods. His methodological interests include mapping, spatial
analysis, and structural equation modeling.
Brian J. Stults is an Associate Professor in the College of Criminology and Criminal
Justice at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. His research addresses the
issues of race, crime, and community in urban areas, with a particular focus on
­segregation, racial threat, and spatial and temporal patterns of crime.
Nic Swagar is a PhD student in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at
Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. His prior research has addressed
youth homelessness, general strain theory, and the importance of community
­context in explaining crime and deviance.
Saundra Trujillo is currently a PhD candidate in Criminology and Criminal Justice
at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Her research interests include the community
contexts of race, ethnicity, immigration, and crime, as well as the community
­contexts of juvenile gang behavior.
María B. Vélez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the
University of New Mexico. Her work focuses on understanding how racial and
economic inequalities pattern urban crime at the individual, neighborhood, and city
levels. She seeks to understand how the actions of political and economic actors are
linked to the creation and maintenance of urban inequality, which in turn shapes
crime patterns.
Tim Wadsworth is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. He
gained his PhD at the University of Washington. Much of his research uses
quantitative methods to examine the influence of structural and cultural forces in
shaping patterns of violence and crime among individuals and communities. He
also does research in the area of subjective well‐being, focusing on how individual
and contextual factors influence people’s happiness and life satisfaction. His work
has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Criminology, Social Forces, Social
Indicators Research, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and elsewhere.
xviii
Notes on Contributors
Sheldon Zhang is Professor and Chair of the School of Criminology and Justice
Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Professor Zhang has more than two
decades of experience as a field researcher in criminology and justice studies. He is
internationally known for his work on transnational organized crime, such as human
smuggling and drug trafficking involving Chinese nationals. He was twice invited to
the White House for national anti‐trafficking gatherings and strategic planning. He
is currently an expert consultant to several international organizations such as the
International Labor Organization, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,
Freedom Fund, and Walk Free Foundation. He is also known for his long‐time collaborative efforts with correctional agencies in California to evaluate various
offender reentry and recidivism reduction programs. Professor Zhang has authored
or coauthored seven books and edited volumes, and his work has appeared in journals such as Criminology, British Journal of Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime
and Delinquency, and the Annals of American Academy of Social and Political Science.
He has served as principal investigator for in excess of US$8 million worth of externally funded projects. He previously served as Sociology Department Chair at the
San Diego State University.
Yue Zhuo is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
St. John’s University. Her research interests include crime and law, substance abuse,
migration and intergenerational relations. She has published in journals such as
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, British Journal of Criminology, Asian Journal
of Criminology, Crime, Law and Social Change, American Journal of Community
Psychology, Research on Aging, and the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Rena C. Zito is an Assistant Professor at Elon University. Her research uses a life‐
course perspective to examine how family structure histories and family formation
shape gendered processes, adolescent role exits, and law violation. Her current work
focuses on intimate partner violence across relationship contexts, as well as cross‐
national variation in the justification of crime.
Introduction: Past, Present, and Future
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
The race gap holds a special place in the history of American sociology. Well over a
hundred years ago W. E. B. Du Bois wrote in his seminal tome The Souls of Black Folk
(1903) that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color‐line”
(p. 19). By this Du Bois meant that perceptions of life behind the pall of race and the
subsequent “double‐consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through
the eyes of others” (p. 8) have become benchmarks for reflecting on race in America.
In addition to these enduring concepts, Souls offers an assessment of the progress of
the race, the obstacles to that progress, and the possibilities for future progress as the
nation entered the twentieth century.
The impenetrable gap between Blacks and Whites remains and holds a special
place, not only in the history of American sociology, but in the founding of American
criminology. The consequences wrought by immigration and urbanization were
pivotal concerns of pioneering criminologists. The founders of the Chicago School
of sociology were distressed by the movement of foreign‐born newcomers and
Southern Black migrants into urban areas, grappling with the connections between
population change and social problems, including crime. This anxiety over urban
movement contributed to classic and enduring conceptual and empirical work
on social disorganization and culture conflict. Research on the race and crime gap
and immigrants and crime gap has ebbed and flowed over the years, while the social
and economic conditions giving rise to this literature have improved. But this
remains a potential gap in the literature.
Until recently many Americans contended that the twenty‐first century
­demonstrated remarkable progress with respect to considerations of race, ethnicity,
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
immigration, justice, and equality. The election of the first African American
President of the United States (President Barack Obama) is frequently cited as
­evidence that the United States has become a postracial society and that the gap has
closed and perhaps even evaporated. Whether or not that gap remains is an open
question. What isn’t an open question is that the recent century has had an increase
in scholarly activity examining race, ethnicity, gender, immigration, crime, and justice studies (see, e.g., Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010). Research has focused on how
social and economic conditions relate to the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender,
and immigrant status/nationality in producing local and national crime rates. There
has been a significant body of research devoted to the study of aggressive policing,
implicit bias, and harsh and disparate sentencing of minority offenders (Lauritsen,
Gorislavsky, & Heimer, 2013). These are all research topics useful to help us close the
race and crime gap.
While violent crime rates are at historic lows across all racial and ethnic groups
(and are particularly low in immigrant communities), the political rhetoric has
continued to highlight “alternate facts.” The focus is slowly returning to aggressive
police practices, including stop and frisk, as the Justice Department walks back its
focus on consent decrees and building police–community relations. The themes that
emerged in the report from the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing
(2015) are now largely being ignored in favor of aggressive “tough on crime” policies
reminiscent of the “war on crime” and the “war on drugs” of the 1980s era.
Although this volume was conceptualized, and many of the chapters completed,
prior to recent changes—mass incarcerations of people of Color, high profile police
killings, singling out of immigrants, even preventing legal immigration—the themes
of marginalization, racism, crime and justice response were still important to many
US citizens. In light of recent current events discussed in individual chapters, these
themes have become even more central in our work, theorizing, and thinking. Many
have grown increasingly concerned with the potential harms that residents likely
face, but a key concern is what do we know, or don’t, about the topic of race/
ethnicity/immigration crime and justice?
Contemporary Research
The chapters in this volume examine the current state of research on race, ethnicity,
crime, and justice, and provide some insights into directions for future research.
The book begins with a series of chapters providing overviews of key areas of
­concern in the study of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice. This focus shifts to an
analysis of the theoretical perspectives used in that study. This is followed by
­discussions of race, ethnicity, and the criminal justice system and gender identity
and sexual identity as they intersect with race and ethnicity. The discussion
­concludes with two chapters examining comparative perspectives of race, ethnicity,
crime, and justice.
Introduction: Past, Present, and Future
3
In general the focus of the volume is on the intersections of race, ethnicity, crime,
and justice. Each section has been crafted to address a key area of research, summarizing findings, or shortcomings whenever possible, and provides new results
­relevant to race/crime and justice. Part I of the book provides an overview of research
on race, ethnicity, crime, and justice. It opens with a chapter on “Intentional
Inequalities and Compounding Effects: The State of Race and Justice Theory and
Research” by Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez‐Whitney. The authors provides
an overview of theory and research concerning race and justice, covering what is
known, in particular describing the extreme racial inequalities in contact with the
actors and institutions of the criminal justice system. Following this is a discussion
of three broad explanations for the disparities—differential offending, systemic and
policy bias, and bias on the part of individual actors—using the history of race in
the United States and the state of knowledge about the meaning and impact of race
to contextualize each explanation.
Continuing with the latest research on ethnicity and crime, Saundra Trujillo and
Maria B. Vélez provide a theoretical and empirical overview on the role of ethnicity
in shaping crime, victimization, and criminal justice outcomes at the macro
and micro levels. But they do more than that. The authors review historical and
­theoretical developments of the concept of ethnicity, and consider ethnicity as measured by self‐identified Latino/Hispanic, as well as the foreign‐born population
self‐identifying as Hispanic or Latino. They argue more research is needed given
immigration patterns and given that the future of ethnicity and crime research offers
a strategic site for better understanding the influence of acculturation, differential
risk and protective factors, and differential treatment in the criminal justice system.
This is a comprehensive survey of the Latino/Hispanic, crime and justice literature.
Given the political tones of the time, especially political rhetoric focusing on
criminalizing the marginalized—with then‐candidate Donald Trump commenting
on Mexican immigrants by claiming, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing
crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”—scientific evidence to
the contrary would have to be sustained and persuasive in order to prevail in public
discourse. Fortunately, Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
remind us that immigrant rhetoric proposing an intrinsic relationship between
immigration and crime has a long history in the United States. The authors discuss
how fear of criminogenic immigrants has been politicized and applied to each of the
prominent ethnic groups labeled as dangerous in their time. They then demonstrate
that research on the relationship between immigration and crime has found little
evidence for these assertions. In fact, immigrants tend to demonstrate lower rates of
nearly every type of crime than the native‐born population, and places that have
experienced the highest rates of immigration have also tended to experience some
of the biggest decreases in crime over the last quarter‐century. Most importantly
they highlight how the undocumented status of many Latino immigrants puts them
at greater risk of victimization at the hands of native‐born individuals, businesses,
and organizations, with few legitimate avenues for recourse or protection.
4
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
Continuing with the latest research on hate crime, Janice A. Iwama shows that
hate crime research has increased dramatically, largely due to the ability to use data
collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the size and scope of hate crimes
in the United States. Despite numerous limitations in the research, Iwama provides
an overview on the development of the hate crime legislation and the subsequent
research, along with the challenges found in the data collection. Although many of
these challenges remain, recent studies have taken different approaches to provide a
link between hate crime patterns and the economic, population, and political
changes in communities across the United States.
More research is needed on the race/ethnicity and crime gap, in part since race
and crime research on Native Americans and Asians receive little attention. Randall
R. Butler and R. Steven Jones stress that Native American tribes occupy 567 native
lands or reservations ranging in size from one acre to over 16 million acres.
The social, geography and political boundaries of these reservations inform some
of the most significant problems for agencies trying to police them. Tribal law
enforcement agencies must deal with social problems, including poverty,
unemployment, and substance abuse, hand in hand with tribal, local, state, and
­federal jurisdictions. Understaffed and underequipped, tribal police grapple with
rising rates of violent crimes and property offenses, and face many obstacles
that most police agencies rarely encounter. This chapter highlights many issues
­confronting Native Americans, police, and the justice system.
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang also review how Asian American youths receive
little attention in the literature of race/ethnicity and juvenile delinquency. As Asian
Americans have become one of the fastest growing populations in the United States,
it is more important than ever to understand the prevalence, correlates, causes, and
consequences of crime and delinquency among this population. The authors take
stock of the limited but expanding research on juvenile delinquency among Asian
Americans, assess the ways researchers have sought to understand Asian American
adolescents’ delinquent behaviors, discuss the challenges and opportunities in this
research field, and provide recommendations for future inquiry. Some of the salient
factors and themes in our understanding of Asian criminality include immigration
status, stage of acculturation, youth group affiliation, education, and influences
of familial networks. Native American and Asians as ethnic designations present
complex challenges as well as intriguing questions to the research community. Zhuo
and Zhang discuss many of these important challenges.
The racial threat hypothesis argues that a large or growing Black population will
elicit perceptions of threat among majority Whites, which may in turn motivate
efforts to control the perceived threat. Since its original formulation, scholars have
extended the perspective to include other minority groups, such as Latinos and
immigrants, and researchers have examined a wide variety of criminal justice outcomes as potential mechanisms of control. Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar detail the
theoretical foundations of the racial and ethnic threat hypothesis, as well as the
Introduction: Past, Present, and Future
5
many extensions that have emerged over the past several decades. They then identify some key methodological issues, and review the extensive empirical literature
­surrounding the racial threat hypothesis.
Despite being a major component of US immigration enforcement, the social
implications of deportation have been relatively underexamined by quantitative
sociologists. That’s no longer the case. In their important chapter, Daniel E.
Martinez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martinez‐Schuldt draw on survey data
­gathered through the Migrant Border Crossing Study and provide insight on the
demographic profiles of Mexican immigrants removed from the country, a group
which constitutes roughly 70 percent of all deportees. They demonstrate that many
noncitizens possess strong social ties to the United States and therefore a strong
resolve to return. The consequences of the latest deportation regime extend beyond
those directly removed and into immigrant communities throughout the country.
Given the current political campaign favoring deportation, seeking travel bans (on
immigrants from Muslim countries), targeting immigrants for arrest and deportation through raids, aggressive “anti‐gang” enforcement targeted at “Mexican” and
“Latino” gang members under the guise of immigrant crime, and a move to end the
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. These findings remind
us that ideological influences matter, but research matters too, when swaying the
public mind.
In Part II, Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz write that unraveling the race gap in street crime requires embedding traditional theories within a
racialized perspective that explicitly accounts for the numerous ways in which
structural and interpersonal racisms collude to shape the material conditions,
social environments, and interpersonal dynamics relevant to offending. They
also provide an overview of structural and individual‐level perspectives that integrate traditional theories of offending with a racialized perspective to consider
the ways in which various forms of racism embedded in public policies, social
institutions, and everyday interactions influence the race gap in street offending
by shaping the communities and experiences of people differentially situated in
racial hierarchies.
Several chapters deal specifically with the importance of race. Scott Wm. Bowman
and Meghan E. Hollis examine common theoretical approaches used in contemporary race, ethnicity, crime, and criminal justice research. After reviewing recent race,
ethnicity, and crime research, they reveal that much of this literature continues to
rely on traditional theoretical approaches; however, there are new areas developing
that focus on emerging topics of critical race theory and intersectional approaches.
Recommendations for future directions for race, ethnicity, crime, and justice research
are discussed with a focus on theoretical advances and approaches that require
further refinement or that have been underutilized in this research.
Yet other views argue that the dominant group and police authorities mobilize
mechanisms of police coercion to protect themselves from the perceived threat of
6
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
minority crime. Malcolm D. Holmes reminds readers that conditions and heightened
perceptions of threat, such as the presence of a relatively large minority population,
are hypothesized to increase levels of police coercion. This chapter also explains
racial threat theory, but also reviews recent empirical tests of the ­perspective,
including resource allocations to policing and street‐level police behavior. Holmes
concludes with a discussion of what we know, and what we need to know, about how
racial threat influences patterns of police coercion in minority populations.
An important theoretical examination is provided in the chapter by Anne Warfield
Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck. This chapter examines the racialized nature of
interactions through the lens of the Interaction Order. The exploration of how an
individual’s race impacts whether and to what degree others will accept the
­presentation of self projected by an individual introduces an important theoretical
perspective to this volume. This expands beyond much of the traditional theorizing
in criminology and criminal justice to provide a different means of examining the
intersections of race, ethnicity, and identity.
Another chapter by Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King deals
with feminist theory and crime. The authors explore the roots of feminist and
queer criminology and how each has worked to overcome the androcentric and
homophobic nature of historical mainstream criminology. They argue for the
importance of considering the intersections of gender and sexual orientation,
­specifically as they relate to race, ethnicity, and class within criminology and the
criminal justice system. According to the authors, in response to the need for
­criminological theories that account for female victimization and offense patterns,
feminist criminology has spent the last several decades exposing how gender shapes
patterns of experience within the criminal justice system. Additionally, this same
framework also acknowledges that gender must not be understood completely independently of sexual orientation; thus, theories that account for the experiences of
LGBTQ individuals and their own pathways to victimization and offending have
emerged within queer criminology.
Part III focuses on the interplay of race and ethnicity for those involved with the
criminal justice system. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse address the
history of police–citizen encounters with a focus on race, ethnicity, and gender influences. The chapter addresses how police practices and law enforcement–race relations historically shape the dominant scripts of modern police–citizen encounters.
They also address how this history merges with expectations for police encounters
to influence police legitimacy. The impact on police use of force and racial profiling
is addressed as well.
The chapter by Robert J. Durán provides an excellent comparative study of the
intersections of gangs and policing. This ethnographic work uses three sites to
examine the policing of gangs: Ogden, Utah, Denver, Colorado, and the US–Mexico
border. This work highlights the importance of understanding local historical and
contextual concerns in gangs and policing research. This work also provides an
example of activist scholar research.
Introduction: Past, Present, and Future
7
Kathryn Benier and Suzanna Fay‐Ramirez discuss the overrepresentation of racial
and ethnic minorities in prisons and detention centers in the “Global North”
(defined as the developed and wealthier countries including the United Kingdom,
United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia). Drawing from unique data, the
authors provide a summary of ethnicity and corrections, briefly review the literature
in this area, and focus on immigrants and the foreign‐born population and their
link to punishment and corrections. Many are on drugs charges, where more police
discretion is involved which may be subjected to increased racism and profiling.
Clearly criminologists’ understandings of the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender,
and class across nations are still in their infancy. But the Benier and Fay‐Ramirez
chapter provides an important foundation for others to examine.
John M. Eason, in his chapter “The Puzzle of Prison Towns: Race, Rurality, and
Reflexivity in Community Studies,” provides a unique examination of rural criminology. This chapter examines the ethno‐racial dynamics of rural prison towns
through an ethnographic lens. This unique perspective highlights how the intersections of race, ethnicity, power, and privilege impact the way individuals are
treated in prison towns. The unique experiences of the researcher in the field
­provide important context for those wishing to examine positionality and power in
field settings.
Part IV focuses on emerging gender‐identity and sexual‐identity concerns as they
relate to the study of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice. Vanessa R. Panfil reviews
existing interdisciplinary literature on important issues such as patterns of victimization, offending, and juvenile or criminal justice system contact, as well as the
factors that lead to each. Intersections of race/ethnicity and sexual orientation/
gender identity are particularly salient, as well as data on both US and global
­contexts. Panfil discusses the definitional, theoretical, and methodological challenges in pursuing research with queer populations and provides suggestions for
how to overcome barriers in order to produce meaningful scholarship.
Andrea Leverentz addresses some of the key dimensions in the offending and
criminal justice experiences of Black women. The author begins by highlighting the
value of taking an intersectional approach to studying crime and justice issues, and
the value in understanding the lives of Black women. Next, patterns of offending and
criminal justice system involvement are touched on. Discussion follows of two key
life dimensions that influence and are influenced by criminal justice system involvement of Black women: relationships and employment. And in a final section, a few
theoretical and methodological challenges in conducting research on Black women’s
criminal justice system involvement and possible solutions to these challenges are
discussed.
Another chapter employs intersectionality theory: the way hierarchies of power
and social systems based on race/ethnicity, gender, class, culture, and immigration
status intersect. It sees how they create simultaneous, additive, and interlocking
oppressions of women to address immigrant women’s vulnerability to, and
­experiences of, domestic violence. Edna Erez and Shannon Harper describe how
8
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
immigrant women experience the same stressors and trauma of domestic violence
as US‐born women, but with the added burdens of immigration status and context.
The authors review law and legal reforms relevant to immigrant women’s legal status
and its impact on their domestic violence experiences. They also examine the institutional, legal, social, and cultural barriers that limit immigrant women’s access to
resources, benefits, and social networks. Immigrant women’s perception of options
and ability to seek help are described, and the reproduction of gender and immigration status inequalities is examined. The chapter concludes with the implications of
immigration status for the welfare of immigrant women and their ability to
acculturate.
Amie L. Nielsen, Kristin Carbone‐Lopez, and Ramiro Martinez, Jr. examine the
relationship between neighborhood sociodemographic features and violence. The
focus on comparing predictors of intimate aggravated assault and those of non‐­
intimate aggravated assault makes an important new contribution to the academic
literature. Highlighting how neighborhood ethno‐racial characteristics relate to
intimate and non‐intimate violence in different ways, this chapter examines how the
indicators, while similar, are not identical.
The final Part V focuses on comparative approaches to the study of race, ethnicity,
crime, and justice. Shirley Leyro contends that repatriation is now routinely used as
a form of punishment against noncitizens, who have been criminalized by both
popular and political rhetoric. Such historic use of deportation as a criminal punishment has led to conditions of extreme structural and institutional violence, and a
domino effect on noncitizens’ families and communities at large. The political rhetoric surrounding these events has been concerning to some. Recently, presumed
“MS‐13” gang members were targeted with focused raids in neighborhoods with
high concentrations of Hispanics and Latino populations. These are communities
that typically over time have low levels of violent crime. For example, Partlow (2017)
reported on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s raids,
where they reportedly arrested over 1,300 gang members in one of the largest anti‐
gang enforcement efforts in ICE history. The use of ICE to target gangs instead of the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, or state and local police forces, under the guise of crime prevention, is
concerning to some researchers.
For many readers the final chapter will provide an unsettling viewpoint on the
“race gap” in any of our contributions. For others, it will place in context the importance of a broader global framework. Andrea Gómez Cervantes and Cecilia Menjívar
interpret recent research on global inequalities as embedded in systems of power,
capital, and market‐oriented goals which widen divides within countries around the
world. Thus flexible pools of labor emerge along with employer demands for cheap,
disposable workers. But what leads some countries to impose stringent border and
internal immigration controls in an era of transnational connectivity? In this chapter
the authors explore global trends in the securitization of immigration along with
the long‐term and short‐term consequences in sending and receiving countries.
Introduction: Past, Present, and Future
9
This chapter might trouble some readers since questions on defending borders for
rich countries in an unequal world are apparent. Rather than describe the past, this
is the present, and future, reminding us that the race and crime gap is also a race and
immigrant gap in a global context. The next step in this process is to engage others
in research that seeks to understand and explain the intersections explored here.
References
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of Black folk. Chicago, IL: A. C. McClurg.
Lauritsen, J. L., Gorislavsky, E., & Heimer, K. (2013). Economic conditions and violent victimization trends among youth: Guns, violence, and homicide, 1973–2005. In R. Rosenfeld,
M. Edberg, X. Fang, & C. S. Florence (Eds.), Economics and youth violence: Crime,
­disadvantage, and community (pp. 85–120). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Lauritsen, J. L., & Heimer, K. (2010). Violent victimization among males and economic
­conditions: The vulnerability of race and ethnic minorities. Criminology and Public
Policy, 9, 665–692.
Partlow, J. (2017, May 24). Trump wants to deport MS‐13 gang members. El Salvador is
dreading their return. Washington Post. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/
world/the_americas/trump‐wants‐to‐deport‐ms‐13‐gang‐members‐el‐salvador‐is‐
dreading‐their‐return/2017/05/24/1e0ec5ae‐39bf‐11e7‐a59b‐26e0451a96fd_story.
html?utm_term=a61f29d7fa5c
President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. (2015). Final report of the President’s Task
Force on 21st Century Policing. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services.
Part I
An Overview of Race, Ethnicity,
Crime, and Justice
Introduction
Ramiro Martínez, Jr. and Meghan E. Hollis
The climate of ethno‐racial relations in the United States creates a strain for the
criminal justice system and provides a variety of challenges in the study of criminology and criminal justice. Concerns are wide‐ranging and include challenges with
racial profiling, the emergence of consent decrees governing localized expectations
for police–citizen encounters, the immigrant criminal myth, ethno‐racial disparities
in police use of force, racial threat, and the incorporation of racial and ethnic concerns in theoretical explanations of criminality. To address these issues, this volume
begins by providing a general overview of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice research.
Part I of this volume provides chapters that focus on a general overview of race
and crime (Chapter 1), ethnicity and crime (Chapter 2), the immigration–crime
nexus (Chapter 3), concerns with hate crimes (Chapter 4), the intersections of Native
Americans and crime (Chapter 5) and Asian Americans and crime (Chapter 6), an
overview of racial threat research (Chapter 7), and an examination of deportation
concerns as they relate to ethnicity, race, and crime (Chapter 8). A consistent theme
in this part is isolation. Many racial/ethnic/immigrant groups reside in segregated
communities or isolated areas, and are marginalized from mainstream society and
demonized by many. Those groups are represented in these chapters in an effort to
provide balanced coverage of a variety of marginalized populations.
This part runs the gamut of research topics on race, crime, and the criminal justice system, providing material as a framework that is central to the chapters in the
­following parts. The authors cover the breadth of research on racial variations in
criminal justice contact, and provide a systematic read of the Hispanic/Latino origin
work, including micro/macro examinations and what we know about how Latinos
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
14
Ramiro Martínez, Jr. and Meghan E. Hollis
fare in crime and crime‐related outcomes. However, this is more than just a part on
race/ethnic variations in crime and criminal justice system contacts, as important
as it is to detail these to the reader. This part also provides careful coverage of
­immigration, crime, and victimization as an issue of enormous importance in
­contemporary society—particularly given modern political rhetoric.
The first chapter on “Intentional Inequalities and Compounding Effects: The State
of Race and Justice Theory and Research” is by Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez‐
Whitney. They contend, like others, that significant race differences in criminal
­justice contact are not explained by “race” at least in a biological sense. So where and
how did these differences emerge within the social structure? Along these lines,
Drakulich and Rodriguez‐Whitney argue that explaining differences is often limited
in contemporary research, which is dominated by concerns with why those in
academic, public, or political spheres advocate explanations implying biological or
intrinsic roots to the problem. Rather than reflecting a mere academic or intellectual
disagreement, it is in fact crucial to an understanding of why race differences in
contact with the criminal justice system emerge and persist. These contentions are
examined and explained in this initial chapter.
In Chapter 2 on “Ethnicity and Crime,” Saundra Trujillo and Maria B. Vélez review
“ethnicity” both as a concept and a measure in criminological research at the macro
and micro levels. The authors discuss the usefulness of including ethnicity in research
that seeks to better understand disparities in crime and criminal justice responses.
They review “ethnicity” as captured by the self‐identification measures of either
Hispanic or Latino status in micro‐level work, and review macro‐level research that
uses similar aggregated measures. Undoubtedly the concept of ethnicity among US
residents and communities evolves even in the face of measurement difficulty. Still
the authors conclude that further studies are warranted on the causes and consequences of crime when examining ethnicity, in part due to its changing boundaries.
Next, in Chapter 3 “Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context:
An Overview,” Pendergast, Wadsworth, and LePree remind us that for at least 150
years fear of criminogenic immigrants has been a heavily politicized and contentious issue. As a result, many immigrant groups were labeled as “dangerous” and
heavily stigmatized upon entry into the United States and even afterwards. Indeed,
little evidence exists to substantiate the claims that more immigration means more
crime. Immigrants demonstrate lower rates of almost all crime categories when
compared to the native‐born population, and places with the highest rates of immigration have also experienced some of the biggest crime declines over the last quarter
of a century. The authors stress that the concept of legality status requires more
research. The undocumented status of many Latino immigrants places them in a
high‐risk category. The greater risk of victimization for these individuals arises, in
particular, at the hands of native‐born individuals, businesses, and organizations,
providing immigrants with little recourse or protection. The authors conclude by
discussing a host of methodological issues that make further research on immigration and crime challenging and propose new areas of future study.
Introduction to Part I
15
Hand in hand with the rise in immigration and crime research is the study of hate
crimes. Janice A. Iwama’s chapter on “Hate Crime Research in the Twenty‐First
Century” provides an overview on the development of the hate crime legislation,
and associated obstacles found in the data collection related this “new” crime. Iwama
begins by providing an overview on federal hate crime legislation, including concerns raised by advocacy and civil rights organizations seeking to bring awareness of
the rising levels of violence fueled by discrimination and prejudice in the United
States. Also discussed is the development of national hate crime data collection
efforts, along with the limitations found in each of the datasets with regards to the
underreporting and misclassification of hate crime. Although many challenges to
studying hate crimes exist, emerging scholarship has taken different approaches to
establishing the link between hate crime patterns and social changes in communities
across the United States. The author concludes with recommendations for directions on future research.
Chapters on two racial groups long underexamined and underexplored by social
scientists, at least in the area of race and crime, focus on Native Americans and
Asians. In Chapter 5, “Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context,” Randall
R. Butler and R. Steven Jones note that police on America’s “Indian” reservations face
many of the same challenges as police in other jurisdictions. Included among them
are social and cultural problems like alcoholism, domestic violence, addiction,
unemployment, and family disruption. Despite these common features of American
society generally, there are challenges specific to indigenous tribal lands. Officers on
the largest reservations often have to patrol hundreds of square miles alone, sometimes without effective radio communication. Not only must they deal with the
­regular offenses listed in the Uniform Crime Index, but they must face social
­problems endemic to Native Americans. These include the strained, often confusing
federal–tribal relationship that stripped Native Americans of their geographic
homes and traditional, cultural identities. For Native American males, that loss of
identity was especially damaging, driving them toward crime or other antisocial
behavior out of frustration or as a way to recapture a personal identity. This chapter
explores the mix of factors that contribute to crime in “Indian Country” and that
often drive crime statistics there higher than in other regions of the United States.
In “Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth: A Review of the
Evidence and an Agenda for Future Research,” Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang take
stock of the limited but expanding research on juvenile delinquency among Asian
Americans. They assess the ways researchers have sought to understand Asian
American adolescents’ delinquent behaviors, discuss the challenges and opportunities in this field, and provide recommendations for future research. Themes in the
study of Asian criminality include immigration status, stage of acculturation, youth
group affiliation, education, and influences of familial networks. The concept of
Asians as an ethnic designation presents complex challenges as well as intriguing
questions to the research community, ranging from perplexing differences across
different Asian groups to stereotypes of the Asian minority in mainstream America.
16
Ramiro Martínez, Jr. and Meghan E. Hollis
Finally, for decades, race and ethnicity as a research topic in the context of crime and
justice has mostly referred to tensions and conflicts between Whites and Blacks, and
recently between Whites and Blacks/Hispanics, making the inclusion of other
ethno‐racial categories an important emerging area of research.
In the next chapter, Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar note that the racial threat
­hypothesis has received considerable attention in criminology over the past several
decades. In “Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions,” the
authors’ fundamental premise is that a large or growing minority group may be
perceived by the dominant group as a potential threat to their economic or political
privilege, which can lead to increased efforts at controlling the threatening
population. Early theoretical and empirical work focused primarily on Blacks as
the minority group, though researchers have increasingly applied this perspective
to a number of other groups, including Latinos, immigrants, and Muslims.
Numerous aspects of the criminal justice system have been studied, while other
work has examined informal mechanisms of control such as segregation, lynching,
and other hate crimes. A smaller but growing body of research has focused more
directly on individual perceptions and attitudes, most often using survey data to
link perceptions of minority growth and encroachment on economic and political
status with preferences for more punitive criminal justice policies such as longer
sentences, diverting juveniles to the adult justice system, and increased use of the
death penalty.
The last chapter in Part I is by Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo
Martínez‐Schuldt. In “The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States” the
authors note deportations from the United States have increased substantially since
the mid‐1990s. Over 3.4 million noncitizens were deported during the Obama
administration, and the Trump administration has taken a hardline stance on immigration and adopted measures to bolster the interior enforcement of immigration
law. Given the large unauthorized population currently living in the United States, it
is unlikely that deportations will recede. Indeed, the social implications of deportation have been relatively underexamined by quantitative sociologists. Drawing on
survey data gathered through the Migrant Border Crossing Study, the authors
describe the demographic profiles of deported Mexican immigrants, a group which
comprises roughly 70 percent of all deportees. They indicate the strong social ties of
noncitizens to the United States and to local communities across the nation.
Removing them creates an uninterrupted cycle of disruption and creates challenges
in local communities in many ways.
Part I is designed to orient the reader to the vast literature on race, ethnicity,
crime, and justice. These chapters provide necessary context for the later parts in
this volume. Although the research (and sociocultural) landscape is constantly
changing and shifting, these chapters offer a series of anchors for researchers in
moving the race, ethnicity, crime, and justice dialogue forward in the coming years
and decades.
1
Intentional Inequalities and
Compounding Effects:
The State of Race and Justice
Theory and Research
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez‐Whitney
At the founding of the United States, slaves of African origin represented roughly a
fifth of the population and the profits from their economic exploitation constituted
a critical component of the fledging country’s economic engine (US Bureau of the
Census, 1793; Baptist, 2014). This institution was legally codified and supported by
the apparatus of the criminal justice system. Highly contested issues at the intersection of race, crime, and justice have been central to American public and political
life since these beginnings. On one side, claims of Black criminality and immorality
have been used throughout US history to rally White citizens concerned with
­changing race relations and to delegitimize the grievances of Black Americans
(e.g., Beckett & Sasson, 2004; Drakulich, Hagan, Johnson, & Wozniak, 2016; Tonry,
2011).1 On the other side, mass protests and unrest sparked by police misbehavior
and unequal treatment were important moments in the civil rights movement, and
are echoed in the Black Lives Matter movement of more recent years (e.g., Beckett &
Sasson, 2004; Drakulich et al., 2016; Tonry, 2011).
This debate results in competing claims not just about the nature of the connection
between race, crime, and justice, but about the basic purpose and role of our criminal
justice system. On the one side, the criminal justice system is characterized as serving
an important protective function against the dangers posed by Black crime, while the
other side points to the long history of the criminal justice system as a weapon used
to suppress and exploit Black Americans: from the Fugitive Slave Act, through convict leasing programs, the Black Codes, and Jim Crow laws, to the tough‐on‐crime
policies that arose in the backlash to the civil rights movement. Our goal here is to
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
18
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
shed light on the connection between race, crime, and justice—an important task
given the competing claims espoused in public and political debates on the issue.
Any understanding of the link between race and the justice system in the United
States must start with two basic and well‐established facts. The first is that Black
Americans disproportionately experience criminal justice system contact, often by
large margins (e.g., Rosich, 2007). The second is that race is not particularly meaningful biologically—instead, the importance of race lies in its social construction
and collective meaning (e.g., Haney‐López, 1994; Omi & Winant, 2015; Smedley &
Smedley, 2005; Yudell, Roberts, DeSalle, & Tishkoff, 2016).
The combination of these two basic facts has several important implications. The
first is that the large race differences in criminal justice contact are not explained by
race, at least not in any fundamental biological or intrinsic sense. If race is socially
constructed, the explanations for the differences must be social. A primary task for
theory and research, then, is the identification of where and how these differences
emerge within the social structure.
A final implication worth mentioning concerns not the explanation for why the
differences exist, but instead an explanation for why some in academic, public, or
political spheres continue to advocate explanations that imply biological or intrinsic
roots to the problem (e.g., Bobo, Kluegel, & Smith, 1997; Bonilla‐Silva, 2010;
Jackman & Muha, 1984). Those who treat race as having inherent or biological
explanatory power in explaining race differences in criminal justice contact are
either unaware of these basic and well‐established facts, are actively working to
maintain White privilege and Black disadvantage, or are both unaware and racially
motivated. In simpler terms, they are either ignorant, racist, or both. This claim is
not meant as a flippant accusation, or to be provocative or inflammatory without
purpose. Instead, rather than reflecting a mere academic or intellectual disagreement, it is in fact crucial to an understanding of why race differences in contact with
the criminal justice system emerge and persist.
The following sections review existing theory and research on these questions
and identify both lingering problems and potential solutions within that research.
We begin with what we know, first by describing the extreme racial inequalities in
contact with the actors and institutions of the criminal justice system. We proceed
from there to potential explanations for these disparities and review the relevant
history of the role of race and racism in justice policy and practice. The final section
identifies key theoretical, methodological, and substantive issues that remain, and
proposes potential avenues to resolution where possible.
What We Know about Race and Justice
Race and Contact with the Criminal Justice System
A tremendous amount of research documents the basic racial disparities at the
various points of contact with the US criminal justice system. The criminal ­justice
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
19
system is comprised of several functionally distinct but interacting components.
Disparities may be produced at the moment of contact with any of these institutions or the actors who populate them. The subsections that follow briefly review
some major findings for specific points of contact with the police, courts and
sentencing, incarceration, the juvenile justice system, and the death penalty.
However, these points of contact, much like the institutions themselves, are not
independent. In addition to considering disparities at the level of individual
agents or institutions, a more systemic perspective highlights the compounding
effects of racial disparities across these institutions, a phenomenon discussed in
the following section.
African Americans experience substantially more contact with police than
do Whites, with young Black men experiencing particularly high rates of contact.
African Americans are significantly more likely to be stopped (Bureau of Justice
Statistics, 2013; Crutchfield, Skinner, Haggerty, McGlynn, & Catalano, 2012),
searched (Baumgartner, Epp, Shoub, & Love, 2017; Baumgartner, Grigg, & Mastro,
2015; Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013; Rojek, Rosenfeld, & Decker, 2012) and
arrested (Baumgartner et al., 2017; Kochel, Wilson, & Mastrofski, 2011; Lytle, 2014;
Mitchell & Caudy, 2015) by police than similarly situated Whites. These disparities
remain significant even as researchers control for a wide range of other factors in
order to isolate the effects of race. The search disparity is particularly concerning in
light of evidence suggesting that frisks of White suspects are more likely to
find ­contraband such as drugs and weapons (Jones‐Brown, Gill, & Trone, 2010).
Black suspects are also more likely to be mistreated by the police (Fryer, 2016).
Black ­victims of fatal police shooting are more than twice as likely as White victims
to be unarmed (Nix, Campbell, Byers, & Alpert, 2017).
Moreover, research has shown that many of these disparities cannot be explained
by differing rates of offending among Whites and minorities. For example, Mitchell
and Caudy (2015) found that “at ages 17, 22, and 27 African‐Americans’ odds of
drug arrest are approximately 13, 83, and 235% greater than whites, respectively,”
despite the fact that “African‐Americans and Hispanics reported statistically lower
rates of drug offending [compared to Whites] on nearly every measure of drug
offending.” These racialized disparities between criminal behavior and contact with
the criminal justice system begin early in life, with African American teens more
than twice as likely to report having had contact with the police, even after controlling
for rates of criminal involvement (Crutchfield et al., 2012).
Police
Courts Racial disparities have been identified throughout the American court
system, from initial charge to sentencing, with the most severe disparities experienced by young African American men. African Americans are more likely to be
charged when arrested (Wu, 2016), to receive an initial charge carrying a mandatory
minimum sentence (Rehavi & Starr, 2014), and in general face harsher criminal
charges than do Whites, legally relevant factors notwithstanding (Rehavi & Starr,
2014; Sutton, 2013; Wu, 2016). Among the most robust and consistent findings are
20
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
those pertaining to pretrial detention, indicating people of Color, and young African
American men in particular, are significantly more likely to be remanded for pretrial
detention than Whites (Spohn, Andiloro, Johnson, & Kutateladze, 2014; Sutton,
2013; Wooldredge, Frank, Goulette, & Travis, 2015).
Research analyzing racial disparities in sentence length has been somewhat more
mixed. For example, Wooldredge et al. (2015) failed to find significant disparities in
sentence length among Black and White felony defendants. However, several factors
must be considered in interpreting such findings. First, Wooldredge et al. (2015)
found significant racial disparities in conviction rates and overall likelihood of
receiving a prison sentence, again with young Black men bearing the most severe
burden (60 percent more likely to be convicted and sent to prison). Indeed, racial
disparities in the distribution of custodial sentences have been found in multiple
recent analyses (Bales & Piquero, 2012; Spohn et al., 2014; Stolzenberg, D’Alessio, &
Eitle, 2013; Sutton, 2013).
Second, there may be good reason to distinguish among outcomes for defendants
according to the type and severity of criminal charges. Spohn et al. (2014) found
variance in racial disproportionality according to the type and severity of the charges
brought against defendants in their sample, with the greatest disparity found among
misdemeanor drug cases. Felony charges are more likely to carry mandatory
minimum sentences, which are likely to attenuate disparities when analysis is
­isolated to comparably charged felony defendants, as it was in the Wooldredge et al.
(2015) study. Finally, despite the standardizing effects of mandatory minimums,
research has often found racial disparities in sentence length and severity among
misdemeanor and felony cases (Rehavi & Starr, 2014; Stolzenberg et al., 2013;
Sutton, 2013).
Incarceration Massive racial disparities exist in the prison population. In 2010, Black
Americans were in prison at a rate 4.6 times greater than White Americans (National
Research Council, 2014). At the state level in 2014, Black citizens were incarcerated
at a rate 5.1 times that for White citizens—the disparity is more than 10 to 1 in five
states (Nellis, 2016). These disparities are striking, but considering them across the
whole population ignores the concentration of incarceration in one demographic
group: economically disadvantaged young Black men. On any given day in 2010,
about 35 percent of Black men between the ages of 20 and 39 who had not completed high school were in prison, compared to about 12 percent for young White
male drop‐outs (National Research Council, 2014). Finally, these disparities are
compounded when considering not just a single day, but the cumulative risk of
imprisonment over time. Among Black men born in the latter half of the 1970s who
did not finish high school, 69 percent would serve time in prison by their mid‐
thirties, while the same was true for only 15 percent of White dropouts. The absolute
numbers are lower among college graduates, but the disparities are actually greater:
7.6 percent of this demographic cohort of Black men versus 1.2 percent of White
men (Western & Wildeman, 2009).
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
21
Research on racial disparities in the juvenile justice system reveals a
consistent and troubling theme, namely, that minority youth, African Americans in
particular, are significantly less likely to receive therapeutic or rehabilitative
­sentences and accordingly more likely to receive more traditional custodial sentences, the primary function of which is to incapacitate (Cochran & Mears, 2015;
Fader, Kurlychek, & Morgan, 2014).
Drawing from cross‐sectional data from 40 counties in the United States, Howell
and Hutto (2012) found that Black and Hispanic youth were less likely than Whites to
receive probation, and accordingly more likely to receive a jail sentence. In a
longitudinal study of a sample of 12,906 adjudicated Philadelphia youth, Fader et al.
(2014) found similar racial disparities in punitive sentencing and resource allocation.
Among their sample, the most common sentence for White youth was a therapeutic
facility (57 percent), while for Black and Latino youth the most common disposition
was a physical regimen facility. This disparity was not significantly reduced by the
inclusion of legally relevant factors. The authors also found that although adjudication
for a drug‐related offense reduced the odds of a juvenile being placed in a traditional
setting rather than a therapeutic setting for all groups, this impact was significantly
reduced for Black and Latino youth compared to Whites (Fader et al., 2014).
Juvenile justice
Death penalty The most consistent form of racial disparity found in analyses of capital
cases shows a strong bias related to the victim’s race, with cases involving White victims bringing capital charges at two to three times the rate those charges are brought
in cases with minority victims (Baumgartner et al., 2015; Donohue, 2014; Phillips,
2012; Radelet & Pierce, 2011). Phillips (2012) found that this disparity doubled when
the victim was a White female. Research regarding a possible defendant race bias has
been somewhat more mixed. However, this is likely due at least in part to the
combination of (1) the fact that most murders are intraracial (Baumgartner et al.,
2015; Radelet & Pierce, 2011), and (2) the persistent and robust biasing effect of the
victim’s race. That is, “Whites tend to kill Whites and Blacks tend to kill Blacks, and the
death penalty is far more likely in cases where Whites are killed” (Radelet & Pierce,
2011). African Americans make up roughly half the total homicide victims in the US;
however, only 15 percent of executions have been carried out in cases involving Black
victims (Baumgartner et al., 2015). Among other troubling aspects, executions appear
more common in states with a history of lynchings (Jacobs, Kent, & Carmichael, 2005),
and wrongful convictions appear more likely for Black defendants, in part due to
­misidentification and the “other race effect” (e.g., Garrett, 2011; Wells & Olson, 2001)
The Causes of Racial Disproportionality
As has been described, substantial racial disproportionalities exist in contact
with the criminal justice system: Black Americans are stopped, arrested, charged,
convicted, and harshly punished more frequently than White Americans.
22
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
The ­critical question is why. We begin with the critical context for any explanation:
the stark socioeconomic inequalities experienced by Black versus White Americans.
We then draw on prior work to identify three broad possible explanations: that the
disparities are produced by true differences in offending, that they are produced by
bias in US laws and criminal justice policies, or that they are the product of the bias
of individual actors within the criminal justice system. We follow a brief description
of these possible explanations with a discussion of compounding effects, the idea
that these causes of disparities do not operate in isolation. Finally, given our
conclusion that specific policies bear significant responsibility for racial disparities
in contact with the criminal justice system, we discuss how these policies arose and
why they seem to have racial consequences.
Context: a brief history of race and inequality The social separation of and economic
inequality between Black and White Americans have been central features of American
life since its inception. For the first near‐century of its existence, the ­institution of
slavery legalized racial subjugation and economic exploitation. This institution was
central to America, involving a substantial portion of its population and constituting a
central place in the American economy through the massive profits generated by not
paying wages for labor (Baptist, 2014). After the dismantling of this important social
and economic institution in the Civil War, a series of institutions were created to replicate the racial separation, subjugation, and economic exploitation of Black Americans
previously achieved by slavery (e.g., Wacquant, 2003)—most directly the postwar
Black Codes and the post‐Reconstruction Jim Crow laws, both of which legally codified the residential segregation of and economic discrimination against Black
Americans. These legally codified forms of segregation and discrimination were
largely dismantled in the civil rights era, but de facto discrimination and segregation
remained, for instance through discriminatory lending and mortgage practices and
disparate educational access (e.g., Knowles & Prewitt, 1969). These racialized social
systems persist (e.g., Bonilla‐Silva, 1996, 2010). In short, as a consequence of historical
and contemporary mistreatment and bias in the labor market, massive racial economic
inequalities persist in the United States (e.g., Kochhar & Fry, 2014). Combined with
high levels of racial residential segregation, the consequence is that large numbers of
Black Americans reside in communities with levels of socioeconomic disadvantage
few White Americans ever experience (Peterson & Krivo, 2010).
We organize possible explanations for racial disparities in contact with the criminal justice system into three broad explanations,
each pointing toward a different source: differential offending, biased policies
and practices, and biased individuals. These explanations are not necessarily
competing: each may have some validity and each may compound the effects of
the others in producing disparities in criminal justice experiences of Black versus
White Americans.
Three explanations for disparities
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
23
First, the disparity in contact may result from a true difference in offending: that
members of racial minority groups offend at higher levels. As noted, race is not particularly meaningful biologically—instead, the importance of race lies in its social
construction and collective meaning (e.g., Haney‐López, 1994; Omi & Winant,
2015; Smedley & Smedley, 2005; Yudell et al., 2016). However, suggesting that race
is socially constructed does not mean that race cannot play a powerful role. As outlined, a combination of historical and contemporary forces has produced a situation
in which large numbers of Black Americans reside in communities with levels of
socioeconomic disadvantage few White Americans ever experience (e.g., Peterson &
Krivo, 2010). These differences in context constitute the most powerful explanation
for differences in offending (Krivo & Peterson, 1996; McNulty, Bellair, & Watts,
2013; Peterson & Krivo, 2010; Sampson & Lauritson, 1997; Sampson, Morenoff, &
Raudenbush, 2005; Sampson & Wilson, 1995). Additionally, some work has
­suggested that racism and racial oppression are also direct contributors to crime
(Du Bois, 1899; Unnever & Gabbidon, 2011).
Although some level of differential offending appears to exist, substantial racial
disparities in criminal justice contact persist even after controlling for differences in
offending. Thus, the second possible explanation is that disparities in contact with
the criminal justice system may be the product of specific laws and policies that
make such disparities inevitable. Policies emerging out of the “war on drugs” appear
to fit this pattern (e.g., Tonry, 1995; Provine, 2007). For instance, large disparities
exist despite evidence that drug use by minorities is no higher than that by Whites,
and may even be lower (Johnston, O’Malley, & Bachman, 2015). The explanation for
this appears to be rooted in racial biases in drug sanctions (Mitchell & Caudy, 2013).
As an example, from 1986 until 2010 a person needed to possess 100 times more
powder cocaine than crack cocaine to trigger the same federal criminal penalties—
drugs whose major distinction can be found not in their consequences but in the
racial groups with whom they are associated (Provine, 2007).2 Other policies criminalize “disorderly” activities enacted in public that are either allowable or ignored
when conducted in private for those who have access to such spaces (e.g., Sampson,
2009; Stinchcombe, 1963). More broadly, others have pointed out the disproportionate focus on “street crimes” committed by the poor rather than “suite crimes”
committed by the wealthy and powerful—despite the greater harm caused by the
latter (e.g., Hagan, 2010).
Finally, other explanations focus on the actions of individuals within the criminal
justice system, including police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, juries, prison
guards, and others. Some of these actions are influenced by policies, practices, and
organizational cultures. Others are the product of biases, animosities, and stereotypes on the part of the actors. Some of these biases and animosities consciously
influence actors’ behaviors, others may be less consciously‐motivated—the
consequence, for instance, of a failure to critically investigate the inconvenient truths
of racial privilege.
24
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
Compounding effects The sources of bias and disparities, however, do not operate in
isolation. A variety of research concerning race and the criminal justice system has
sought to account for the compounding nature of the effects of any bias or disparity
at a given decision point in the criminal justice process (e.g., Spohn et al., 2014;
Stolzenberg et al., 2013; Sutton, 2013; Wooldredge et al., 2015). That is, insofar as the
criminal justice system operates as a loosely integrated chain of events and decisions
wherein each prior determination influences the next, unequal treatments or biased
decisions will be carried forward and magnified as they erroneously inform the
subsequent decisions of agents and institutions.
This perspective deepens the significance of racial disproportionalities in police
contact early in life which cannot be explained by variance in delinquent behavior
(Crutchfield et al., 2012). If Black teens are experiencing twice as much contact with
police as their White peers, their relative risk of incurring an early record of deviant
or criminal behavior is accordingly doubled. Insofar as this risk disparity is not the
result of different rates of delinquent behavior, it is a profound injustice, saddling
African American youth with the stigmatizing effects of a criminal record and
­placing them at a competitive disadvantage before even reaching adulthood.
Police intervention during adolescence more than triples the odds of facing arrest
in early adulthood, which has a significant effect on drug use by age 30 (Lopes et al.,
2012). Adolescent experiences of police intervention also have significant negative
effects on employment and high school graduation, reducing the odds of graduation
by three times (Lopes et al., 2012). The consequences of racial disproportionalities
found in police contact among adolescents are compounded by the implications of
research showing consistently more punitive sentences and less rehabilitative
investment for minority juvenile offenders relative to comparably situated White
juveniles (Cochran & Mears, 2015; Fader et al., 2014; Howell & Hutto, 2012).
Given the compounding effects of racial inequality at any given point in the
criminal process, research identifying such unequal treatment in early stages, such
as pretrial detention and prosecutorial decisions, are especially alarming (Rehavi &
Starr, 2014; Spohn et al., 2014; Stolzenberg et al., 2013; Sutton, 2013; Wooldredge
et al., 2015; Wu, 2016). Research employing more traditional methodologies,
focusing on sentencing decisions, for example, takes factors such as custodial status
and charge severity as unproblematic givens and holds them constant, often as
legally relevant factors, in order to isolate the effects of race, and therefore fails to
capture the true racial disparities.
Taken together, this body of research assessing the cumulative effects of racial disparities within the various institutions of the justice system indicates that minority
youth, young African American males in particular, find themselves more likely to
experience police contact and intervention, which, if the result is processing as a
juvenile offender, places them at higher risk for custodial sentencing, reduced access
to rehabilitative intervention, and increased risk of arrest as adults, at which point
they are more likely to be aggressively prosecuted, subjected to pretrial detention,
and given longer, more punitive sentences. This induces a disproportionately severe
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
25
criminal stigma the deleterious effects of which can haunt them for decades after
(Bales & Piquero, 2012; Cochran & Mears, 2015; Crutchfield et al., 2012; Fader et al.,
2014; Howell & Hutto, 2012; Lopes et al., 2012; Rehavi & Starr, 2014; Spohn et al.,
2014; Stolzenberg et al., 2013; Sutton, 2013; Wooldredge et al., 2015; Wu, 2016).
Race, justice, and policy Policies with racially disproportionate effects are a major
component of any explanation for racial disproportionalities in criminal justice
system contact. As noted, these include laws and sanctions as well as the practices
and procedures of criminal justice system agents. They also include the policies that
helped create and maintain the economic disadvantage and residential segregation
that help to explain racial differences in offending. So any true understanding of
racial disparities must include an account of why these policies and practices exist.
The consensus suggestion is that the motivation of such policies is the preservation of the current racial hierarchy, with Whites in the position of greatest advantage
and Blacks in the position of least advantage (e.g., Peterson & Krivo, 2010). This
perspective has its roots in Marxist notions of conflict and group interest. In criminology, conflict theory suggests that those in power will use their control over the
lawmaking process and legal institutions to maintain that power (e.g., Chambliss,
1975). Sociological notions of racism similarly draw on the notion of groups and
interest, including Blumer’s (1958) definition of racism as a sense of group position.
As explicit forms of racism became less socially acceptable, new forms of modern
racism arose—described by Bobo et al. (1997) as “laissez‐faire” racism and Bonilla‐
Silva (2010) as “colorblind” racism—which still served to preserve status quo group
positions. Recent work suggest that even implicit racism—feelings or biases of
which the holder may not be aware—is rooted in the same group‐based goals
(e.g., Drakulich, 2015a, 2015b).
A brief review of the history of these policies is necessary. The United States has a
long history of criminal justice system participation in racial control. As with racial
economic inequalities, this history begins with chattel slavery, a system legally
established in the country’s founding documents. The police and other criminal justice system actors assisted in enforcing and maintaining slavery, including through
the Fugitive Slave Act, which entailed capturing not only escaped slaves but also free
Black citizens from Northern states and returning them to the South (e.g., Campbell,
1970). The constitutional amendment abolishing slavery contained a notable loophole, preserving it solely “as a punishment for crime.” Immediately following this,
new legal frameworks—the “Black Codes”—were put into place to preserve the
racial control of Black citizens and to continue to exploit their labor. The practice of
convict leasing took advantage of the loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment,
essentially reestablishing slavery for a large number of recently freed slaves by
imprisoning Blacks on petty offenses, including vagrancy, and then leasing their
labor to private employers—including in some cases to the same places that had
recently lost their slave labor (Blackmon, 2008; Sellin, 1976). At the end of
Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws were enacted, legalizing racial segregation and
26
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
discrimination in ways that ensured Blacks remained separate from Whites and
were forced to work for low wages (e.g., Alexander, 2010). During this period of
time, police officers often participated in extrajudicial acts of racial control and
­subjugation—lynchings—blurring the boundary between the formal legal system
and organized vigilante violence (e.g., Tolnay & Beck, 1995).
Jim Crow was largely dismantled during the civil rights era. At this same time,
White Southern politicians who feared the changes posed by the civil rights
movement began redefining the protests as criminal and using the police and the
criminal justice system to actively combat the protestors (e.g., Beckett & Sasson,
2004; Tonry, 2011). This marked the emergence of “law and order” rhetoric in
American politics, in which politicians began to call for “tough on crime” policies
as a way of signaling to voters who were uncomfortable with the changes posed by
the civil rights movement (e.g., Beckett, 1997; Beckett & Sasson, 2004; Tonry,
2011). As the civil rights movement made open expressions of racial antipathy less
socially acceptable, law and order rhetoric was used as a “racial dog whistle” to
signal to voters uncomfortable with the changes posed by the civil rights movement
without openly advocating racial control (e.g., Beckett, 1997; Beckett & Sasson,
2004; Tonry, 2011). This usage continued in subsequent elections, during the
“wars” on crime and drugs (Beckett & Sasson, 2004; Tonry, 2011), and even to
today, when understandings of crime remain highly racialized (Drakulich, 2015a,
2015b) and when racialized views of criminal justice issues remain important
­predictors of political behavior (Drakulich et al., 2016; Matsueda, Drakulich,
Hagan, Krivo, & Peterson, 2011).
The consequence of the emphasis on tough‐on‐crime rhetoric has been the
establishment of tough‐on‐crime policies, including the wars on crime and drugs,
the rise of aggressive zero‐tolerance forms of policing, sentencing reform and
mandatory minimums, and the massive expansion of incarceration and the
growth of the prison industry (Clear, 2007; Tonry, 2011). These policies have
­disproportionately harmed African Americans, reinforcing social segregation and
maintaining economic inequalities (e.g., Alexander, 2010; Tonry, 2011; Western,
2006). Prison work programs continue the practice of labor exploitation, paying
prisoners well below minimum wages while in many cases leasing their labor to
private corporations.
In short, a linked chain of institutions exists extending from slavery through the
current system of aggressive policing and mass incarceration (Alexander, 2010;
Wacquant, 2003). Each of these institutions has served the same two purposes: labor
extraction/exploitation and ethno‐racial closure (Wacquant, 2003). The persistence
of severe inequalities results in social instabilities that are also managed using
the instruments of the criminal justice system (Wacquant, 2003). In fact, the
existence of racial disparities in imprisonment serves to hide the true magnitude of
racial economic inequalities (Pettit, 2012). The politics of crime can serve similar
functions: moral panics about crime serve to justify and legitimize racial oppression
(Chambliss, 1975). In this light, severe racial disproportionality in contact with the
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
27
criminal ­justice system cannot be understood simply as an unfortunate byproduct of
an ­otherwise race‐neutral system—it is instead the product of successful policy
efforts to achieve just that end.
Future Directions for Race and Justice
Despite a relative consensus about many aspects of the intersection of race and
­justice, future theory and research in the area face several core challenges and unanswered questions. The following discusses several of the larger challenges and
outstanding questions, organized into theoretical, methodological, and substantive
concerns.
Theoretical Directions
Key questions exist about aspects of the most foundational race and justice questions. Among the most basic, definitional questions about race itself remain hard to
answer conclusively. A person’s self‐identified race may differ from the views others
have of them, and these external views may vary as well, raising serious question
about the meaning or effect of race. Additionally, as a socially constructed rather
than biological category, race is fluid and ever changing in its meaning and importance. As race remains an important social and political topic, understandings of
race will likely continue to be contested and change. This has important implications
for work on race: for instance, it complicates the popular narrative of a looming
“majority non‐White” America (e.g., Alba, 2016). The scholar’s own racial identity
and position may also be relevant, recommending a reflexive approach (e.g.,
Emirbayer & Desmond, 2015).
A closely related theoretical issue is the definition of racism. Racism and bias are
often raised as key components for an understanding of racial disparities in criminal
justice outcomes, either to explain the actions of individuals or to explain the
­motivations or support behind race‐disparate policies. This is complicated by the
seeming decline in explicit and overt expressions of racism (e.g., Krysan & Moberg,
2016; Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, & Krysan, 1997). The product is a seeming paradox in
which many White Americans openly eschew racism while supporting policies with
racially disparate outcomes (e.g., Drakulich, 2015b). This has forced a rethinking of
the definition and forms of racism. Jackman and Muha (1984), for instance, suggest
that when racial disparities are challenged, those in the more advantaged group will
shift their ideology to explicitly eschew any focus on race and instead emphasize
individualism in understanding outcomes while ignoring that members of different
groups experience fewer opportunities and greater constraints. In other words,
despite the seemingly different focus and language, this new form of racism is
consistent with older sociological notions of racism in that it supports the
­
28
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
m
­ aintenance of status quo group positions—with White Americans more advantaged
and Black Americans more disadvantaged (Blumer, 1958; Bobo et al., 1997; Bonilla‐
Silva, 2010). Accordingly, justifications for policies with race‐disparate consequences
have increasingly relied on ideological grounds while fiercely denying any racial
motivations. In some cases, those who advocate such ideologies and support racially
disparate policies may not be conscious of racial motivations, even when they show
implicit signs of racial antipathy (Drakulich, 2015a, 2015b). Even further, some
support may be rooted in a semiconscious naivety about race, one rooted in the
desire to avoid the inconvenient truths discovered upon more direct considerations
of racial privilege. A key theoretical question is whether this is a straightforward
extension of older forms of racism or whether new theories and perhaps even new
language are needed to describe these cases. For a start on these issues, race and justice scholars should look to work by Lawrence Bobo (Bobo et al., 1997; Bobo &
Smith, 1998), Eduardo Bonilla‐Silva (2010), and Joe Feagin (2009). However, the
openness of racial antipathy in the 2016 presidential election (e.g., Drakulich et al.,
2016) raises questions about any linear trend away from explicit racism, and further
theoretical work is urgently needed to help account for this development. In sum: to
understand the connection between race and justice, we need a firm understanding
of racism and racial bias. This means continuing to understand the new, less overt
forms of racism, but also the more recent challenges to the notion that older, more
explicit forms of racism are declining or anachronistic.
Finally, more theoretical refinement is necessary on the notion of justice itself. For
decades, our primary penal philosophy has been a poorly defined focus on toughness, with the implication that such toughness would achieve some equally poorly
defined idea of safety (e.g., Clear, 2007). On the other side, “equal treatment” is a
similarly problematic goal when it puts disproportionate emphasis on explicit
discrimination and ignores the structural sources of differential offending and the
racial construction of broader laws and policies. Those calling for police or justice
system abolition have been accused of ignoring the strong desire for effective criminal
justice investment in community safety among many living in predominantly Black
communities. Community justice’s focus on the goal of community well‐being is
laudable, but the work often lacks an explicit account of racial dynamics in our social
structure and public institutions and thus its suggestions sometimes seem naive to
racial realities. As race and justice scholars advocate a move away from the simplistic, racist, and failed goal of toughness, they must work to better theoretically
define the goals and orientations which should inform the future of criminal justice
policy and research.
More fundamentally, if justice is the product of a democratic process in which
persons regarded as free and equal become both the authors (via representation)
and subjects of laws, what does it mean when racial groups are not equal, and indeed
when the law is enforced disproportionately against one group without that group’s
assent? What does it mean when this same group is alienated from those spheres and
institutions by which people exercise their political rights and accrue the duties of
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
29
citizenship, in part through the enforcement of these very same laws (e.g., Manza &
Uggen, 2006)? This raises serious questions about the development of legal
­obligation, a question echoed in work on perceptions of criminal injustice and legal
cynicism (Hagan, Shedd, & Payne, 2005; Kirk & Matsuda, 2011; Kirk & Papachristos,
2011; Sampson & Bartusch, 1998). These questions are central to understanding the
complex interrelationships between crime, the criminal justice system, and the
broader social and political structures of society.
Methodological Directions
Many of the core methodological issues facing work on race and justice are related
to the problem that much of the data used to investigate the topic is itself racially
biased. A central task in race and justice work is the identification of the source of
the racially disproportionate outcomes. A variety of work attempting to distinguish criminal justice bias from differential offending do so by controlling for
“legally relevant” factors like prior records and the seriousness of crimes, while
failing to acknowledge the ways in which those factors—far from being “objective
facts”—are often socially constructed along racial lines. Prior records can be the
product of differential enforcement, while police and prosecutors both exercise a
wide range of discretion in how cases are described, presented, and charged.
Failing to account for the cumulative and compounding effects of early‐process
disparities will lead to an underestimation of racial disparities. This is especially
true of research which uses these “legally relevant” variables as some indicator of
true threat or culpability, rather than merely as a tool to identify where in the
­process disparities are produced.
A related problem involves interests and politics in the collection of data, in
particular institutional or governmental data collection. One issue that gained visibility in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement—a movement that gained
widespread recognition for drawing critical attention to the deaths of Black
Americans at the hands of the police—was the lack of independent data on officer‐
involved shootings or on officer behavior (or misbehavior) more generally.3 Related
to this, federal data collection on race, including through the census and especially
for the purposes of showing racial bias, as in the Fair Housing Act, are increasingly
being threatened by lawmakers interested in eliminating racial civil rights
­protections.4 This raises a basic question: Is it possible for an institution to collect
data in an unbiased fashion which may be used in a way that conflicts with the interests of that organization or its key decision‐makers? One solution is independent
data collection, though this presents logistical and access hurdles that are not easily
resolved on a broad scale. In any case, it is imperative that race and justice scholars
pay particularly close attention to these issues when interpreting their work—­
recognizing, for instance, the potential bias in data about the police that are self‐
reported by the police.
30
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
The measurement of race is itself an issue. Older work often treated race as
categorical and even binary (White versus Black, or White versus “other”). Some
newer work better recognizes intersections and gradations, including work on skin
tone. Work should also continue to move beyond a simplistic binary conception.
Until recently, due to the nature of available data, studies on the subject were frequently conducted in binary Black/White terms, with Latinos classified as White
(e.g., Sutton, 2013). Therefore, insofar as Latinos are subjected to inequalities in the
system, their results were diminishing the contrast in outcomes between Whites and
people of Color. As discussed earlier, a central challenge for theories of race is the
constantly shifting landscape of race itself. This phenomenon also presents a clear
challenge for the measurement of race, and, critically for race and justice scholars,
the measurement of racial disparities.
Finally, the measurement of racism is also an ongoing issue, one related to the
theoretical issues surrounding racism already described. Open expressions of racial
bias and antipathy have declined since the Jim Crow era (e.g., Krysan & Moberg,
2016; Schuman et al., 1997). Some of this likely reflects true shifts in attitudes, but it
also likely reflects changes in the social acceptability of expressing these views.
Additionally, some may hold racial antipathies or bias without consciously
­recognizing it (e.g., Banaji & Greenwald, 2013). This presents a very basic barrier to
those seeking to investigate the role of racism among criminal justice system actors,
jurors, witnesses, or more broadly among those who politically support racially disproportionate policies. One approach is to capture the attitudes through less direct
questions. The racial resentment scale is one popular example and includes questions tapping indirectly into views of Blacks as undeserving and as individually
responsible for their collective social and economic status (Henry & Sears, 2002).
One problem with the measure is that many who hold the views included in the
scale insist they are purely ideological and not motivated by race. This is not necessarily a threat to the content validity of the scale, as this objection is predicted by
theories of racism (Bobo et al., 1997; Bonilla‐Silva, 2010; Jackman & Muha, 1984).
It does, however, have implications for the translation of such work into policy
change or public understandings of the issue. In short, a core issue for some
­measures of modern racism is that those identified as racist are likely to reject the
measure along with any implications of race and justice research that employs it.
A different approach, informed by social‐psychological work on automatic associations and unconscious behavior, attempts to capture evidence of racial bias or
animus implicitly, including the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Banaji & Greenwald,
2013; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) and the Affect Misattribution
Procedure (AMP) (Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005). Key measurement
issues remain unresolved for these relatively new techniques, but early work has
interesting implications for race and justice scholars. In one study, subjects had an
easier time recognizing degraded images of crime‐relevant objects like guns when
primed with an image of a Black face (Eberhardt, Goff, Purdie, & Davies, 2004).
A modified version of the IAT revealed associations between Black faces and
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
31
weapons even when the weapons were old‐fashioned cannons and swords rather
than modern weapons associated with street crime (Banaji & Greenwald, 2013).
Finally, those who possess implicit animus toward Blacks—as measured by the
AMP—were more likely to hold a whole series of understandings of both crime and
economic inequality consistent with maintaining status quo group relations
(Drakulich, 2015a, 2015b). As social‐psychological work further refines these or
suggests new measures, race and justice scholars would do well to investigate their
relevance to these issues.
Substantive Directions
We began this overview with two basic and well‐established facts: that large racial
disparities in contact with the criminal justice system exist, and that race only matters as a social construction. To this we add a third well‐established fact: the consequences of this contact with the criminal justice system are severe. Negative contact
with the police breeds legal cynicism—a cultural frame in which the police are not
only seen as unjust and therefore illegitimate, but also as failing at crime prevention,
protection, and in providing public safety (Anderson, 1999; Carr, Napolitano, &
Keating, 2007; Kirk & Matsuda, 2011; Kirk & Papachristos, 2011; Sampson &
Bartusch, 1998). A lack of confidence in the police also breeds fears of crime and
reduces willingness to engage in informal actions against crime (Drakulich, 2013;
Drakulich & Crutchfield, 2013). Incarceration has even more devastating familial,
social, economic, and political consequences (Clear, 2007; Clear & Frost, 2014;
Manza & Uggen, 2006; Mauer & Chesney‐Lind, 2002; Pettit, 2012; Pettit & Western,
2004; Western, 2006).
The evidence, then, suggests we have organized our social structure, laws, and
criminal justice institutions in ways that unjustly cause disproportionate harm to
Black Americans. The major question concerns what can be done to redress it. Some
have attempted to address this question solely in technical terms, recommending
specific changes to policy or practice, and there is no question that it is useful to have
specific policy recommendations that are rooted in the evidence. However, any true
accounting of what can and should be done cannot stop at the identification of problematic policies, but must also consider the political and social forces that have put
these policies into place.
As discussed, racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system is no mere
unfortunate accident. It is instead the successful product of policies designed to
maintain the racial order. The criminal justice system is only the most recent iteration of a historic series of institutions whose purpose is ethno‐racial separation and
labor exploitation. If this is true, it has profound implications for what to do about
the problem.
One implication of this group conflict perspective is that advocacy for racial
­justice will likely be seen as a threat to the existing racial order, and will provoke a
32
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
concerted opposition. Much has been written about the “backlash” to the civil rights
movement of the 1960s (e.g., Beckett & Sasson, 2004), as well as to the due process
and legal protections reforms of the Warren Court (Feld, 2003). Similarly, the Black
Lives Matter movement appears to have provoked a backlash of pro‐police rhetoric,
rooted in racial animus, which played a major role in the 2016 presidential election
(Drakulich et al., 2016). If earlier backlashes helped usher in the profoundly
­damaging “tough on crime” movement, race and justice scholars should be very
concerned about the potential consequences of this potential newer backlash.
This provokes a basic strategic question about achieving racial justice: Should
proposals specifically target racial injustices or focus on more general criminal justice reforms with the hope that those reforms will benefit Black citizens? The
argument for the latter is rooted mostly in its presumed practicality, especially in a
country in which White citizens still hold disproportionate political power.
Additionally, if the long‐term goal is a society in which policies do not have racially
disproportionate impacts, this strategy has the obvious appeal of not being race targeted. However, opponents would point out that nonracial attempts to address racial
inequalities—for instance, efforts targeted at class or poverty‐reduction—are often
disproportionately taken advantage of by White rather than Black citizens. Similarly,
despite the appeal of nonracial policies, the existing inequalities are themselves the
product of explicitly race‐based policies that advantaged Whites, meaning new
explicitly race‐based policies may be necessary to reverse their effects (Katznelson,
2005; Peterson & Krivo, 2010). In addition, associations between race, crime, and
the US justice system may be so strong that even reforms framed in race‐neutral
language will be viewed through racial lenses. Finally, attempts to change policies
which both result from and which purposefully serve to reinforce racial disparities
in political power may be more likely to fail unless they directly address those
­disparities in political power. These questions are far from resolved and would
benefit from serious theoretical, empirical, and strategic consideration.
Notes
1 Note: for the sake of space we focus exclusively on race—ethnicity is covered elsewhere in
this volume—and we focus in particular on White and Black Americans who sit, respectively, at the top and bottom of the US racial hierarchy (Peterson & Krivo, 2010) and for
whom the greatest disparities in the criminal justice system contact exist. We also, for the
sake of space, focus on race and justice issues in the US context, although many of these
issues have parallels in other social contexts. On language: we use “Black” and “African
Americans” interchangeably, and “White” to refer to non‐Hispanic White Americans.
2 The 2010 Fair Sentencing Act ostensibly sought to address this blatant disparity, but in the
end merely reduced it to 18:1 while failing to make the change retroactive.
3 Police may opt in to self‐reporting fatal shootings to the FBI, but the large number who
do not and the lack of any information on nonfatal encounters severely limits its utility.
4 For example, Representative Paul Gosar (R‐AZ) and Senator Mike Lee’s (R‐UT) companion
bills titled “Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2017” (H.R. 482 and S. 103).
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
33
References
Alba, R. (2016). The likely persistence of a White majority: How Census Bureau statistics
have misled thinking about the American future. American Prospect. Retrieved from
http://prospect.org/article/likely‐persistence‐white‐majority‐0
Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness.
New York, NY: New Press.
Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence and the moral life of the inner city.
New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Bales, W. D., & Piquero, A. R. (2012). Racial/ethnic differentials in sentencing to incarceration. Justice Quarterly, 29(5), 742–773.
Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. (2013). Blindspot: The hidden biases of good people. New York,
NY: Random House.
Baptist, E. E. (2014). The half has never been told: Slavery and the making of American
capitalism. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Baumgartner, F. R., Epp, D. A., Shoub, K., & Love, B. (2017). Targeting young men of Color
for search and arrest during traffic stops: Evidence from North Carolina, 2002–2013.
Politics, Groups, and Identities, 5(1), 107–131.
Baumgartner, F. R., Grigg, A. J., & Mastro, A. (2015). #BlackLivesDon’tMatter: Race‐of‐victim
effects in US executions, 1976–2013. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 3(2), 209–221.
Beckett, K. (1997). Making crime pay: Law and order in contemporary American politics.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Beckett, K., & Sasson, T. (2004). The politics of injustice: Crime and punishment in America
(2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Blackmon, D. A. (2008). Slavery by another name: The re‐enslavement of African‐Americans
from the Civil War to World War II. New York, NY: Anchor Books.
Blumer, H. (1958). Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review,
1(1), 3–7.
Bobo, L., Kluegel, J. R., & Smith, R. A. (1997). Laissez‐faire racism: The crystallization of a
kinder, gentler, antiblack ideology. In S. A. Tuch & J. K. Martin (Eds.), Racial attitudes in
the 1990s: Continuity and change (pp. 15–41). Westport, CT: Praeger.
Bobo, L., & Smith, R. A. (1998). From Jim Crow racism to laissez‐faire racism: The transformation of racial attitudes. In W. F. Katkin, N. Landsman, & A. Tyree (Eds.), Beyond
Pluralism: The Conception of Groups and Group Identities in America (pp. 182–220).
Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Bonilla‐Silva, E. (1996). Rethinking racism: Toward a structural interpretation. American
Sociological Review, 62(3), 465–480.
Bonilla‐Silva, E. (2010). Racism without racists: Color‐blind racism and the persistence of
racial inequality in the United States (3rd ed.). New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2013). Police behavior during traffic and street stops, 2011
(Research Report No. NCJ 242937, by L. Langton & M. Durose). US Department of
Justice. Retrieved from https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pbtss11.pdf
Campbell, S. W. (1970). The slave catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850–1860.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Carr, P. J., Napolitano, L., & Keating, J. (2007). We never call the cops and here is why:
A qualitative examination of legal cynicism in three Philadelphia neighborhoods.
Criminology, 45(2), 445–480.
34
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
Chambliss, W. (1975). Toward a political economy of crime. Theory and Society, 2(2),
149–170.
Clear, T. R. (2007). Imprisoning communities: How mass incarceration makes disadvantaged
neighborhoods worse. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Clear, T. R., & Frost, N. A. (2014). The punishment imperative: The rise and failure of mass
incarceration in America. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Cochran, J. C., & Mears, D. P. (2015). Race, ethnic, and gender divides in juvenile court sanctioning and rehabilitative intervention. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency,
52(2), 181–212.
Crutchfield, R. D., Skinner, M. L., Haggerty, K. P., McGlynn, A., & Catalano, R. F. (2012).
Racial disparity in police contacts. Race and Justice, 2(3), 179–202.
Donohue, J. J., III. (2014). An empirical evaluation of the Connecticut death penalty system
since 1973: Are there unlawful racial, gender, and geographic disparities? Journal of
Empirical Legal Studies, 11(4), 637–696.
Drakulich, K. M. (2013). Perceptions of the local danger posed by crime: Race, Disorder,
informal control, and the police. Social Science Research, 42(3), 611–632.
Drakulich, K. M. (2015a). Explicit and hidden racial bias in the framing of social problems.
Social Problems, 62(3), 391–418.
Drakulich, K. M. (2015b). The hidden role of racial bias in support for policies related to
inequality and crime. Punishment & Society, 17(5), 541–574.
Drakulich, K. M., & Crutchfield, R. D. (2013). The role of perceptions of the police in informal
social control: Implications for the racial stratification of crime and control. Social
Problems, 60(3), 383–407.
Drakulich, K., Hagan, J., Johnson, D., & Wozniak, K. H. (2016). Race, justice, policing, and
the 2016 American presidential election. Du Bois Review. Online First. DOI:10.1017/
S1742058X1600031X
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1899). The Philadelphia negro. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Eberhardt, J. L., Goff, P. A., Purdie, V. J., & Davies, P. G. (2004). Seeing black: Race, crime, and
visual processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 876–893.
Emirbayer, M., & Desmond, M. (2015). The racial order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Fader, J. J., Kurlychek, M. C., & Morgan, K. A. (2014). The color of juvenile justice: Racial
disparities in dispositional decisions. Social Science Research, 44, 126–140.
Feagin, J. R. (2009). The White racial frame: Centuries of racial framing and counter‐framing.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Feld, B. C. (2003). Race, politics, and juvenile justice: The Warren court and the conservative
“backlash.” Minnesota Law Review, 87, 1447–1578.
Fryer, R. G., Jr. (2016, July). An empirical analysis of racial differences in police use of force
(NBER Working Paper No. 22399). National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved
from http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399
Garrett, B. L. (2011). Convicting the innocent: Where criminal prosecutions go wrong.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. (1998). Measuring individual differences
in implicit cognition: The implicit association task. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 74(6), 1464–1480.
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
35
Hagan, J. (2010). Who are the criminals? The politics of crime policy from the age of Roosevelt
to the age of Reagan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hagan, J, Shedd, C, & Payne, M. R. (2005). Race, ethnicity, and youth perceptions of criminal
injustice. American Sociological Review, 70(3), 381–407.
Haney‐López, I. F. (1994). The social construction of race: Some observations on illusion,
fabrication, and choice. Harvard Civil Rights‐Civil Liberties Law Review, 29(1), 1–62.
Henry, P. J., & Sears, D. O. (2002). The symbolic racism 2000 scale. Political Psychology,
23(2), 253–283.
Howell, R. J., & Hutto, T. S. (2012). Sentencing convicted juvenile felony offenders in
the adult court: The direct effects of race. Behavioral Sciences and the Law,
30(6), 782–799.
Jackman, M. R. & Muha, M. J. (1984). Education and intergroup attitudes: Moral enlightenment, superficial democratic commitment, or ideological refinement? American
Sociological Review, 49(6), 751–769.
Jacobs, D., Kent, S. L., & Carmichael, J. T. (2005). Vigilantism, current racial threat, and death
sentences. American Sociological Review, 70(4), 656–677.
Johnston, L. D., O’Malley, P. M., & Bachman, J. G. (2015). Monitoring the future: National
survey results on drug use, 1975–2014: Overview, key findings on adolescent drug use.
Bethesda, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Jones‐Brown, D., Gill, J., & Trone, J. (2010). Stop, question and frisk policing practices in
New York City: A primer. New York, NY: John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Retrieved
from https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/PRIMER_electronic_version.pdf
Katznelson, I. (2005). When affirmative action was White. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.
Kirk, D. S. & Matsuda, M. (2011). Legal cynicism, collective efficacy, and the ecology of
arrest. Criminology, 49(2), 443–472.
Kirk, D., & Papachristos, A. V. (2011). Cultural mechanisms and the persistence of neighborhood violence. American Journal of Sociology, 116(4), 1190–1233.
Knowles, L. L. & Prewitt, K. (1969). Institutional racism in America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Kochel, T. R., Wilson, D. B., & Mastrofski, S. D. (2011). Effect of suspect race on officers’
arrest decisions. Criminology, 49(2), 473–512.
Kochhar, R., & Fry, R. (2014). Wealth inequality has widened along racial, ethnic lines
since end of Great Recession. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Retrieved
from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact‐tank/2014/12/12/racial‐wealth‐gaps‐great‐
recession/
Krivo, L. J., & Peterson, R. D. (1996). Extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods and urban
crime. Social Forces, 75(2), 619–648.
Krysan, M., & Moberg, S. P. (2016). Trends in racial attitudes. University of Illinois Institute
of Government and Public Affairs. Retrieved from http://igpa.uillinois.edu/programs/
racial‐attitudes
Lopes, G., Krohn, M. D., Lizotte, A. J., Schmidt, N. M., Vasquez, B. E., & Bernburg, J. G.
(2012). Labeling and cumulative disadvantage: The impact of formal police intervention
on life chances and crime during emerging adulthood. Crime & Delinquency, 58(3),
456–488.
Lytle, D. J. (2014). The effects of suspect characteristics on arrest: A meta‐analysis. Journal of
Criminal Justice, 42(6), 589–597.
36
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
Manza, J., & Uggen, C. (2006). Locked out: Felon disenfranchisement and American ­democracy.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Matsueda, R. L., Drakulich, K. M., Hagan, J., Krivo, L. J., & Peterson, R. D. (2011). Crime,
perceptions of criminal injustice, and electoral politics. In J. Aldrich & K. M. McGraw
(Eds.), Improving public opinion surveys: Interdisciplinary innovation and the American
National Election Studies (pp. 323–341). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Mauer, M., & Chesney‐Lind, M. (Eds.). (2002). Invisible punishment: The collateral consequences of mass imprisonment. New York, NY: New Press.
McNulty, T. L., Bellair, P. E., & Watts, S. J. (2013). Neighborhood disadvantage and verbal
ability as explanations of the Black–White difference in adolescent violence: Toward an
integrated model. Crime and Delinquency, 59(1), 140–160.
Mitchell, O., & Caudy, M. S. (2015). Examining racial disparities in drug arrests. Justice
Quarterly, 32(2), 288–313.
National Research Council. (2014). The growth of incarceration in the United States: Exploring
causes and consequences (J. Travis, B. Western, & S. Redburn, Eds.). Committee on
Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press.
Nellis, A. (2016). The color of justice: Racial and ethnic disparity in state prisons. Report for the
Sentencing Project, Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.sentencingproject.
org/publications/color‐of‐justice‐racial‐and‐ethnic‐disparity‐in‐state‐prisons/
Nix, J., Campbell, B. A., Byers, E. H., & Alpert, G. P. (2017). A bird’s eye view of civilians killed
by police in 2015: Further evidence of implicit bias. Criminology and Public Policy, 16(1),
309–340.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2015). Racial formation in the United States (3rd ed.). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Payne, B. K., Cheng, C. M., Govorun, O., & Stewart, B. D. (2005). An inkblot for attitudes:
Affect misattribution as implicit measurement. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 89(3), 277–293.
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2010). Divergent social worlds: Neighborhood crime and the
racial‐spatial divide. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Pettit, B. (2012). Invisible men: Mass incarceration and the myth of Black progress. New York,
NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Pettit, B, & Western, B. (2004). Mass imprisonment and the life course: Race and class
inequality in US incarceration. American Sociological Review, 69(2), 151–169.
Phillips, S. (2012). Continued racial disparities in the capital of capital punishment: The
Rosenthal era. Houston Law Review, 50(1), 131–155.
Provine, D. M. (2007). Unequal under law: Race in the war on drugs. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Radelet, M. L., & Pierce, G. L. (2011). Race and death sentencing in North Carolina, 1980–
2007. North Carolina Law Review, 89(6), 2119–2160.
Rehavi, M. M., & Starr, S. B. (2014). Racial disparity in federal criminal sentences. Journal of
Political Economy, 122(6), 1320–1354.
Rojek, J., Rosenfeld, R., & Decker, S. (2012). Policing race: The racial stratification of searches
in police traffic stops. Criminology, 50(4), 993–1024.
Rosich, K. J. (2007). Race, ethnicity, and the criminal justice system. Washington, DC:
American Sociological Association.
The State of Race and Justice Theory and Research
37
Sampson, R. J. (2009). Disparity and diversity in the contemporary city: Social (dis)order
revisited. British Journal of Sociology, 60(1), 1–31.
Sampson, R. J., & Bartusch, D. J. (1998). Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) tolerance of
­deviance: The neighborhood context of racial difference. Law & Society Review,
32(4), 777–804.
Sampson, R. J., & Lauritson, J. (1997). Racial and ethnic disparities in crime and criminal
justice in the United States. Crime and Justice, 21, 311–374.
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Raudenbush, S. (2005). Social anatomy of racial and ethnic
disparities in violence. American Journal of Public Health, 95(2), 224–232.
Sampson, R. J., & Wilson, W. J. (1995). Toward a theory of race, crime, and urban inequality.
In J. Hagan and R. Peterson (Eds.), Crime and Inequality (pp. 37–56). Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Schuman, H., Steeh, C., Bobo, Lawrence D., & Krysan, M. (1997). Racial attitudes in America:
Trends and interpretations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sellin, J. T. (1976). Slavery and the penal system. New York, NY: Elsevier Science.
Smedley, A., & Smedley, B. D. (2005). Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is
real: Anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construction of race.
American Psychologist, 60(1), 16–26.
Spohn, C. C., Andiloro, N. R., Johnson, B. D., & Kutateladze, B. L. (2014). Cumulative disadvantage: Examining racial and ethnic disparity in prosecution and sentencing.
Criminology, 52(3), 514–551.
Stinchcombe, A. L. (1963). Institutions of privacy in the determination of police administrative
practice. American Journal of Sociology, 69(2), 150–160.
Stolzenberg, L., D’Alessio, S. J., & Eitle, D. (2013). Race and cumulative discrimination in the
prosecution of criminal defendants. Race and Justice, 3(4), 275–299.
Sutton, J. R. (2013). Structural bias in the sentencing of felony defendants. Social Science
Research, 42(5), 1207–1221.
Tolnay, S. E., & Beck, E. M. (1995). A festival of violence: An analysis of Southern lynchings,
1882–1930. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Tonry, M. (1995). Malign neglect: Race, crime, and punishment in America. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
Tonry, M. (2011). Punishing race: A continuing American dilemma. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Unnever, J. D., & Gabbidon, S. L. (2011). A theory of African‐American offending. New York, NY:
Routledge.
US Bureau of the Census. (1793). Return of the whole number of persons within the several
districts of the United States. Philadelphia, PA: Author.
Wacquant, L. (2003). America’s new “peculiar institution”: On the prison as surrogate ghetto.
In T. G. Blomberg & S. Cohen (Eds.), Punishment and social control (2nd ed., pp. 471–482).
New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Wells, G. L., & Olson, E. A. (2001). The other‐race effect in eyewitness identification: What
do we know about it? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 7(1), 23–46.
Western, B. (2006). Punishment and inequality in America. New York, NY: Russell Sage
Foundation.
Western, B., & Wildeman, C. (2009). The Black family and incarceration. Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 621(1), 221–242.
38
Kevin Drakulich and Eric Rodriguez-Whitney
Wooldredge, J., Frank, J., Goulette, N., & Travis, L., III. (2015). Is the impact of cumulative
disadvantage on sentencing greater for Black defendants? Criminology & Public Policy,
vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 187–233.
Wu, J. (2016). Racial/ethnic discrimination and prosecution: A meta‐analysis. Criminal
Justice and Behavior, 43(4), 437–458.
Yudell, M., Roberts, D., DeSalle, R., & Tishkoff, S.. (2016). Taking race out of human genetics.
Science, 351(6273), 564–565.
2
Ethnicity and Crime
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
Decades of research on crime and delinquency at both the macro and micro levels
have recognized the intersection of race and ethnicity with a variety of crime and
criminal justice outcomes. However, the lion’s share of sociological and criminological studies have engaged in investigations of crime, victimization, and criminal
­justice disparities between races (Black and White populations). As such, research
on the role of ethnicity, specifically Latino, in crime and crime‐related outcomes is
less established. Therefore, the primary goal of this chapter is to review research and
document the scholarly thinking about ethnicity as a concept and measure in
­criminological research at the macro and micro levels. We also discuss the usefulness of including ethnicity in research that seeks to better understand disparities in
crime and criminal justice responses. Here, in our effort to review micro‐level investigations, we consider ethnicity as captured by the self‐identification measures of
either Hispanic or Latino status, and review macro‐level works that use similar
aggregated measures.
Ethnicity as a Measurable Concept
Like race, ethnicity is a social construction used to denote national origin, degrees
of inclusion or exclusion from the dominant social groups in society, political
­participation, and social organization (Brubaker, 2009, pp. 25–26). However, in the
United States, ethnicity—unlike race—is a concept that, in many ways, is defined
by internal self‐identification and nation of origin rather than only on external
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
40
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
­phenotypical categorizations. For instance, ethnic identity is voluntary, and ethnicity, unlike racial identity, also encompasses attachment to various cultural characteristics (e.g., language and customs) (Brubaker, 2004). From 1900 to 1930, US
residents and polity struggled with the concepts of race and ethnicity; definitions
were continually evolving, and the importance of using these concepts to organize
and stratify American society were influencing nearly every aspect of citizens’ lives
(Guglielmo & Lewis, 2003; Heinze, 2003). By simply tracing the ethnic designations
documented in the decennial census from 1940 to 2010, it is clear that the concept
of ethnicity for US residents and communities continues to evolve. Given this history, ethnicity in the United States has proved difficult to measure and include in
studies on the causes and consequences of crime due to its changing parameters.
Early Measurement
Historically, due to the lack of ethnicity and immigration measures in official crime,
victimization, and criminal justice data sources, scholars interested in the role of
ethnicity and immigration in crime‐related phenomena have been forced to do so
from an ecological perspective by examining aggregate population characteristics in
communities, and/or studying ethnic and immigration patterns related to crime/
criminal justice at the individual level, using youth self‐report surveys with race and
ethnicity self‐report measures (Morenoff & Astor, 2006, p. 37). The theoretical perspectives often used to examine mechanisms related to the role of ethnicity in
classical criminological scholarship include subcultural (Curtis, 1975; Gastil, 1971;
Hackney, 1969; Wolfgang & Ferracuti, 1967) and social (dis)organization (Shaw &
McKay, 1942; W. Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918). Most notably, early empirical works
from Chicago School scholars on variations in delinquency rates across the city of
Chicago made clear distinctions between communities based on residents’ ethnicity
as nation of origin (Shaw & McKay, 1942; W. Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918). Using
aggregate measures of foreign born (determined based on self‐reported birthplace)
in conjunction with other aggregated structural characteristics in various census
tracts enabled the Chicago School researchers to examine community structural
mechanisms underlying delinquency.1 Early research contributions also made ethnic
distinctions between populations based primarily on family, social ties, and spoken
language or dialect (W. Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918, p. xiii). However, definitions of
ethnic differences that relied solely on dialect or nation of origin were, in many
ways, too narrow to fully encompass the many nuances between ethnic groups.
Next, we move to discuss the importance of unpacking the ethnic category and
encouraging future work to move beyond pan‐ethnic labels.
Although early Chicago School studies often included ethnicity variables, official
data did not include specific ethnicity variables until much later in the nineteenth
century. Historically, the US decennial census has been recognized as an accurate
data collection and data dissemination agency operated under the authority of the
Ethnicity and Crime
41
US Constitution and the Department of Commerce and Labor. As such, the
population data collected in the decennial census has been, and is still used for
­governing and representation legislation, housing, infrastructure, and various social
health and welfare legislation decisions. The wealth of data collected by the US
Census Bureau has also been consistently used in nearly all categories of social
scientific research since the early nineteenth century.
The first official measure of ethnicity, separate from a race or foreign‐born measure, was generated by the 1970 Census when residents were able to self‐identify
their race as well as “Hispanic” or “Non‐Hispanic” as an ethnic category (Gibson &
Jung, 2005, p. 1). In 1980, when the census asked 100 percent of the population to
answer a question on Hispanic origin, there were 14.6 million Hispanics in the
United States; analyses of the 2000 Census population data revealed that the Hispanic
population in the United States more than doubled by the year 2000 to 35.3 million
residents (Hobbs & Stoops, 2002, p. 78). By 2010, the census allowed respondents to
formally identify their Hispanic origin group: “‘Hispanic or Latino’ refers to a person
of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish
culture or origin regardless of race” (Humes, Jones, & Martinez, 2010; see Martinez,
2002, pp. 33–52, for a discussion of the history linked to Latino ethnic identity(ies)
in the United States).2 The option to further refine one’s ethnicity by declaring nation
of origin in the 2010 Census allows for researchers to disentangle any unique mechanisms that may vary within and between groups making up the Latino category
(see work and suggestions by DiPietro & Bursik, 2012; Martinez, Nielsen, & Lee,
2003; Martinez, Stowell, & Cancino, 2008). That is, in academic discussions of
­ethnicity and crime, an empirical endeavor should examine the possibility of any
unique cultural mechanisms or differential structural positions that may exist
­between Hispanic or Latino residents who also remain committed to distinctions
based on nationality (i.e., Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican).
Early Thinking on Ethnicity and Crime: Cultural
and Structural Mechanisms
In their classic five‐volume work The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, Thomas
and Znaniecki (1918) examine some of the many experiences of recent Polish immigrants and their families in the United States and suggest a link between culture and
crime. Early thinking on the potential relationship between ethnicity (measured as
country of origin in the foreign‐born population) and crime examined cultural differences between Polish immigrants and other US residents. Thomas and Znaniecki
(1918) note that the isolation felt by many immigrants—isolation from family
­members left in their home country, and isolation from members of the new US
community due to discrimination, language barriers, and a disconnection from
social institutions such as the economy and education—often contributed to strain
(stressors and frustration in an individual’s life from learning a new, sometimes
42
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
conflicting, way of life that resulted in criminal activity) (pp. 102–103). They also
suggested that cultural difference/misunderstanding is one mechanism with some
explanatory power for the link between ethnicity and crime; we elaborate on these
ideas throughout the remainder of this section.
Through the letters and writings of some Polish immigrants themselves, Thomas
and Znaniecki (1918) reveal that there were stark differences in how personal troubles within the lives of Polish immigrants and families were handled in their home
country and how such troubles were handled in the United States. Often, personal
situations in immigrant families new to the United States caused the police and legal
system to intervene—a foreign, formal reaction very unfamiliar to the immigrant
family. For example, Thomas and Znaniecki explained that, in Poland, marital problems such as infidelity were dealt with informally by the families involved and with
support from the larger community. When a wife committed adultery, the husband
might have responded with violence. Rather than interference from a legal authority,
the community came alongside the struggling married couple and encouraged a
strengthening of the marital bond rather than a dissolution. In the United States,
when immigrant Polish couples faced similar struggles, the police and legal system
intervened—often resulting in criminal charges, in addition to legal separation of
the couple (W. Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918, pp. 102–103). Thus, some early sociological thinking suggested that cultural differences/­
misunderstandings between
­immigrants of various ethnicities and the destination country were associated with
misunderstandings and state interference/­sanctioning such as arrest and punishment.
Following in the footsteps of Thomas and Znaniecki, Chicago School scholars
Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay further developed research into the mechanisms
that contributed to the geographic patterning of crime and delinquency. Using city
maps of communities and information from adjudicated juvenile court records,
­university datasets, and the decennial census, Shaw and McKay (1942) included various ethnic measures (i.e., foreign‐born persons who self‐report as Germans,
Italians, or Irish based on their nation of origin) in their examination of delinquency
concentrations across numerous cities. They found that delinquency was not randomly or evenly distributed across a city; rather, delinquency was concentrated in
some ­geographic areas and not in others. The cartographic work completed by Shaw
and McKay (1942, pp. 435) and their findings (for additional discussions, see Bursik
& Webb, 1982; Kornhauser, 1978) ultimately concluded that delinquency is more
closely related to characteristics of place than individual persons. That is, community
social‐structural characteristics such as the amount of poverty, residential instability, and measures of ethnic heterogeneity were better predictors of crime in a
community than any suggested differences in public discourse regarding differential
values, ideals, motivations, and beliefs tied to a particular race or ethnicity. Shaw
and McKay (1942) conceptualized ethnic heterogeneity as a structural antecedent of
disorganization, given how it impedes community social organization due to
language barriers and cultural mistrust. In the community‐level scholarship,
­
­immigration and related mechanisms (e.g., isolation, discrimination, assimilation,
Ethnicity and Crime
43
and acculturation) played central roles in the social disorganization and likelihood
of crime in the community (p. 439). To make their case, Shaw and McKay noted that
as new immigrant residents relocated to the United States, they often moved into
economically deprived communities with affordable housing. Once new immigrants became productive and fairly established members in the labor force, they
would leave their disadvantaged community for a better resourced community as
soon as they could afford to do so. This enabled more, new immigrants to move into
the recently vacated housing in disadvantaged communities. This invasion and
succession resulted in residential turnover coupled with community residents new
to the United States, from various origin nations with equally as varied languages,
norms, and customs. Shaw and McKay argued that this ethnic heterogeneity often
prevented residents from organizing against social problems—particularly crime
(Bursik, 2006, p. 24). Early thinking on the potential relationship between ethnicity
and crime set the stage for more nuanced investigations of the mechanisms at work
in various ethnic social groups that function to encourage, or in some cases protect
against, crime.
Ethnicity and Hispanic Cultural Mechanisms in the Later
Twentieth‐Century United States
The collection of census data with measures for Latino and Hispanic populations
enabled scholarly research into the possibility of cultural mechanisms unique to
those who self‐identified as an ethnic minority. Work by Ruth Horowitz (1983)
­examined the “honor code” (accepted norms of respectful behavior and accepted
responses to shows of disrespect) in Chicago Chicano communities (p. 29). She
argued that both victimization and violence within the community could be
connected to cultural (i.e. ethnic) definitions related to disrespect, and other violations, that threatened an individual’s, family’s, or community’s honor/reputation.
Horowitz (1983) found that in Chicago Chicano communities, defending one’s honor
or family honor against shows of disrespect often called for the use of v­ iolence; therefore, rates of violence were higher in communities with a strong honor code (p. 82).
Other studies that focused on juvenile delinquency and gang behavior examined
the role of race and ethnicity in gang participation and subsequent criminal behaviors/violence (Curry & Spergel, 1992; Spergel, 1964). Curry and Spergel (1992)
found that African American youth and Hispanic youth differ in their levels of risk
and underlying mechanisms for gang involvement, and that “patterns of youth gang
involvement are different for Hispanic and African‐American male adolescents”
(p. 286). Their findings, that Hispanic youth often join gangs as a way to improve
their self‐esteem and act in opposition to mainstream society, have since been confirmed in studies on Hispanic gang youth and “choloization” or acculturation issues
(Krohn, Schmidt, Lizotte, & Baldwin, 2011; Lopez & Brummett, 2003; Ventura‐
Miller, Holly, & Hartley, 2011). In an attempt to maintain their sense of honor, and
44
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
related sense of masculinity, Hispanic young men connect with one another in
groups who understand and share the Chicano honor code and cultural history,
and who are determined to defend and uphold the Chicano way of life despite
­conventional mainstream standards.
Embarking on (or Perhaps Revisiting) a New,
Specialized Frontier
Compared to investigations on race and crime (apart from the research by Ruth
Horowitz, 1983, and early gang research), there is much less scholarship focused
specifically on a link between ethnicity and crime. Moreover, demographic shifts in
the US population have offered opportunities for the study of the role of Hispanic/
Latino ethnicity and immigration from Mexican and Latin nations in crime and
criminal justice. After the 1965 legislative immigration reform that paved the way
for large numbers of immigrants to join the US population, scholars recognized
that the resulting shift in population demographics was important and interesting
not only for sociological demographers, but for criminology as well. Arguably, one
of the most influential criminological examinations of mechanisms underlying a
potential relationship between the Hispanic and Latino ethnicity and crime is the
influential work of Ramiro Martínez, Jr. in his book Latino Homicide. Martinez
(2002) offered empirical evidence that challenged the public stereotype of Latinos
and immigrants as criminal. He meticulously examined predominantly immigrant
Hispanic and Latino communities by nation of origin, in five US cities, to reveal
that crime in Latino communities could be attributed to community structural
position—not inherent, ethnic, behavioral defects (McNulty, 2004). Moreover, the
diversification of the US population through continued immigration and children
born to Hispanic and Latino residents has driven scholarly interest in the potential
role that ethnicity and immigration play in crime, victimization, and the criminal
justice system. As with early research, contemporary examinations of ethnicity,
immigration, and crime link the connection to either cultural mechanisms such as
an honor code, family structure, or community disadvantage, and attendant
disorganization.
Macro‐Level Findings on the Role of Ethnicity in Crime
Many sociology and criminology scholars agree that the social‐structural characteristics of neighborhoods, communities, and cities shape the context of crime (Blau &
Blau, 1982; Bursik, 1984; Bursik & Grasmick, 1993; Krivo & Peterson, 1996; M. R.
Lee, 2000; Martinez, 2002; Sampson, 1986, 2012; Sampson & Lauritsen, 1994;
Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997; Skogan, 1990; Taylor, 2015; Vélez, 2001;
Weisburd, Groff, & Yang, 2012; Wilson, 1987). Applying this logic to communities
Ethnicity and Crime
45
with residents who are predominantly ethnic minorities, scholars should expect to
find higher rates of crime due to a constellation of structural characteristics related
to disadvantage. In a recent study, Peterson and Krivo (2010) found that structural
conditions such as concentrated disadvantage, and home mortgage loans helped to
explain the gap in violent crime rates between majority White and majority Latino
neighborhoods (Peterson & Krivo, 2010).
The literature also points out that despite high levels of disadvantage, Latino
neighborhoods have less crime than expected. That is, their levels of crime would be
higher given their levels of disadvantage but for some key protective mechanisms.
Community conditions once thought to influence risk factors for crime at
the individual level have been found, in some communities, to encourage the
development of empirically established mechanisms that protect against crime.
For instance, Martinez (1996) found that, across 111 US cities, Latino residents
experienced higher levels of poverty relative to White residents, yet crime was lower
than the amount criminological research would expect (p. 51). His research suggested that despite the levels of poverty and other typically social disorganizing
characteristics in predominantly Latino communities, the residents were more
attached to the labor market, they were essentially “the working poor” who tended
to have stronger personal networks within, and between, communities that limited
crime opportunities (Martinez, 1996, pp. 131–139).
That Latino neighborhoods are able to keep crime lower than expected also helps
to explain their lower levels of crime compared to Black neighborhoods. Vélez
(2006) finds markedly different levels of crime‐producing conditions between predominantly Black and Latino communities (pp. 102–103). For instance, she finds
that Latino communities in Chicago are characterized by lower levels of extreme
poverty, male joblessness, and female‐headed families; they also have a larger
percentage of immigrant residents and ties to the governing regime. Such structural
advantages help Latino neighborhoods to have lower levels of homicide than Black
neighborhoods in Chicago (Vélez, 2006). Martinez (2002) makes a similar argument
vis‐à‐vis lower levels of homicide for Latinos as compared to Blacks.
Hispanic Immigration as Protective against Crime:
The Immigration Effect
Contrary to some public opinion and political media rhetoric, a community structural characteristic that protects against crime is the presence of immigrants
(Martinez, 2002; Martinez & Lee, 2000; Martinez, Lee, & Nielsen, 2004). The predominant explanation as to why immigrant concentration reduces neighborhood
violence is known as the “immigrant revitalization perspective” (Feldmeyer, 2009;
M. T. Lee, Martinez, & Rosenfeld, 2001; Martinez, 2002; Martinez et al., 2004).3 The
capacity of immigrants to revitalize communities stems from at least two factors.
First, immigrants help fortify social organization. In particular, intact two‐parent
46
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
families as well as strong ties among families and neighbors characterize
­contemporary immigrant communities. Strong ties and family cohesion bolster
processes of private social control and may represent a key mechanism though
which immigration benefits social organization (Ebaugh & Curry, 2000; Feldmeyer,
2009; Ousey & Kubrin, 2009). Moreover, an influx of immigrants can expand and
strengthen community institutions, including churches, schools, and immigrant‐
focused agencies (Chinchilla, Hamilton, & Loucky, 1993; Ley, 2008). Community
institutions facilitate crime control efforts and help to defend community interests
because they organize activities that create networks among residents, provide
programming for community youth, connect communities to mainstream individuals and institutions, and help recruit external resources for the community
(Ley, 2008, pp. 2071–2072).
Second, as immigrants typically settle in poorer neighborhoods (Vélez, 2009, pp.
331–332), the influx of recent immigrants in large numbers may invigorate local
economies and redevelop urban cores. Specifically, immigration can alleviate or
reverse depopulation trends and the withdrawal of business capital (Reid, Weiss,
Adelman, & Jaret, 2005, p. 762). Research on ethnic enclaves echoes the claim that
immigration can stimulate economic revitalization. Ethnic enclaves reflect areas
with an extensive ethnic division of labor, and immigrants with sufficient social
capital to create jobs and higher wages (Portes & Zhou, 1993, pp. 86–87). While
many residents in ethnic enclaves may be poor, the majority are working and should
have greater attachment to the labor market. High neighborhood employment levels
signal integration into conventional life that may make crime less lucrative and
viable (Martinez, 2002, p. 134).
While usually unable to measure these hypothesized mechanisms, work finds
strong support for the revitalization perspective (Feldmeyer, 2009; Kubrin &
Ishizawa, 2012; M. T. Lee et al., 2001; Martinez, 2002, 2006; Martinez et al., 2004;
Martinez, Rosenfeld, & Mares, 2008; Martinez, Stowell, & Lee, 2010; Ousey &
Kubrin, 2009; Reid et al., 2005; Wadsworth, 2010). For instance, Peterson and Krivo
(2010) calculate that Latino neighborhoods would have much more violent and
property crimes if immigration levels were lower. Recently, Graif and Sampson
(2009) examined the extent to which the presence of immigrant populations (measured as percent foreign born) across communities in Chicago operated to buffer
against homicide. Graif and Sampson (2009) posit that immigrant concentration in
a community contributes to diversity and it is the effect of diversity that ultimately
reduces criminal behaviors in the community (p. 243). Further, they introduce a
creative, alternative way to measure immigration and diversity. Using 1990 and 2000
data from the Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB) and a geographically
weighted regression methodology, Graif and Sampson (2009) included in their
analyses the language diversity of community residents (measured using foreign
language speaking households) and found that, all things equal, neighborhoods
with greater language diversity were consistently associated with lower homicide
rates (pp. 252–253, 256–257). Graif and Sampson ultimately suggest that it is
Ethnicity and Crime
47
­iversity within neighborhoods, not simply immigrant concentration, with
d
­immigrant residents contributing “the influx of new cultures, skills and worldviews”
into the community, that acts as a buffer against homicide (p. 258).
Contexts of Reception and Immigration–Crime Link
One recent avenue of empirical interest focuses on the extent to which the
protective effect of immigration on crime depends upon the context of reception
for immigrants. That is, immigrant revitalization may vary depending on a city’s
receptiveness to an influx of recent immigrants. Cities with a history of being an
immigrant destination city are more receptive to recent immigrant residents
(Portes & Rumbaut, 2006, p. 109). Moreover, well‐established destination cities
offer new immigrant ­residents more options to live in ethnically integrated neighborhoods with networks of social support (Hagan, 1998; Portes & Jensen, 1989).
Established destination cities also tend to offer resources and policies that
encourage immigrant assimilation (Waters & Jiminez, 2005, pp. 114–115) and
public sentiment that is more supportive of new immigrant residents (Oropresa &
Jensen, 2010; Painter‐Davis, 2016).
Shihadeh and Barranco (2010) argue that destination cities and the context of
reception for Latino immigrants is particularly important for understanding any
immigration–crime link. Their research examined the immigration and crime link
across 776 US counties in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. They found that
traditional destination counties offer new immigrants established social control networks and strong social ties, thereby reducing the homicide in those communities
(p. 347). By contrast, in new destination cities, homicide rates were left unaffected
by increased immigration as they did not have similarly well‐established crime‐
controlling mechanisms.
Two additional papers utilize data from the National Neighborhood Crime
Study to provide further evidence of the importance of the contexts of reception.
Lyons, Vélez and Santoro (2013) find that immigration reduces violent crime
especially in cities that are receptive to immigrants, such as those that are considered sanctuary cities. Ramey (2013) examined the influence of recent immigrant
populations on communities in established and new destination cities. He found
that, all things equal, immigrant concentration and immigrant population growth
impact neighborhoods differently depending on city context. His study concluded
that immigrant concentration and population growth help lower crime rates in
White and integrated neighborhoods across the United States. However, in older
destination cities, immigrant concentration and immigrant population growth
have little, if any, effect in predominantly Latino or Black communities. Moreover,
in new destination cities, the crime‐reducing effect of immigrant concentration
and population growth do not extend beyond majority Latino communities
(Ramey, 2013, p. 615).
48
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
In his 2016 study, Ferraro also examined the effect on crime of recent immigrant
population increases in new destination places for 2000–2007 (minimum population
of 20,000 with at least a 150 percent increase in the foreign‐born population since
1990). Using census, American Community Survey, and Uniform Crime Reports
(UCR) data (2005–2007), Ferraro (2016) found that new destinations with large
immigrant population increases experienced statistically significant crime declines
compared to other places. He concluded that his results offer support for the “notion
that emergent immigrant communities are able to provide their members with
support systems by which to manage the stressors of social, cultural and economic
marginalization” (p. 40).
Immigrant Communities and the Great Crime Decline
Criminologists have searched for mechanisms that might explain the “great crime
decline” evidenced in official US crime statistics from roughly 1990 to 2014
(Blumstein & Wallman, 2000; Conklin, 2003; Zimring, 2007). Sampson (2006) made
a provocative claim in a New York Times opinion piece: “evidence points to increased
immigration as a major factor associated with the lower crime rate of the 1990’s (and
its recent leveling off).” Sampson’s piece encouraged criminological and sociological
scholars to focus their research attention toward understanding how the increased
migration patterns to the United States from Mexico and other Latin countries in
the late twentieth and into the early twenty‐first centuries might have affected the
nation’s sustained crime decline (MacDonald, Hipp, & Gill, 2012; Stowell, Messner,
McGeever, & Raffalovich, 2009; Wadsworth, 2010).
Stowell, Messner, McGeever, & Raffalovich (2009) used Current Population
Survey data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series in combination with
UCR crime data for 1994–2004 across 103 metropolitan areas, and assessed
Sampson’s claim. They found that, all things equal, metropolitan areas that experienced more immigrant growth benefited from a larger decline in violent crime rates
than areas with less immigrant population growth (Stowell et al., 2009). A time‐
series analysis of violent crime for 1990–2000 across a large sample of US cities
found (through fairly exhaustive statistical modeling) that cities where there was
“greater growth in immigrant or new immigrant populations between 1990 and
2000 tended to demonstrate sharper decreases in homicide and robbery. Thus, the
suggestion that high levels of immigration may have been partially responsible for
the drop in crime during the 1990s seems plausible” (Wadsworth, 2010, p. 546).
In sum, research on macro, community‐level mechanisms in predominantly
Latino and Latino immigrant communities suggest that the sociostructural position
of these communities is a strong influence on crime in the community. While much
research concludes that Latino populations are concentrated in communities
marked by economic disadvantage, political isolation, low levels of education and
poorer paying job prospects, mechanisms related to family structure and community
Ethnicity and Crime
49
networks seem to keep crime lower than expected given these factors, and can sometimes insulate the community from crime. Community conditions traditionally
considered criminogenic are not always crime producing; in some contexts, often
dependent on whether or not the community is in a traditional or new destination,
conditions such as economic deprivation can act to encourage other informal social
controls that protect against crime. Furthermore, the suggestion that increased
immigration may have had a measure of influence on the nationwide crime decline
offers interesting research possibilities toward a new wave of macro‐level immigration and crime research.
Micro‐Level Findings on the Role of Ethnicity and Crime
Within research on ethnicity and crime, scholars have noted the protective nature
of family structure in recent immigrant families. Based in social control theory,
attachment to parents and parental involvement in a youth’s day‐to‐day life (in
other words, a strong affectional bond) is important for preventing delinquent
behavior (Hirschi, 1969; see also LaGrange & White, 1985, for a review). Social
control theory posits that when children have a strong attachment to their parents,
“parental wishes and standards become ‘psychologically present’ within children in
situations of potential delinquency” (Smith & Krohn, 1995, p. 72). Parental involvement in a child’s daily activities enables close parental monitoring and consistent
discipline; when this is weak or missing, a child is at risk for delinquent behaviors
(Farrington & Loeber, 2000; Hirschi, 1969; Lipsey & Derzon, 1998; Loeber &
Stouthamer‐Loeber, 1986). One study that has specifically examined delinquency
outcomes due to differences in family and parenting dynamics across racial and
ethnic groups notes that compared with African American and White males,
Hispanic male delinquency is less affected by family control (consistent discipline
and supervision) and more affected by informal controls related to family attachment (i.e., communication with parents, spending time with parents) (Smith &
Krohn, 1995, p. 85).
Unique to many ethnic minority adolescents and families (particularly in first‐ and
second‐generation immigrant families) is the process of acculturation. Acculturation
is the process through which individuals adapt to the dominant culture as a result of
continuous interaction with the majority population, while still maintaining some
levels of attachment to and maintenance of a native culture (Archuleta, 2012; Berry,
1992; Kaplan & Marks, 1990). Acculturation can affect family dynamics and produce
strain in adolescents (see Smith & Krohn, 1995, for a review related to family
dynamics; Perez, Jennings, & Grover, 2008). While there has been little evidence to
suggest that acculturation processes are the mechanisms that influence family disruption and delinquency for Hispanic youth (Davidson & Cardemil, 2009, p. 112),
differential levels of acculturation have been found to increase or decrease delinquency
risk/involvement (Alvarez‐Rivera, Nobles, & Lersch, 2014). For example, research
50
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
conducted by Fridrich and Flannery (1995) compared the delinquency involvement
of Mexican American youth, recent i­mmigrant youth, and White youth. They found
that Mexican American youth (those who are more acculturated) were the most
likely to engage in delinquent behavior compared to recent immigrant and White
youth (p. 82). Compared with US‐born Hispanic youth, Hispanic immigrant adolescents have lower levels of alcohol use (Gil, Wagner, & Vega, 2000), exhibit fewer high‐
risk behaviors, and lower rates of driving under the influence (Maldonado‐Molina,
Reingle‐Gonzales, Jennings, & Prado, 2011).
Recently, an examination of data on crime seriousness (measured using arrest
type), immigration and undocumented immigrants in El Paso, Texas, and San
Diego, California, was used to examine levels of acculturation and crime (Alvarez‐
Rivera et al., 2014). Alvarez‐Rivera and colleagues (2014) find that controlling for
arrest charge, sex, socioeconomic status and drug presence, individuals who have
higher levels of acculturation are more likely to be arrested for both misdemeanor
and felony crimes (p. 323). They consider persons who are acculturated as those
who self‐identify as Hispanic, are US citizens, and speak fluent English (p. 322). To
make sense of their findings, Alvarez‐Rivera and colleagues suggest that when recent
immigrants live in high crime communities, they absorb the notion that criminal
behavior is normative. Alvarez‐Rivera and colleagues consider this absorption
­process a type of acculturation. They also speculate that the strain caused by the
acculturation process itself may lead to increased alcohol use, drug use and crime as
adaptations to the strain (p. 326).
The Role of Ethnicity in Victimization Research
One of the most used, and arguably, most influential sources for data on victimization in the United States is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
Regarding ethnicity, the NCVS collects data on Hispanic and non‐Hispanic
­victimization. Unfortunately, prior to 2003 the NCVS did not disaggregate racial
and ethnic categories into Black non‐Hispanic and White non‐Hispanic; therefore, the ethnicity‐related data reported in the NCVS prior to 2003 should be
interpreted with caution. The prevalence of Hispanic violent victimizations has
been declining. That is, Hispanic violent victimizations are not as widespread
as they once were. In 2005, the Hispanic violent victimization prevalence rate was
higher than non‐Hispanic White rates and slightly less than the rate for non‐
Hispanic Blacks. By 2014, the violent victimization prevalence rate for Hispanics
equaled that of non‐Hispanic Whites (Truman & Langton, 2015, p. 9). The story
is different for young immigrants in school. Using data from the Educational
Longitudinal Study of 2002, Peguero (2009) found that compared with White
students, Latino and Asian immigrant students feel unsafe and face higher levels
of victimization (p. 197).
Ethnicity and Crime
51
Similar to the macro‐level research on ethnicity and crime, community context
matters for victimization research as well. In a US Department of Justice special
report, Xie and Planty (2014) examined NCVS data across 363 metropolitan areas
and 3,103 counties across the United States. The study explored the extent of
Hispanic victimization depending upon residential patterns of Hispanic population
growth (i.e., slow‐growth Hispanic areas, fast‐growth Hispanic areas, New Hispanic
areas and Small Hispanic areas). Overall, Xie and Planty (2014) concluded that
Hispanics living in new Hispanic areas had lower levels of violent victimization than
their counterparts in other types of areas. Nonetheless, in the new Hispanic areas,
“Hispanics experienced higher rates of violent victimization compared to blacks
and whites” (p. 1).
A promising area in victimization research relates to interethnic victimization
and victimization from hate crime. Racial threat theory, or minority threat (Blalock,
1967), posits that the social majority will discriminate against members of the
social minority when the minority grows in size (or influence) to the point where
the economic and political capital of the majority is threatened (or perceived as
threatened). The discrimination against the minority occurs through both formal
and informal means. One informal reaction to racial threat, albeit an illegal reaction, that has been examined in criminological literatures is hate crime (Grattlet,
2009; Green, Strolovitch, & Wong, 1998; Lyons, 2007; Stacey, Carbone‐Lopez, &
Rosenfeld, 2011). The examination by Stacey and colleagues (2011) of reported
hate crimes from 2000 to 2004 across states in the United States and recent immigration of Hispanic residents revealed that increases in Hispanic immigration “and
arguably the fear and anger it produces in segments of the majority population”
(p. 293) triggers increases in anti‐Hispanic hate crimes. Their study argues that
members of the social majority are generally unable to distinguish between legal
and illegal immigrants among recent Hispanic immigrants. For this reason, any
Hispanic individual is at risk for victimization in areas where Hispanic immigration is evident to the general public (Stacey et al., 2011). Such a result offers some
explanation for the NCVS statistics that indicate higher levels of Hispanic victimization (Xie & Planty, 2014).
Ethnicity in Criminal Justice System Research
The newest frontier in criminological research concerns the role of ethnicity in
shaping the actions of US formal social control agencies. As recently as 2007,
Ramiro Martínez, Jr. charged criminologists and sociologists with neglecting to
thoroughly investigate Latino perspectives and experiences in, and with, the
criminal justice system (Martinez, 2007; see also Peterson & Krivo, 2005).
He asserts: “Clearly, researchers interested in examining race and differential
­experiences with criminal justice agencies or perceptions of police should extend
52
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
attention to Latinos and others in multi‐ethnic communities … The need to focus
more research on Latinos and policing is obvious” (p. 57).
Ethnicity and Policing
Crime prevention and crime control in the United States requires citizen participation with the police; after all, unless crimes are reported to authorities there is little
hope for formal sanctioning of the offender, deterrence, or reparations for the
victim(s) (Rennison, 2007). Police contact is the first step in the US criminal justice
system, and citizen attitudes toward police as well as faith in police services are crucially important in a functioning criminal justice system (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003).
Using 1997 survey data from residents of Odessa and Midland, Texas who had had
contact with police, Cheurprakobit (2000) found that non‐Hispanic Whites,
Spanish speaking and English‐speaking Hispanics in the sample all felt that police
did a s­atisfactory job putting citizens at ease during a police–citizen encounter.
Further, Cheurprakobit (2000) found that Spanish‐speaking Hispanics were more
satisfied with the “quality of service, level of police protection and ability to fight
crime” (p. 332) than English‐speaking Hispanics or Whites; this suggests that
Spanish‐speaking Hispanics are more likely to willingly cooperate with local police
authorities.
While the findings from Cheurprakobit (2000) study seem promising, findings
from other studies are not as positive. For example, Walker, Spohn, and DeLone
(2004) found that Spanish‐speaking Hispanics are less likely to contact police due to
fears related to language and communication barriers. Several studies have found
that compared to other racial/ethnic groups, Hispanics suffer more from maltreatment at the hands of police including profiling and brutality (Langan, Greenfeld,
Smith, Durose & Levin, 2001; Weitzer & Tuch, 2004, 2005). Weitzer and Tuch (2004,
2005) note that Hispanics in their studies are more likely to report belief in police
misconduct and bias than non‐Hispanic Whites. Finally, some research has suggested that compared with Whites, Hispanics have a lower level of trust in police and
overall poorer perceptions of police (Skogan & Hartnett, 1997; M. Thomas & Burns,
2005). A recent study by the Pew Research Center (2009) found that the majority
(61%) of the Hispanics interviewed in their nationwide survey report having fair to
great levels of confidence that their local police do a good job enforcing laws.
However, 47% are only somewhat confident that local police will not use excessive
force on suspects, and 45% are confident that Hispanics are treated fairly by police
(Lopez & Livingston, 2009).
Research on Hispanic crime/victimization reporting patterns suggests that
­ethnicity plays an important role in citizen‐initiated police contact. Work using
NCVS data found that reporting victimization to police by Hispanics compared to
other non‐Hispanic groups varied depending on the type of victimization sustained.
Hispanics were significantly less likely to report rape/sexual assault and robbery to
Ethnicity and Crime
53
police; however, simple assaults were more likely to be reported to police by Hispanic
victims than was simple assault by non‐Hispanic Whites (Rennison, 2007). Rennison
notes that one very intriguing and important finding is that Hispanic victims with
higher levels of educational attainment are more likely than those with lower levels
to contact police regarding a victimization incident. This finding is likely related to
the earlier referenced fears of language barriers between victims and police—
Hispanic victims with higher levels of educational attainment are likely more
­confident in their ability to communicate their experience(s) to police.
Ethnicity and Arrest
Each step in the criminal justice system process involves some level of discretion on
the part of criminal justice officials. After police contact, officers often use discretion in their decision to arrest a person accused of committing crime. Some research
notes that crime victim characteristics, such as race or social status, can influence an
officer’s discretion to make an arrest (Puckett & Lundman, 2003; Roberts, 2007;
Roberts & Lyons, 2009). Using data from the National Incident Based Reporting
System (NIBRS), Roberts and Lyons (2011) found that homicide cases with Hispanic
victims were less likely to result in an arrest compared with homicide cases that had
a Black or White victim. This result led Roberts and Lyons (2011) to suggest that
compared to Black and White victims, Hispanic victims may be more devalued by
police, or that there are significant “hurdles to law enforcement, perhaps involving
lack of third‐party cooperation due to language barriers and illegal immigration
status” (p. 65). A recent examination of youth arrests using data from the 1997
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that there were no significant differences in arrest prevalence rates between Hispanic, White, or Black youth; however,
there were clear differences between cumulative arrest prevalence rates of Black and
White males (Brame, Bushway, Paternoster, & Turner, 2014). In arrest research thus
far, arrest disparities appear to be the result of victim ethnicity as well as immigration status; there is a great need for future research into the mechanisms that underlie
differences in arrest rates by ethnicity.
Ethnicity, Sentencing and Incarceration
Historically, research on sentencing outcomes has focused on differential sentencing
between Black and White offenders. However, as the Hispanic/Latino population
under the supervision of the US criminal justice system grows, there is a budding
development on Hispanic/Latino sentencing outcomes. First, research on racial and
ethnic disparities in sentencing has found that, similarly to Black defendants, Hispanic
defendants are often viewed by court officials as dangerous and at higher risk of
recidivism compared to White defendants (Bridges & Steen, 1998). Second, ­especially
54
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
problematic for recent immigrants, Hispanic defendants face unique difficulties in
the courtroom; specifically, they may confront language barriers and concern
regarding deportation of friends and family (Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2000). These
unique difficulties can certainly influence the Hispanic defendant’s ability to mount a
strong defense and thus result in a higher likelihood of conviction.
Finally, studies examining ethnic disparities in sentencing have concluded that
there is some evidence for differential sentencing outcomes based on defendant race
or ethnicity. Demuth and Steffensmeier (2004) examined several biennial data sets
from the State Court Processing Statistics Program. Based on their analyses, they
found that there are some differences in sentence outcomes between races and ethnicity across various offense types. Incarceration rates and sentence length for Black
and Hispanic offenders are similar when an offender is convicted of a violent offense.
The odds of incarceration are higher for Black offenders convicted of property or
drug crimes than for Hispanic offenders, and the odds of incarceration are higher
for Hispanic than White offenders convicted of property or drug crimes; however,
sentence lengths were similar across racial and ethnic groups (p. 1004). Demuth and
Steffensmeier’s (2004) findings in sentencing disparities are echoed in the work of
Harris, Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Painter‐Davis (2009). Harris and colleagues find
that Hispanic defendants are sentenced more harshly than White defendants (more
often incarcerated). They note that although in their Pennsylvania data there are
only moderate levels of disproportionality between Hispanic and White arrest–
incarceration outcomes for violent offenses, certainly more research is warranted.
As with other types of criminal justice statistics, the collection of data specific to
the relationship between incarceration and ethnicity is limited and relatively new
(Travis, Western, & Redburn, 2014). Overall, an examination of incarceration trends
from 1972 to 2010 shows that the rate of Hispanic incarceration has followed the
same general trend of incarceration more broadly; that is, incarceration of Hispanic
offenders steadily increased from 1972 through 1990, and remained fairly flat
through 2000 before beginning to decline (Travis et al., 2014). The incarceration rate
of Hispanic offenders “has been two to three times higher for Hispanics than for
non‐Hispanic Whites” (p. 62) but remained lower than that reported for non‐
Hispanic Blacks.
Within the Hispanic ethnicity label, however, there are differences between recent
and longstanding immigrant groups. Rumbaut (2009) found that among immigrant
groups, recent immigrant groups (i.e., from Guatemala and El Salvador) have very
low incarceration rates, whereas offenders from longstanding immigrant groups
(i.e., Puerto Ricans and Cubans) have the highest incarceration rates. Puerto Ricans
and Cubans also have a higher incarceration rate than Hispanics of Mexican decent.
There are also noticeable differences between immigrant Mexican offenders and US
citizens of Mexican decent. Mexican immigrants who are convicted of crimes in the
United States are incarcerated far less than US‐born Mexican offenders. In fact, US‐
born Mexican offenders are incarcerated at a higher rate than any other US‐born
Hispanic group in the United States (Rumbaut, 2009).
Ethnicity and Crime
55
Future Directions and Challenges for Ethnicity
and Crime Research
Available Data and Pan‐ethnic Labels
According to the US census data for 2014, roughly 17 percent of the population in
the United States self‐identifies as “Hispanic or Latino Origin”; the census projects
that by 2060, this percentage will increase by 115 percent (thus making Hispanic and
Latino residents nearly 30 percent of the US population) (Colby & Ortman, 2015).
This projected increase in the US Hispanic or Latino population highlights the need
for more sociological and criminological research into these population groups.
First, as scholars push to better understand ethnicity as a unique construct that
likely plays a role in the causes and consequences of crime, there is a pressing need
for macro‐ and micro‐level data with appropriate crime and ethnicity measures, and
variables for meaningful theory testing. This first challenge is certainly not a new
observation or a surprise to criminologists and sociologists interested in the role of
ethnicity in crime, criminal justice, and other types of social phenomena. Some of
the earliest ecological studies of crime examined communities delineated by ethnic
categories and national origin (Shaw & McKay, 1942; W. Thomas & Znaniecki,
1918). Unfortunately, criminological and sociological scholars have largely been
unable to continue these types of theoretically driven examinations (of recent immigrants or established ethnic minority residents) despite technological advances in
data collection and analysis. As noted previously, the most commonly used sources
for official crime and victimization data have only recently begun making distinctions between “Hispanic” and “non‐Hispanic” by race/ethnicity.
Martinez (2002), as well as DiPietro and Bursik (2012), caution against using pan‐
ethnic labels such as “Hispanic” or “Latino” in criminological research. There may, or
may not, be variations in culture, family structures, and, specifically relevant for
recent immigrants, risk related to the strains of acculturation by nation of origin. This
is not to suggest that there is no available data disaggregated by nation of origin (e.g.,
Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, China, Philippines). However, many sources of data that
do have such disaggregation either have very small numbers of ethnic minority members or are seriously limited by lack of other variables that can be used for meaningful
tests of theory (for a thorough review of available data, problems, and prospects, see
DiPietro & Bursik, 2012). Further, research into possible links between crime/
criminal justice outcomes and ethnicities other than Hispanic or Latino may prove to
be a very fruitful avenue for ethnicity, immigration and crime scholars.
For scholars particularly interested in advancing knowledge on the role of immigration, ethnicity and crime, the need for data is a very relevant challenge. As noted
by Graif and Sampson (2009), using various census measures that capture whether
or not a resident is foreign born may not be sufficient for research beyond immigrant concentration effects. Examinations of local variation in ethnic immigrant
settlement patterns, diversity, and crime will certainly contribute to the fields of
56
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
sociology and criminology. It is simply not enough to acknowledge that there might
be social inequalities by ethnicity that may play a role in crime and criminal justice
disparities. It is time to move toward a more thorough understanding of mechanisms that underlie how the social construction of ethnicity impacts crime and
criminal justice in contemporary society.
Theoretically Driven Research
The potential for advancing criminological research through examinations of the
role of ethnicity in the causes and consequences of crime are substantial. Using disaggregated ethnic labels in research driven by concerns with social control, labeling,
life‐course, subcultures, relative deprivation, routine activities, and social (dis)organization, and integrated theories at macro and micro levels (even using hierarchical
models) offer nearly endless possibilities for crime, victimization and criminal justice research. One avenue of inquiry that we suggest as particularly fruitful is an
investigation into the possibility of ethnic invariance. As noted throughout race and
crime literature, there is evidence that many crime‐producing mechanisms at the
micro and macro levels are racially invariant. An obvious, and theoretically relevant,
avenue for research should focus on the possibility of ethnic invariance. Whether
ethnic invariance is found or not, scholars interested in immigration should
­continue to pursue the possibility of cohort and generational effects on crime and
victimization risk. Ultimately, understanding the relationship between ethnicity and
crime/justice outcomes should yield insights into successful prevention, intervention, diversion, and reintegration policies and programs. As documented in this
chapter, the demographic shifts mean that we are well suited to collect meaningful
data that can be used to trace the connections between ethnicity and crime.
Notes
1 Data in the earliest ecological studies come from various university data collections, the
decennial census, court records, and aggregated self‐reports. Ethnicity, in these early
works, was defined by nation of origin in the foreign‐born population.
2 Throughout this chapter, we will rely on the dominant, most recent ethnic categories as
defined by the US decennial census. As of 2010, the only ethnic categories recognized in
the census are Hispanic and Non‐Hispanic. Currently in the census, there are five racial
categories: (1) White, (2) Black or African American, (3) American Indian and Alaskan
Native, (4) Asian and Pacific Islander (5) other. Within the Asian and Pacific Islander category, respondents are further able to indicate their nation of origin if they feel compelled
to do so. However, within the race categories, nation of origin is not equated with ethnicity. Rather, self‐identification as Hispanic and non‐Hispanic is asked in a separate
question in addition to race/national origin. As it stands, there are other groups that likely
could be considered as ethnicities within the populations from South Africa, the Arab
Ethnicity and Crime
57
world, Armenia, Iran and Azerbaijan, and Bangladesh. Yet these groups are not singled
out into separate categories of ethnicity. This omission is a serious limitation in current
ethnicity and crime research. The inclusion and measurement of other ethnicities in
sociological and criminological research is a great opportunity for advancing knowledge,
as well as suggesting ethnicity‐specific programs to assist in any unique barriers to the
immigration process (i.e. acculturation). Research that focuses on race differences are not
included in the current entry.
3 Among other explanations, some scholars suggest that the process of immigration itself
may select for individuals with relatively high levels of achievement ambition, low
criminal propensity, and/or high aversion to risks associated with crime (Butcher & Piehl,
1998; Kubrin & Ishizawa, 2012; Tonry, 1997). Places of immigrant concentration may
then reflect the lower aggregate criminal propensity of immigrants, or immigrants may
select into places with lower crime rates. Others suggest that legal surveillance and formal
social controls follow immigration flows and dampen local crime rates (Kubrin &
Ishizawa, 2012; Ousey & Kubrin, 2009).
References
Alvarez‐Rivera, L. L., Nobles, M. R., & Lersch, K. M. (2014). Latino immigrant acculturation
and crime. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 39(2), 315–330.
Archuleta, A. J. (2012). Hispanic acculturation index: Advancing measurement in acculturation. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 22(3), 297–318.
Berry, J. W. (1992). Acculturation and adaptation in a new society. International Migration,
30(s1), 69–85.
Blalock, H. M. (1967). Toward a theory of minority‐group relations. New York: John Wiley.
Blau, J. R., & Blau, P. M. (1982). The cost of inequality: Metropolitan structure and violent
crime. American Sociological Review, 47(1), 114–129.
Blumstein, A., & Wallman, J. (2000). The recent rise and fall of American violence. In A.
Blumstein & J. Wallman (Eds.), The crime drop in America (pp. 1–11). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Brame, R., Bushway, S. D., Paternoster, R., & Turner, M. G. (2014). Demographic patterns of
cummulative arrest prevalence by ages 18 and 23. Crime and Delinquency, 60(3), 471–486.
Bridges, G. S., & Steen, S. (1998). Racial disparities in official assessments of juvenile
offenders: Attitudinal stereotypes as mediating mechanisms. American Sociological
Review, 63(4), 554–570.
Brubaker, R. (2004). Ethnicity without groups. In S. May, T. Modood, & J. Squires (Eds.),
Ethnicity, nationalism and minority rights (pp. 50–77). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Brubaker, R. (2009). Ethnicity, race and nationalism. American Sociological Review,
35(1), 21–42.
Bursik, R. J. (1984). Urban dynamics and ecological studies of delinquency. Social Forces,
63(2), 393–413.
Bursik, R. J. (2006). Rethinking the Chicago school of criminology. In R. Martinez, Jr. &
A. J. Valenzuela, Jr. (Eds.), Immigration and crime: Race, ethnicity and violence
(pp. 30–36). New York, NY: New York University Press.
58
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
Bursik, R. J., & Grasmick, H. G. (1993). Neighborhoods and crime. Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books.
Bursik, R. J., & Webb, J. (1982). Community change and patterns of delinquency. American
Journal of Sociology, 88(1), 24–42.
Butcher, K. F., & Piehl, A. M. (1998). Cross‐city evidence on the relationship between
­immigration and crime. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 17(3), 457–493.
Cheurprakobit, S. (2000). Police–citizen contact and police performance: Attitudinal
­differences between Hispanics and non‐Hispanics. Journal of Criminal Justice, 28(4),
325–336.
Chinchilla, N., Hamilton, N., & Loucky, J. (1993). Central Americans in Los Angeles:
An immigrant community in transition. In J. Moore & R. Pinderhughes (Eds.), In the
barrios: Latinos and the underclass debate (pp. 51–78). New York, NY: Russell Sage
Foundation.
Colby, S. L., & Ortman, J. M. (2015). Projections of the size and composition of the US
population 2014 to 2060. Washington, DC: United States Census Bureau.
Conklin, J. E. (2003). Why crime rates fell. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.
Curry, D. G., & Spergel, I. A. (1992). Gang involvement and delinquency among hispanic and
African‐American adolescent males. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency,
29(3), 273–291.
Curtis, L. (1975). Violence, race and culture. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Davidson, T. M., & Cardemil, E. V. (2009). Parent–child communication and parental
involvement in Latino adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 29(1), 99–121.
Demuth, S., & Steffensmeier, D. (2004). Ethnicity effects on sentence outcomes in large urban
courts: Comparisons among White, Black and Hispanic defendants. Social Science
Quarterly, 85(4), 994–1011.
DiPietro, S. M., & Bursik, R. J. (2012). Studies of the new immigration: The dangers of pan‐
ethnic classifications. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
641(1), 247–267.
Ebaugh, H. R., & Curry, M. (2000). Fictive kin as social capital in new immigrant communities. Sociological Perspecttives, 43(2), 189–209.
Farrington, D. P., & Loeber, R. (2000). Epidemiology of juvenile violence. Child and Adolescent
Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 9(4), 733–748.
Feldmeyer, B. (2009). Immigration and violence: The offsetting effects of immigrant
concentration on Latino violence. Social Science Research, 38(3), 717–732.
Ferraro, V. (2016). Immigration and crime in the new destinations, 2000–2007: A test of the
disorganizing effect of migration. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 32(1), 23–45.
Fridrich, A. H., & Flannery, D. (1995). The effects of ethnicity and acculturation on early
adolescent delinquency. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 4(1), 69–87.
Gastil, R. D. (1971). Homicide and a regional culture of violence. American Sociological
Review, 36(3), 412–427.
Gibson, C., & Jung, K. (2005). Historical census statistics on population totals by race, 1790 to
1990, and by Hispanic origin, 1970 to 1990, for large cities and other urban places in the
United States. Washington, DC: United States Census Bureau.
Gil, A., Wagner, E. F., & Vega, W. A. (2000). Acculturation, familism, and alcohol use among
Latino adolescent males: Longitudinal relations. Journal of Community Psychology,
28(4), 443–458.
Ethnicity and Crime
59
Graif, C., & Sampson, R. J. (2009). Spatial heterogeneity in the effects of immigration and
diversity on neighborhood homicide rates. Homicide Studies, 13(3), 242–260.
Grattlet, R. (2009). The urban ecology of bias crime: A study of disorganized and defended
neighborhoods. Social Problems, 56(1), 132–150.
Green, D. P., Strolovitch, D. Z., & Wong, J. S. (1998). Defended neighborhoods, integration,
and racially motivated crime. American Journal of Sociology, 104(2), 372–403.
Guglielmo, T. A., & Lewis, E. (2003). Changing racial meanings: Race and ethnicity in the
United States 1930–1964. In R. H. Bayor (Ed.), Race and ethnicity in America: A concise
history (pp. 167–192). New York: Columbia University Press.
Hackney, S. (1969). Southern violence. American Historical Review, 74, 906–925.
Hagan, J. M. (1998). Social networks, gender and immigrant incorporation: Resources and
constraints. American Sociological Review, 63(1), 55–67.
Harris, C. T., Steffensmeier, D., Ulmer, J. T., & Painter‐Davis, N. (2009). Are Blacks and
Hispanics disproportionately incarcerated relative to their arrests? Racial and ethnic
­disproportionality between arrest and incarceration. Race and Social Problems, 1(4),
187–199.
Heinze, A. R. (2003). The critical period: Ethnic emergence and reaction, 1901–1929.
In R. H. Bayor (Ed.), Race and ethnicity in America (pp. 167–197). New York, NY:
Columbia University Press.
Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Hobbs, F., & Stoops, N. (2002). Demographic trends in the 20th century. Washington, DC:
United States Census Bureau.
Horowitz, R. (1983). Honor and the American dream. Rutgers, NJ: The State University of
New Jersey.
Humes, K. R., Jones, N. A., & Martinez, R. R. (2010). Overview of race and Hispanic origin:
2010. Washington, DC: United States Census Bureau.
Kaplan, M. S., & Marks, G. (1990). Adverse effects of acculturation: Psychological distress
among Mexican American young adults. Social Science and Medicine, 31(12),
1313–1319.
Kornhauser, R. (1978). Social sources of delinquency. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Krivo, L. J., & Peterson, R. D. (1996). Extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods and urban
crime. Social Forces, 75(2), 619–648.
Krohn, M. D., Schmidt, N. M., Lizotte, A. J., & Baldwin, J. M. (2011). The impact of multiple
marginality on gang membership and delinquent behavior for Hispanic, African
American and White male adolescents. Journal of Contrmporary Criminal Justice, 27(1),
18–42.
Kubrin, C. E., & Ishizawa, H. (2012). Why some immigrant neighborhoods are safer than
others. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 641(1),
148–173.
LaGrange, R. L., & White, H. R. (1985). Age differences in delinquency: A test of theory.
Criminology, 23(1), 19–45.
Langan, P. A., Greenfeld, L. A., Smith, S. K., Durouse, M. R., & Levin, D. J. (2001). Contacts
between police and the public: Findings from the 1999 National Survey. Washington, DC:
Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Lee, M. R. (2000). Community cohesion and violent predatory victimization: A theoretical
extension and cross‐national test of opportunity theory. Social Forces, 79(2), 683–706.
60
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
Lee, M. T., Martinez, R., & Rosenfeld, R. (2001). Does immigration increase homicide?
Negative evidence from three border cities. Sociological Quarterly, 42(4), 559–580.
Ley, D. 2008. The immigrant church as an urban service hub. Urban Studies, 45(10),
2057–2074.
Lipsey, M. W., & Derzon, J. H. (1998). Predictors of violent or serious delinquency in adolescence and early adulthood: A synthesis of longitudinal research. In R. Loeber & D.
Farrington (Eds.), Serious and violent juvenile offenders: Risk factors and successful interventions (pp. 86–105). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Loeber, R. E., & Stouthamer‐Loeber, M. (1986). Family factors as correlates and predictors of
juvenile conduct problems and delinquency. In M. Tonry & N. Morris (Eds.), Crime and
justice: An annual review of research (pp. 29–149). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Lopez, D., & Brummett, P. O. (2003). Gang membership and acculturation: ARSMA‐II and
choloization. Crime and Delinquency, 49(4), 627–642.
Lopez, M. H., & Livingston, G. (2009). Hispanics and the criminal justice system: Low
confidence, high exposure. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.
Lyons, C. J. (2007). Community (dis)organization and racially motivated crime. American
Journal of Sociology, 113(3), 815–863.
Lyons, C. J., Vélez, M. B., & Santoro, W. A. (2013). Neighborhood immigration, violence
and city‐level immigrant political opportunities. American Sociological Review, 78(4),
604–632.
MacDonald, J. M., Hipp, J. R., & Gill, C. (2012). The effects of immigrant concentration on
changes in neighborhood crime rates. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 29(2),
191–215.
Maldonado‐Molina, M. M., Reingle‐Gonzales, J., Jennings, W. G., & Prado, G. (2012).
Drinking and driving among immigrant and US‐born Hispanic young adults: Results
from a longitudinal and nationally representative study. Addictive Behaviors, 36(4),
381–388.
Martinez, R., Jr. (1996). Latinos and lethal violence. Social Problems, 43(2), 131–146.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2002). Latino homicide: Immigration, violence and community. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2006). Coming to America: The impact of the new immigration on crime.
In R. Martinez, Jr. & A. Valenzuela, Jr. (Eds.), Immigration and crime: Ethnicity, race and
violence (pp. 1–19). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2007). Incorporating Latinos and immigrants into policing research.
Criminology & Public Policy, 6(1), 57–64.
Martinez, R., Jr., & Lee, M. (2000). Comparing the context of immigrant homicides in Miami:
Haitians, Jamaicans, and Mariels. Immigration Migration Review, 34(3), 794–812.
Martinez, R., Jr., Lee, M., & Nielsen, A. L. (2004). Segmented assimilation, local context and
determinants of drug violence in Miami and San Diego: Does ethnicity and immigration
matter? International Migration Review, 38(1), 131–157.
Martinez, R., Jr., Nielsen, A. L., & Lee, M. T. (2003). Reconsidering the Marielito legacy:
Race/ethnicity, nativity, and homicide motives. Social Science Quarterly, 84(2),
397–411.
Martinez, R., Jr., Rosenfeld, R., & Mares, D. (2008). Social disorganization, drug market
activity, and neighborhood violent crime. Urban Affairs Review, 43(6), 846–874.
Ethnicity and Crime
61
Martinez, R., Jr., Stowell, J. I., & Cancino, J. M. (2008). A tale of two border cities: Community
context, ethnicity and homicide. Social Science Quarterly, 89(1), 1–16.
Martinez, R., Jr., Stowell, J. I., & Lee, M. T. (2010). Immigration and crime in an era of
­transformation: A longitudinal analysis of homicides in San Diego neighborhoods,
1980–2000. Criminology, 48(3), 797–829.
McNulty, T. L. (2004). Latino homicide: Immigration, violence and community. American
Journal of Sociology, 109(4), 1023–1025.
Morenoff, J. D., & Astor, A. (2006). Immigrant assimilation and crime: Generational differences in youth violence in Chicago. In R. Martinez, Jr. & A. Valenzuela, Jr. (Eds.),
Immigration and crime (pp. 36–63). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Oropresa, R., & Jensen, L. (2010). Dominican immigrants and discrimination in a new
­destination: The case of Reading, Pennsylvania. City & Community, 9(3), 274–298.
Ousey, G. C., & Kubrin, C. E. (2009). Exploring the connection between immigration and
violent crime rates in US cities 1980–2000. Social Problems, 56(3), 447–473.
Painter‐Davis, N. (2016). Immigration effects on violence contextualized: The role of immigrant destination type and race/ethnicity. Sociological Perspectives, 59(1), 130–152.
Peguero, A. A. (2009). Victimizing the children of immigrants: Latino and Asian American
student victimization. Youth & Society, 41(2), 186–208.
Perez, D. M., Jennings, W. G., & Grover, A. R. (2008). Specifying general strain theory:
An ethnically relevant approach. Deviant Behavior, 29(6), 544–578.
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2005). Macrostructural analyses of race, ethnicity and violent
crime: Recent lessons and new directions for research. Annual Review of Sociology, 31,
331–356.
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2010). Divergent social worlds: Neighborhood crime and the
racial‐spatial divide. New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation.
Portes, A., & Jensen, L. (1989). The enclave and the entrants: Patterns of ethnic enterprise in
Miami before and after Mariel. American Sociological Review, 54(6), 929–949.
Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2006). Immigrant America: A portrait. Los Angeles, CA:
University of California Press.
Portes, A., & Zhou, M. (1993). The new second generation: Segmented assimilation and
its variants. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 530(1),
74–96.
Puckett, J. L., & Lundman, R. J. (2003). Factors affecting homicide clearances: Multivariate
analysis of a more complete conceptual framework. Research in Crime and Delinquency,
40(2), 171–193.
Ramey, D. (2013). Immigrant revitalization and neighborhood violent crime in established
and new destination cities. Social Forces, 92(2), 597–629.
Reid, L. W., Weiss, H. E., Adelman, R. M., & Jaret, C. (2005). The immigration–crime
­relationship: Evidence across US metropolitan areas. Social Science Research, 34(4),
757–780.
Rennison, C. M. (2007). Reporting to the police by Hispanic victims of violence. Violence and
Victims, 22(6), 754–772.
Roberts, A. (2007). Predictors of homicide clearance by arrest: An event history analysis of
NIBRS incidents. Homicide Studies, 11(2), 82–93.
Roberts, A., & Lyons, C. J. (2009). Victim–offender racial dyads and clearance of lethal and
nonlethal assault. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 46(3), 301–326.
62
Saundra Trujillo and María B. Vélez
Roberts, A., & Lyons, C. J. (2011). Hispanic victims and homicide clearance by arrest.
Homicide Studies, 15(1), 48–73.
Rumbaut, R. G. (2009). Undocumented immigration and rates of crime and imprisonment:
Popular myths and empirical realities. In A. Khashu (Ed.), The role of local police: Striking
a balance between immigration enforcement and civil liberties (pp. 2–22). Washington,
DC: Police Foundation.
Sampson, R. J. (1986). Crime in cities: The effects of formal and informal social control.
Crime and Justice, 8, 271–311.
Sampson, R. J. (2006, March 11). Open doors don’t invite criminals: Is increased immigration
behind the drop in crime? New York Times, p. A27.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Sampson, R. J., & Lauritsen, J. L. (1994). Violent victimization and offending: Individual‐,
situational‐, and community‐level risk factors. In A. Reiss, Jr., & J. Roth (Eds.),
Understanding and preventing violence: Social influences (pp. 1–114). Washington DC:
National Academies Press.
Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and crime: A multilevel
study of collective efficacy. Science, 277(5328), 918–924.
Shaw, C. R., & McKay, H. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Shihadeh, E. S., & Barranco, R. (2010). Latino immigration, economic deprivation, and
­violence: Regional differences in the effect of linguistic isolation. Homicide Studies,
14(1), 336–355.
Skogan, W. G. (1990). Disorder and decline: Crime and the spiral of decay in American neighborhoods. Berkeley, CA: University of California Free Press.
Skogan, W. G., & Hartnett, S. M. (1997). Community policing, Chicago style. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
Smith, C., & Krohn, M. D. (1995). Delinquency and family life among male adolescents:
The role of ethnicity. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 24(1), 69–93.
Spergel, I. A. (1964). Racketville, Slumtown, Haulberg. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Stacey, M., Carbone‐Lopez, K., & Rosenfeld, R. (2011). Demographic change and ethnically
motivated crime: The impact of immigration on anti‐Hispanic hate crime in the United
States. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 27(3), 278–298.
Steffensmeier, D., & Demuth, S. (2000). Ethnicity and sentencing outcomes in US federal
courts: Who is punished more harshly? American Sociological Review, 65(5), 705–779.
Stowell, J. I., Messner, S. F., McGeever, K. F., & Raffalovich, L. E. (2009). Immigration and the
recent violent crime drop in the United States: A pooled, cross‐sectional time‐series
analysis of metropolitan areas. Criminology, 47(3), 889–928.
Sunshine, J., & Tyler, T. R. (2003). The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping
public support for policing. Law & Society Review, 37(3), 513–548.
Taylor, R. B. (2015). Community criminology: Fundamentals of spatial and temporal scaling,
ecological indicators, and selectivity bias. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Thomas, M. O., & Burns, P. F. (2005). Repairing the divide: An investigation of community
policing and citizen attitudes toward the police by race and ethnicity. Journal of Ethnicity
in Criminal Justice, 3(1–2), 71–90.
Ethnicity and Crime
63
Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1918). The Polish peasant in Europe and America. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Tonry, M. (1997). Ethnicity, crime and immigration. Crime and Justice, 21(1), 1–29.
Travis, J., Western, B., & Redburn, S. (2014). The growth of incarceration in the United States:
Exploring causes and consequences. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Truman, J. L., & Langton, L. (2015). Criminal victimization, 2014. Washington, DC:
US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.
Vélez, M. B. (2001). The role of public social control in urban neighborhoods: A multi‐level
analysis of victimization. Criminology, 39(4), 837–864.
Vélez, M. B. (2006). Toward an understanding of the lower rates of homicide in Latino versus
Black neighborhoods: A look at Chicago. In R. D. Peterson, L. J. Krivo, & J. Hagan (Eds.),
The many colors of crime (pp. 91–107). New York: New York Press.
Vélez, M. B. (2009). Contextualizing the immigration and crime effect: An analysis of
­homicide in Chicago neighborhoods. Homicide Studies, 13(3), 325–335.
Ventura Miller, H., Holly, J. C., & Hartley, R. D. (2011). Reconsidering Hispanic gang
­membership and acculturation in a multivariate context. Crime and Delinquency,
57(3), 331–355.
Wadsworth, T. (2010). Is immigration responsible for the crime drop? An assessment of the
influence of immigration on changes in violent crime between 1990 and 2000. Social
Science Quarterly, 91(2), 531–553.
Walker, S., Spohn, C., & DeLone, M. (2004). The color of justice: Race, ethnicity and crime in
America. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Waters, M. C., & Jiménez, T. R. (2005). Assessing immigrant assimilation: New empirical and
theoretical challenges. Annual Review of Sociology, 31(1), 105–125.
Weisburd, R., Groff, E. R., & Yang, S.‐M. (2012). The criminology of place: Street segments and
our understanding of the crime problem. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Weitzer, R., & Tuch, S. A. (2004). Race and perceptions of police misconduct. Social Problems,
51(3), 305–325.
Weitzer, R., & Tuch, S. A. (2005). Racially biased policing: Determinants of citizen perceptions. Social Forces, 83(3), 1009–1030.
Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Wolfgang, M., & Ferracuti, F. (1967). The subculture of violence: Toward an integrated theory
in criminology. London, England: Tavistock.
Xie, M., & Planty, M. (2014). Violent victimization in new and established Hispanic areas,
2007–2010. Washington, DC: Office of Justice Programs.
Zimring, F. E. (2007). The great American crime decline. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
3
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization
in the US Context: An Overview
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth,
and Joshua LePree
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume,
are good people.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, June 16, 2015
In announcing his candidacy for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination,
Donald Trump evoked a powerful cultural trope that associates immigrants with the
threat of criminality. In this speech and subsequent commentary on the priorities of
his presidential platform, Trump promised to get tough on controlling immigration
to the United States as an integral component of his plan to “make America great
again.” While it may seem facile to highlight Trump’s perspectives on crime and
immigration, he is not alone among politicians in evoking the threat of immigrant
crime. Trump’s remarks struck a chord with the American conscience precisely
because anti‐immigrant rhetoric has a centuries‐long history in the United States
(Golash‐Boza, 2012; Ngai, 2004) largely predicated on the assumption of immigrant
criminality (Goldberg, 2002; Román, 2013). In this chapter we explore the history
of this cultural trope associating immigration with crime, examine the empirical
evidence regarding this association, and discuss potential consequences of public
policy stemming from the criminal immigrant narrative.
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
66
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
The Criminal Immigrant Narrative, 1800–2015
Constructing the Narrative: Chinese Immigrants in the 1800s
During the mid‐nineteenth century, the Chinese were among the first non‐
European immigrant groups to arrive in the United States en masse, and they
quickly became the target of discourse that associated their presence with increased
crime (Chang, 2004). For instance, a popular political cartoon of the time by
Thomas Nast caricatured Chinese immigrants as vagrants who were prone to the
crimes of public intoxication and assaulting bystanders; its caption read, “Let the
Chinese embrace civilization, and they may stay” (Nast, 1882). By the 1880s, multiple West Coast cities that had significant populations of Chinese immigrants
moved to fully expel these populations, including the logging community of
Eureka, California. In support of the local expulsion, the Eureka newspaper characterized its Chinatown as infested with deplorable criminal activity: “under a
small heathen horde, acts of riot and assassination are more and more boldly being
committed … it is the pestilential quarter where Chinese gambling dens, opium
smoking hell‐holes and the lowest brothels abound” (Pfaelzer, 2007, p. 128). The
association of the Chinese with criminality and immorality had a significant
influence on policies of the era that targeted this immigrant group for exclusion
from the nation. The Page Act of 1875 specifically targeted Chinese immigrant
women for removal based on the assumption that they entered the country to
engage in prostitution among the burgeoning population of Chinese immigrant
laborers in the American West, and immigration agents did not need to prove that
these women were engaged in this crime in order to deny them entry or to force
their deportation (Luibhéid, 2002).
Extending the Narrative: European and Mexican
Immigrants in the 1900s
Widespread acceptance of political discourse connecting immigration with an
increase in crime carried over into the early twentieth century, and had a significant
effect on public policy during this period. According to Hagan and Palloni (1999),
“public perceptions of immigrant alcohol use and public drunkenness in association
with fears of crime facilitated the passage of Prohibition, and Congressional acts in
1921 and 1924 substantially reduced the numbers of immigrants admitted to the
United States” (p. 618). These policies concerned themselves specifically with the
influx of Southern and Eastern Europeans to American shores, who were viewed by
mainstream elites as a distinctly moral and cultural threat to the stability of the
nation. The pseudoscientific ideology of eugenics underpinned perceptions of
recent immigrants as a threat: a principal goal of eugenics was to provide scientific
evidence that linked criminality to the presence of a “deficient mental state” among
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
67
these groups in order to bolster public support for their removal and exclusion from
the United States (Gould, 1981).
By the 1920s and 1930s, Mexican immigrants served as a source of cheap and
accessible labor in the mining and agricultural industries of the American West, and
were quickly targeted by rhetoric which aimed to criminalize their actions and construct them as a threat to be handled through legislative action (De Baca, 1998).
Specifically, Mexicans’ use of marijuana was characterized as an activity that would
inevitably lead to severe, and potentially lethal, criminal behavior. In support of
Montana’s 1927 law prohibiting marijuana, a state legislator proclaimed that “when
some (Mexican) beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff … he thinks he has
just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political
enemies” (Gray, 1998, p. 77). Like Montana, many western states moved to prohibit
the use, possession, and cultivation of marijuana during these decades based on this
blueprint of criminalizing actions associated with Mexican immigrants and grossly
exaggerating the dangers believed to result from these actions—a precedent that laid
the foundation for the federal prohibition of marijuana in 1937, despite the fact that
Mexican immigrants resided primarily in the American Southwest.
Throughout the twentieth century, the “Latino threat narrative” (L. Chavez, 2008)
came to characterize the way that public discourse has associated the increase in
Latin American immigration to the United States with the perceived threat of criminality and rising crime rates. However, contemporary claims have posited that the
threat posed by immigration from south of the border is no longer solely a matter of
individual‐level criminal behavior, but in fact poses a more broadly construed threat
to national security. This rhetoric concerning national security has buttressed popular
claims‐making regarding the threat of a Latino “invasion” of the United States (e.g.,
Huntington, 2004), and has been evoked by US politicians in order to justify the militarization of the border with Mexico. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan addressed
the nation and urged citizens to take seriously the threat of Central American communists operating only a few days’ drive from the Texas border with Mexico, citing
drug trafficking, mob violence, and political executions as security threats that, if not
addressed, could easily make their way north from Nicaragua and El Salvador.
By the end of the twentieth century, the Latino threat narrative centered on the
growing numbers of undocumented immigrants entering the United States from
Latin American nations, especially Mexico. In this context, a 1994 report authored
for the United States Commission on Immigration Reform examined how far people on the US–Mexico border believed undocumented immigrants were a source of
increased crime, and their reactions to a strengthened US government program to
cut off illegal entry before the migrants could penetrate further into the US (Bean
et al., 1994). Since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, every major
federal legislation dealing with immigration has referenced a perceived threat, and
this has led to the continued augmentation of Border Patrol budgets as well as a
significant increase in the internal enforcement apparatus known as Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (Massey, Durand, & Malone, 2002).
68
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
A New Threat Emerges: Muslim Immigrants in the 2000s
The attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 ushered in a sea change in
the framing of the rhetoric of immigrants posing a criminal and security threat to
the nation. The widespread public perception of Muslim and Arab immigrant
groups as likely criminals has come to operate in tandem with the Latino threat
narrative in order to fuel widespread perceptions that the majority of non‐White
immigrants to the United States are likely criminals. A few months after suggesting
that the majority of undocumented immigrants from Mexico were drug traffickers
and rapists, then‐presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed denying all
Muslims entrance into the United States, proclaiming in December of 2015 that
“until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous
threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people
that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”
The claims both stemming from and giving rise to what we call the “criminal
immigrant narrative” have rarely drawn on empirical data or social science research
to substantiate this supposed association. Like much political discourse, the claims
have instead drawn on common fears and widespread beliefs that are aligned with
dominant frames regarding related social issues. In the following, we turn to the
extant research in this area to see if it provides empirical evidence that is congruent
with the pervasive notion of immigrant‐as‐criminal: Do immigrants commit more
crime than non‐immigrants? Has increased immigration coincided with an
increase in levels of crime? Despite the fact that anti‐immigration rhetoric has historically referred to crime as a primary foundation for constructing immigrants as
a threat, we find that the reality is far more multifaceted than the claims would lead
us to believe. By reviewing the extant scholarly research that documents the many
facets of immigration and crime, we arrive at a more informed picture of this
association.
Challenging the Narrative: Do Immigrants Really
Commit More Crime?
Despite the common narrative that immigration is positively associated with
crime, the bulk of the evidence suggests that this is not the case. In fact, many
studies at both the individual and aggregate level identify an inverse relationship
between immigration and crime. In the next two sections we review these bodies
of work as well as related literatures regarding assimilation, crime, and victimization. While our review will focus on newer work in the area resulting from recent
growth in scholarly interest in the topic, as made possible by the availability of
better data and more advanced analytic techniques, it is important to note that
findings of an inverse relationship between immigration and crime were first
­published over a century ago. In 1911, the Immigration Commission published a
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
69
report showing that immigrants participated in crime at a lower rate than their
native‐born counterparts (Immigration Commission, 1911). And two decades
later, what came to be known as the Wickersham Commission published Report
on Crime and the Foreign Born, which suggested that, contrary to popular opinion,
foreign‐born individuals committed crimes at lower rates than the native‐born
population (National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, 1931).
This early work was primarily based on prison data and was motivated by public
concern over the erroneous perception that the large number of immigrants
­flowing into the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s were responsible for a
growing crime problem. Such concerns, and the scholarly focus they gave rise to,
waned as immigration declined sharply between the 1920s and 1960s (Migration
Policy Institute, 2017).
The second wave of research on immigration and crime also emerged in
response to the public outcry over the “criminal immigrant”—though this time
associated with growing immigration from Mexico and other parts of Latin
America, which substantially increased from the 1970s into the twenty‐first
century (Chishti & Hipsman, 2015). This growing body of work regarding the
association between various demographic characteristics and criminal participation first emerged from self‐report surveys. In one of the most important criminological data collection efforts of the last two decades, Robert Sampson and his
colleagues undertook the Project on Human Development in Chicago
Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Issues of race and ethnicity, neighborhood disadvantage, and crime and delinquency were central to the study, which collected
information on violent offending from almost 3,000 White, Black and Mexican
American participants between the ages of 8 and 25 (Sampson, Morenoff, &
Raudenbush, 2005). Regarding the association between immigration and criminal
participation, Sampson et al. (2005) found that first generation adolescents
(those born outside of the United States) were 45 percent less likely than third
generation adolescents to report committing violent offenses. Similarly, second
generation respondents were 22 percent less likely to report engaging in violent
crime than their third generation counterparts. These findings provided strong
evidence for two key relationships that have remained central to the study of
immigration and crime: immigrant adolescents have a lower propensity for crime
than native‐born adolescents, and this proclivity seems to increase as adolescents
and young adults assimilate into US society.
The issue of immigrant assimilation and adaptation has become central to much
of the empirical and theoretical work focusing on immigration and crime.
Assimilation scholar Milton Gordon (1964) suggests that cultural or behavioral
assimilation occurs when an immigrant group undergoes a “change of cultural
­patterns to those of the host society” (p. 71), with culture being defined as the
“norms of conduct, beliefs, values, and skills” of a given society (p. 32). Morenoff
and Astor (2006) built on Sampson et al.’s initial findings from the PHDCN by
attempting to operationalize the process that Gordon defines and examine its role in
70
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
shaping adolescent criminality. Their work found that the propensity for crime
among immigrant youth increases as the age at immigration decreases. Immigrant
children who arrived in the United States when they were less than six years old
reported higher levels of participation in violent behavior than those who arrived in
the US when they were ten or older. Their findings also demonstrate that immigrant
children from families with higher levels of linguistic assimilation (i.e., English is
more likely to be the, or is one of the, primary languages spoken in the household)
are more likely to engage in violence, and that neighborhood social and economic
disadvantage increase participation in violent and property offenses among third,
but not among first or second generation adolescents. Both of these findings support
Sampson et al.’s initial conclusions regarding the role of assimilation in shaping
adolescent crime.
While the PHDCN focused entirely on Mexican American immigration, Zhou
and Bankston (2006) found similar results regarding assimilation in their research
on Vietnamese and Vietnamese American adolescents in New Orleans. As immigrants and the children of immigrants became more “Americanized,” as indicated by
cultural affinities, friendship networks, and weaker familial attachment, rates of
illicit substance use and confrontations with the police increased. Relatedly,
Dinovitzer, Hagan and Levi (2009) found in data from Toronto that first generation
adolescents from a variety of sending countries exhibited higher levels of school
investment than their native‐born counterparts, which was associated with lower
levels of delinquency.
In addition to focusing on individual immigrant status and crime and
delinquency, Desmond and Kubrin (2009, 2015) have examined how the
concentration of immigrants influences individual propensities for violent
delinquency among respondents of the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent
Health (also called Add Health). Their findings suggest that Asian and Latino
respondents living in neighborhoods with higher concentrations of immigrants are
less likely to engage in violent offenses than their ethnic counterparts living in
neighborhoods with lower concentrations of immigrants. In contrast, neighborhood immigrant concentration had no influence on the violent behavior of White
respondents, suggesting that this protective influence doesn’t extend to other racial
and ethnic groups. While their work is not a direct test of the influence of assimilation, their findings add support to the argument that “Americanization” may
increase adolescent criminal behavior by demonstrating that adolescent ethnic
minorities engage in less problematic behaviors when surrounded by other newcomers to the United States. Together, these and other findings (Butcher & Piehl,
1998; Harris, 1999; Martinez & Lee, 2000) present evidence for a general trend in
which (1) foreign‐born adolescents commit less crime than native‐born, (2)
criminal participation increases with each subsequent generation, and (3) assimilation and acculturation are important mechanisms driving these relationships.
We look next to specific types of criminal behavior, which offer further evidence
for these trends.
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
71
Immigrants and Gang Violence
The immigrant criminal narrative is perhaps best represented in the popular discourse
around gangs and violent crime. Also, nowhere is the misconception of immigrants
committing the most crime more untrue. The confusion largely arises from w
­ idespread
conflation of Latino ethnicity and perceived recent immigration status (documented
or not), which misses the fact that Latino/as become more likely to join gangs, like
engaging in other criminal activities, the longer they live in the United States.
In 2005, there were 774,000 reported gang members in the US, approximately
50 percent of whom were Latino (though this varies regionally with the highest
­concentrations in Southern California, Texas, and Washington, DC; Howell & Egely,
2005). These gangs tend to be the object of disproportionate media attention and
sensational reporting as a part of the immigrant criminal narrative. For instance, the
Central American gang MS‐13 is often reported to be one of the fastest growing and
most notorious gangs in the US (Rankin & Torpy, 2010), which over the past decade
has become a primary target of anti‐immigrant reporting on a positive link between
immigration status and crime. Some publications suggest that in certain jurisdictions up to 80 percent of gang members are Latino “illegal aliens” who are responsible for nearly all firearm violence (Klein, 2015). Others go even further, stating that
“up to 80% of crime in the US is committed by gangs” (Judicial Watch, 2009), with
the same publication focusing almost entirely on MS‐13 and calling “all members …
illegal immigrants with previous criminal records.” Articles like these tend to focus
on anecdotal stories of heinous crimes committed against victims not affiliated to
gangs and serve to perpetuate an intuitive and inseparable connection between
Latino immigrants, gangs, violent crime, and drugs.
The data do not match these claims. In a unique study of San Antonio homicides
involving Mexican American gang members, Valdez, Cepeda, and Kaplan (2009)
attributed no deaths to foreign‐born youth and concluded that “participation in
gang activity and violence by … immigrant youth living in these [same] neighborhoods and attending the same schools was almost nonexistent” (p. 301). Furthermore,
there doesn’t exist a conclusive count of how much crime in the US is gang related,
or how much of this is committed by immigrants. What is clear is that immigrant
youth do not participate in gangs at a higher rate than their US‐born ethnic counterparts (A. Barrett, Kuperminc, & Lewis, 2013), that most immigrants hold disdain
toward street gangs, seeing them as fundamentally American and not representative
of their own cultural values (De Genova, 2008), and that less assimilated immigrants
are especially fearful of gangs and gang‐related crime (Brown & Benedict, 2009). In
fact, one analysis of Add Health data found that recent Hispanic male immigrants
were much less likely to join gangs than otherwise similar immigrants who had been
in the country for longer or who were second or third generation immigrants—
especially in neighborhoods with a high concentration of immigrant residents
(Herbst, 2013). All of this is not to suggest that gangs are not a problem when it
comes to perpetrating violent and drug crime in the US (an analysis of this issue is
72
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
also beyond the scope of this chapter), but rather to challenge the common view that
gang violence and other associated crime is an immigrant issue.
Immigration and Drug Use
Similarly, studies of drug use behavior among immigrant populations tend to confirm the protective status of being foreign‐born, though there seems to be considerable variation in this relationship by degree of assimilation. Both foreign‐born
Latina/o and Asian adolescents are less likely to use drugs than their US‐born
­counterparts (Hussey et al., 2007; Ojeda, Patterson, & Strathdee, 2008), though
assimilation to US behavioral norms appears to occur as rapidly as by the second
generation (Hussey et al., 2007). However, the direct influence of assimilation (aside
from time in the United States) on drug use among US immigrant populations is
complex, with some (e.g. Akins, Mosher, Smith, & Gauthier, 2008; M. Barrett, Joe, &
Simpson, 1991; Yin, Zapata, & Katims, 1995) finding that assimilation to US norms
increases drug use, while others find that the relationship is completely mediated
by community contextual factors like drug availability and gang membership
(H. Miller, 2011; J. Miller, Miller, Zapata, & Yin, 2008). To complicate matters,
researchers have also noted significant variation in these patterns by country of
origin: Asian immigrants tend to use drugs less (Hussey et al., 2007) and delay drug
use until later in life than native‐born Asian Americans and other immigrant groups
(Nemoto et al., 1999). If anything, the isolation resulting from relocation to the US
appears to be the initial catalyst for the use that does occur among this group
(Nemoto et al., 1999). Taken together, these findings further signify that drug intake
and other crime among immigrant groups is perhaps best conceptualized as a correlate of the “Americanization process” (Vega, Alderete, Kolody, & Aguilar‐Gaxiola,
1998) rather than a proclivity of recent immigrants or their communities.
Immigration and Crime in the Aggregate
In addition to research examining the relationship between immigration status and
crime at the individual level, the last decade has seen a proliferation of research
examining immigration and crime at the aggregate level. Much research in this area
was discussed in a 2006 op‐ed piece in the New York Times by Robert Sampson
­questioning whether the US drop in crime could be the result of an increase in
immigrants. Sampson (2006) wrote:
social scientists have put forth many explanations for the astonishing drop in crime
rates in America over the last decade or so, and yet we remain mystified … Perhaps we
have been overlooking something obvious—something that our implicit biases caused
us not to notice … evidence points to increased immigration as a major factor
­associated with the lower crime rate of the 1990s.
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
73
In response to Sampson’s claim, a number of scholars examined whether changes in
immigration patterns influenced changes in crime rates. For example, Stowell,
Messner, McGeever, and Raffalovich (2009) and Wadsworth (2010) used longitudinal
data to examine changes in immigration and changes in crime during the height of
the crime drop in the United States. Both studies found that increases in immigration were associated with decreases in crime in US metropolitan areas, concluding
that increases in immigration likely contributed to the precipitous drop in crime
during the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty‐first century. While neither of
these projects was able to empirically examine causal mechanisms associated with
assimilation, both alluded to the role of culturally specific norms and values, highlighting the existence of tightly knit immigrant communities and ethnic enclaves as
potential explanations for how growing immigrant populations may contribute to
the crime drop. In a cross‐sectional study of US metropolitan areas, Reid, Weiss,
Adelman, and Jaret (2005) discovered a similar, negative association between
foreign‐born concentration and homicide, also noting that there was no relationship
with robbery or other property crimes except for theft, which was lower in areas
with heavy concentrations of Asian immigrants. While focusing less on immigration as a mechanism to help explain the drop in crime, Ousey and Kubrin (2009)
identified a similar pattern starting as far back as 1980—cities that experienced
increases in immigration between 1980 and 2000 experienced greater decreases in
violent crime. They also found that at least part of this association was due to higher
levels of intact two‐parent families among recent immigrants—a pattern than
declines in subsequent generations.
While these studies focus on national trends, additional work has examined the
influence of immigration on crime at lower levels of aggregation. In the first of two
studies focusing on crime and immigration in California, Martinez, Stowell, and Lee
(2010) examined the influence of immigration on homicide in San Diego neighborhoods between 1980 and 2000. They found that increases in immigrant populations
were associated with decreases in homicide over time. Similarly, MacDonald, Hipp,
and Gill (2013) found that immigrant concentration was associated with reductions
in neighborhood crime rates in Los Angeles. A number of other studies focusing on
neighborhood patterns in a variety of US cities have provided additional findings
showing that higher immigrant concentration at the neighborhood level is associated with decreased rates of homicide (Akins, Rumbaut, & Stansfield, 2009; J. Chavez
& Griffiths, 2009; Feldmeyer & Steffensmeier, 2009; Graif & Sampson, 2009; M. Lee,
Martinez, & Rosenfeld, 2001; Martinez, Stowell, & Cancino 2008; Nielsen &
Martinez, 2009; Stowell & Martinez, 2009; Velez, 2009).
Collectively, a whole host of individual and aggregate‐level studies examining the
relationship between immigration and crime offers a significant challenge to the
criminal immigrant narrative. These studies can be traced back for over a century,
include findings from virtually all levels of analysis, encompass various geographic
areas, and focus on immigrants from a variety of sending countries. There is simply
no empirical evidence that immigrants commit more crime and a plethora of ­evidence
to the contrary. Despite this, the criminal immigrant narrative remains strong and
74
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
continues to have significant implications for the immigrant experience and public
policy more broadly. In the next section we focus on how this narrative of immigrant
offending has in fact increased the criminal victimization of immigrants.
Immigrant Victimization
Despite no empirical support for the criminal immigrant narrative, this assumption
has instigated recent changes in immigration enforcement, public policy, and state
and federal legislation that place immigrants at a higher risk for a unique set of victimizations. Many of the worst oppressions that immigrants face in the US are a
direct result of real or inferred legal status, either of the victims themselves or their
families. Legislation like California’s Proposition 187 (1994), Arizona’s Senate Bill
1070 (2010), the federal Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g)
Immigration and Nationality Act (1996, 2009 revision), and the Department of
Homeland Security’s Secure Communities Program (S‐COMM, 2008–2014;
renamed Priority Enforcement Program in 2015)—all of whose passage was fueled
by the criminal immigrant narrative—has enabled a range of debilitating, discriminatory practices targeting immigrants whose status is perceived to be illegal.
For example, the Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act tasked local
and state law enforcement entities with immigration enforcement duties that have
traditionally fallen under federal jurisdiction, resulting in a process known as “cross‐
deputization,” while S‐COMM (now PEP) mandates sharing of fingerprint records
between all levels of law enforcement and ICE to identify so‐called “criminal aliens”
for removal from the US. Taken together, these policies simultaneously allow law
enforcement a great deal of discretion in deciding what constitutes “reasonable suspicion” of someone being undocumented (which enables profiling), pressure law
enforcement to act on these suspicions (whether officials personally agree with the
policies or not), and disincentivize the reporting of criminal victimization by those
who associate with, or are themselves, undocumented immigrants (Golash‐Boza,
2012). Nationality matters, even among the most widely profiled ethnic group,
Latinos. These policies are particularly damaging for darker‐skinned Central
American and Caribbean‐origin immigrants, who are likely to be recognized and
questioned by law enforcement under suspicion of being undocumented, versus
lighter‐skinned immigrants who historically come from countries like Argentina or
Cuba and are thus more likely to be perceived as possessing legal documentation
(Menjívar & Bejarano, 2004).
The greatest consequences of such policies have been additional vulnerability to
being victimized by certain types of crime, and conscious avoidance of institutions
that traditionally provide needed services to marginalized communities. Under
287(g), the police, the public, and scholars alike all recognize that cross‐deputization
may have detrimental effects on public safety (Burbank, Keesee, & Goff, 2010;
Epstein & Goff, 2011; Zatz & Smith, 2012). Goff, Epstein, and Reddy (2013) found
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
75
that most police officers are concerned that enforcing immigration laws will cost
them public respect, in turn jeopardizing their moral authority and their ability to
peacefully resolve conflicts between law enforcement and civilians, and discouraging widespread community compliance and cooperation in the shared goal of
reducing crime. Their concerns are apparently well founded: both White and Latino
respondents were dramatically less likely to say they would report future violent and
drug crimes to police in situations where cross‐deputization was in place in a series
of surveys analyzed by Goff and colleagues (Goff et al., 2013). Ultimately, underreporting puts entire communities, but especially Latinos and other immigrant groups,
at greater risk of victimization. In fact, it appears that the more familiar with the US
system immigrants become, the less confident they feel in using it (Menjívar &
Bejarano, 2004). Studies conducted before the introduction of cross‐deputization
already displayed a tendency for recent immigrants to underreport crimes like
domestic and gang violence (Davis, Erez, & Avitabile, 2001), instead turning to
informal support systems like family or friends (Sokoloff & Pearce, 2011). It is thus
likely that the newly introduced threat of deportation by simply coming into contact
with law enforcement exacerbates the issue. Couple this with the fact that immigrants tend to face language barriers, have little familiarity with the laws and criminal
justice procedures of their new host countries, often live in impoverished areas, and
are likely to carry cash on their person because of restrictions on obtaining bank
accounts (Bucher, Manasse, & Tarasawa, 2010), and recent immigrants, undocumented or not, are clear targets for crime.
Unfortunately, law enforcement is not the only institution consciously shunned by
some immigrant groups due to these data‐sharing policies. Hospitals (Goffman,
2009; Lara‐Millán, 2014), banks, workplaces, schools, and other public institutions
characterized by a need for identification and formal record‐keeping have all been
drawn into the surveillance assemblage, resulting in what Sarah Brayne (2014) has
called “system avoidance.” Specifically, Brayne found that if an individual has had any
contact with law enforcement, they become much less likely to make use of these
critical public services. This impact falls disproportionately on those who are the least
well‐off and most threatened by criminal justice system contact. Because of their legal
status or criminal record, the threat of being identified by law enforcement severs
vulnerable immigrants from pivotal mechanisms for improving characteristics that
would reduce the risk of victimization, such as getting out of poverty, obtaining a
good education, and engaging in skilled, formal work. One of the most detrimental
ways that immigrants, and particularly the undocumented, are impacted by this loss
of opportunity for formal advancement is their increased risk of wage theft.
This risk is especially high for so‐called undocumented “day laborers” who rely on
low‐skilled, manual labor to provide for themselves and their families living in the
US or abroad, due to their lack of legal status and legitimate access to social capital.
Milkman, Gonzalez, and Narro (2010) discovered that wage theft among this group
is frequent and costly in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Nearly 30 percent of
undocumented workers sampled in Los Angeles and Chicago were paid less than
76
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
minimum wage in the past week, with over 60 percent being underpaid by more
than $1.00 per hour and close to 80 percent not receiving overtime pay when
working more than 40 hours for a single employer in the past week. Unfortunately,
while many regulations exist to shield formal employees from this type of crime,
there are few protections in place for those involved in the informal labor economy
(Theodore, Valenzuela, & Meléndez, 2006). Non‐payment for these types of work
falls in a legal gray area, where laborers are supposedly protected by civil law but
almost always unable to gain effective legal counsel due to low and unpaid wages as
well as the linguistic and time burden placed on the defendant in civil cases (S. Lee,
2014). Even for those select individuals who manage to navigate this convoluted and
costly system, the payoff is unlikely to exceed the monetary and other costs incurred
by the plaintiff.
While workers’ rights advocates have pushed for the criminalization of wage theft,
it is unclear whether this scenario would be any better. Though the burden of
prosecuting employers would move to the state, some (Fussell, 2011; S. Lee, 2014)
have argued that any involvement with the criminal legal system (even as a defendant) would increase deportations and skew public perception away from the structural forces that created opportunities for wage theft in the first place by punishing
and making examples of individual bad actors. There is some evidence that at least
this first bit of speculation is true—opportunistic employers and common criminals
alike appear to exploit immigrants’ legal status, with Fussell (2011) finding that
undocumented Latino immigrants are equally likely to experience wage theft and
criminal robbery. The fact that the second offense is protected under criminal law
doesn’t seem to do anything to prevent victimization, for fear of disclosing one’s legal
status to law enforcement.
The same legal and procedural barriers to reporting crimes like wage theft work
in concert with certain aspects of the assimilation process to exacerbate the risk
of—and damage done by—intimate partner violence (IPV). A recent examination of
demographic and health survey data of 24 countries found that only 7 percent of
women who experience IPV formally report it, with younger married women being
at particularly high risk of underreporting (Palermo, Bleck, & Peterman, 2014). The
reasons for not reporting are multitudinous, but for immigrants to the US, language
barriers, system avoidance, legal status, and differences in cultural/legal definitions
may be most salient. This is important because research shows that IPV tends to
escalate over time in relationships (Schumacher & Leonard, 2005), meaning that
women who fail to report or lack the autonomy to leave their abuser are at risk of
more severe victimization.
This risk increases in couples where husbands hold more traditional gender roles
than their wives (Raj & Silverman, 2002), as is often the case in romantic relationships between immigrants, because female partners tend to acquiesce to the relatively
egalitarian gender norms of the US more quickly than their male counterparts
(Hirsch, 1999). For certain groups of immigrants who marry American citizens, the
risks are compounded even further. So‐called “military” and “mail‐order brides,”
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
77
who are disproportionately southeast Asian, unlikely to have family or other support
networks in the US, and are frequently perceived as taking advantage of American
men and the US economy (Haile‐Mariam & Smith, 1999), may even lack the
resources to seek informal help (e.g., from family or friends) after abuse. Furthermore,
such perceptions may make it more difficult for these women to successfully take
action against an abuser, since the justice system has been critiqued for failing to
take IPV seriously in cases where women are not seen as perfectly innocent (Richie,
2012)—a perception that may be due, at least in part, to unfounded assumptions
under the criminal immigrant narrative. Immigrant women with relatively low
social capital, especially those who are for whatever reason seen as a threat to native‐
born Americans or immigrant partners adhering to traditional gender roles, appear
particularly vulnerable to abuse. In short, the real or perceived legal status of recent
immigrants puts them at risk of several unique victimizations in a variety of contexts, with little chance of recourse due to disempowering policies that have stemmed
from widespread acceptance of the criminal immigrant narrative.
Discussion
The criminal immigrant narrative has historically served to associate criminality
with a multitude of immigrant groups in the United States. This narrative, while at
times focusing on specific groups in society (e.g., Chinese, Mexican, or Muslim
immigrants), has nonetheless become so widespread and entrenched in American
culture that the potential criminality of most immigrants is collectively presumed,
regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin. An integral part of this concept is
that the label is justified, and that immigrants indeed engage in criminal activities at
higher rates than the native‐born. As we have seen, nothing could be further from
the truth. Scholarly research has unquestionably demonstrated that the relationship
between immigration and criminality is complex and often misrepresented in
popular discourse, and for this reason alone there is no singular cultural narrative
that can correctly represent it.
Three forms of individual‐level crime that are most often assumed to be prevalent
among immigrants—juvenile offending, gang involvement, and drug use—are
­committed at higher rates among the native‐born than immigrants. Immigrants’
involvement in these activities is in fact a function of time: for each category of
offending, immigrants’ rates increase as they have more experience residing in the
US and become more assimilated to American norms and values. At the aggregate
level, we can see a similar process play out; neighborhoods and cities that experience
a significant increase in the proportion of foreign‐born have an associated decrease
in rates of violent crime, even when controlling for other explanatory factors. These
findings lead us to conclude that when immigrants do engage in crime, it is more
likely reflecting a response to the process of assimilation than it is indicative of
­criminality that immigrants bring to the US.
78
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
While research on immigration and crime has grown substantially in the last
decade, there is much work to be done. We conclude with a discussion of methodological issues that must be addressed and directions of future research that we believe
will continue to expand our understanding of the relationship between immigration
and crime.
Methodological Issues
Scholars of crime and immigration face a unique set of methodological challenges.
To begin with, the same trope that assumes immigrant criminality is, ironically, at
least partially responsible for the increased likelihood of immigrant victimization.
The criminal immigrant narrative, in combination with lack of legal documentation, leads many immigrants to practice system avoidance. So, while immigrants are
at increased risk of criminal victimization, there are also systematic reasons for
underreporting these crimes. Herein lies one of the most vexing problems standing
in the way of scholars seeking to develop a comprehensive and balanced understanding of the relationship between immigration and crime—not only does immigrant victimization often go unreported, but immigrants who avoid law enforcement
are also less likely to report any type of crime. This limits our understanding of the
characteristics of both victims and offenders and contributes to an underestimation
of the volume of crime in certain areas. For those who conduct research in this area,
findings will continue to be skewed until the factors influencing system avoidance
can be minimized.
Another closely related methodological challenge facing research in this area is
the fact that, as of 2014, approximately 11.1 million immigrants in the US lack legal
documentation, and this number represents just over 25 percent of the total foreign‐
born population (Passel & Cohn, 2016). Due to system avoidance and other related
factors, gaining access to undocumented immigrants is difficult, and obtaining a
representative sample of this population is nearly impossible. When roughly one in
four immigrants in the US lacks legal authorization, and for this reason they are
reluctant to interface with law enforcement and researchers alike, it is safe to assume
that obtaining sound data regarding their experiences of crime as victims or
offenders is a monumental challenge to say the least.
Because much of the extant literature in this discipline has tended to focus on the
largest contemporary immigrant groups in the US (namely, Latin American/
Caribbean and Asian), there exists a lacuna of research on crime and victimization
among other immigrant groups. To gain a more nuanced picture, further research
will need to include a focus on immigrant groups from other regions, such as Europe
and the Middle East. Studies of crime and victimization among the latter group are
especially important, as the post‐9/11 criminal immigrant narrative has been applied
wholesale to immigrants of Muslim and Arab backgrounds, and Islamophobia has
recently become part of the common social vernacular in the US. Despite the fact
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
79
that the stereotypical association of Muslim immigrants with terrorism and violence
is widespread (Selod & Embrick, 2013), relatively little scholarship has aimed to
­substantiate or refute the inferred criminality of this group.
In part because of the aforementioned issues with sampling and accessing the
most vulnerable immigrant populations, we need new methods for studying immigrant involvement in gangs. There is no doubt that some immigrants likely find the
transition to a new country alienating, falling back on strong community groups (of
which gangs are an example) for support. However, we simply do not know the
extent to which this occurs, or what types and how much crime immigrant gang
members commit. Efforts should be made to better understand the roles that such
organizations might play in communities, in addition to discussing gangs with
immigrant community members to better understand their perspective on these
and other potential sources of social support. Furthermore, despite the centrality of
gangs to the discourse around crime in the US, government agencies do not consistently or comprehensively collect data on the proportions of various crimes that are
gang affiliated. This information is necessary if we ever hope to move beyond stereotypes and conjecture regarding the role of gangs in criminal enterprise in the US.
Conclusion
The findings discussed in this chapter convey the importance of immigration as a
protective factor contributing to less crime; however, beyond assimilation, little is
known about the mechanisms responsible for this association. More aggregate and
mixed‐methods research is necessary for us to better understand why immigrants
commit less crime, and what roles community and so‐called “ethnic enclaves”
(Portes & Wilson, 1980) play in this relationship. Perhaps strategies can be borrowed
from a related literature: the fact that immigrants commit less crime despite having
sociodemographic characteristics that are typically linked to offending is not dissimilar to the Hispanic health paradox, wherein a relatively socially disadvantaged
group experiences remarkably positive health outcomes (Lariscy, Hummer, &
Hayward, 2015; Markides & Coreil, 1986; Palloni & Arias, 2004). A deeper
­understanding of how the maintenance of traditional cultural characteristics can
deter, and how assimilation can encourage, criminal behavior may be able to shed
additional light on these social facts.
Finally, scholars should be careful to avoid essentializing immigrant groups
when researching crime and victimization. There is a great deal of variation in
offending and victimization patterns by nationality, level of adherence to traditional norms, and gender. For instance, while immigrant and refugee populations
are overall less likely to engage in IPV than their native‐born counterparts (e.g.,
Gupta et al., 2010; Runner, Yoshihama, & Novick, 2009), certain groups have been
identified as more at risk. In a recent national sample, Vaughn, Salas‐Wright,
Cooper‐Sadlo, Maynard, and Larson (2015) observed higher rates of IPV among
80
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
Caribbean, Central American, and Mexican immigrants than the native‐born
population, but lower rates among South American immigrants. Thus, simply
studying IPV among “Latino immigrants” fails to capture the nuance of a more
complex picture. Research with Asian immigrants has uncovered a similar story,
with Cambodian and Vietnamese respondents on average displaying relatively less
egalitarian gender norms than other Asian and native‐born American groups
(Yoshioka, DiNoia, & Ullah, 2001)—attitudes that may rationalize violence against
intimate partners, especially in contexts where wives adopt US gender ideologies
more quickly than their male partners (Hirsch, 1999; Raj & Silverman, 2002). All of
this is further complicated by the fact that definitions of crime, and particularly
IPV, vary widely across time and place.
The criminal immigrant narrative has dominated much of the discourse around
immigration for over a century. While this chapter has focused primarily on the
contemporary US, the claim that immigration increases crime seems almost ubiquitous across a variety of cultural and temporal contexts. However, virtually all of
the extant research suggests that, at least in the United States, this has never actually been the case. However, as the Thomas Theorem suggests, “If men [sic] define
­situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas & Thomas, 1928,
p. 572), the belief in this narrative has always had a significant impact on public
policy pertaining to immigration. In turn these policies have played an important
role in shaping the relationship between immigration and criminal victimization
by encouraging immigrants to avoid many of the institutions intended to support
health and safety. While it may be overly optimistic to think that social science
research will effectively dispel the narrative of the criminal immigrant, we view
the recent development of a large body of research that challenges the claims of
immigrant criminality to be an important step in the right direction. Work that
continues to provide a deeper understanding of this relationship may be the only
thing that can inform wise public policy regarding a variety of issues pertaining to
crime ­prevention, immigration, and assimilation. We hope that it continues.
References
Akins, S., Mosher, C., Smith, C. L., & Gauthier, J. F. (2008). The effect of acculturation
on patterns of Hispanic substance use in Washington State. Journal of Drug Issues,
38(1), 103–118.
Akins, S., Rumbaut, R. G., & Stansfield, R. (2009). Immigration, economic disadvantage,
and homicide: A community‐level analysis of Austin, Texas. Homicide Studies, 13(3),
307–314.
Barrett, A. N., Kuperminc, G. P., & Lewis, K. M. (2013). Acculturative stress and gang involvement among Latinos: US‐born versus immigrant youth. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral
Sciences, 35(3), 370–389.
Barrett, M. E., Joe, G. W., & Simpson, D. D. (1991). Acculturation Influences on inhalant use.
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 13(3), 276–296.
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
81
Bean, F. D., Chanove, R., Cushing, R. G., de la Garzia, R., Freeman, G. P., Haynes, C. W., &
Spener, D. (1994). Illegal Mexican migration and the United States/Mexico border: The
effects of Operation Hold the Line on El Paso/Juárez. Research paper. Washington, DC:
US Commission on Immigration Reform.
Brayne, S. (2014). Surveillance and system avoidance: Criminal justice contact and institutional attachment. American Sociological Review, 79(3), 367–391.
Brown, B., & Benedict, W. R. (2009). Growing pains and fear of gangs: A case study of fear of
gangs at school among Hispanic high school students. Applied Psychology in Criminal
Justice, 5(2), 139–164.
Bucher, J., Manasse, M., & Tarasawa, B. (2010). Undocumented victims: An examination of
crimes against undocumented male migrant workers. Southwest Journal of Criminal
Justice, 7(2), 159–179.
Burbank, C., Goff, P. A., & Keesee, T. L. (2010, June 7). Policing immigration: A job we do not
want. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chief‐chris‐
burbank/policing‐immigration‐a‐jo_b_602439.html
Butcher, K. F., & Piehl, A. M. (1998). Cross‐city evidence on the relationship between
­immigration and crime. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 17(3), 457–493.
Chang, I.. (2004). The Chinese in America: A narrative history. London, England: Penguin.
Chavez, J. M., & Griffiths, E. (2009). Neighborhood dynamics of urban violence:
Understanding the immigration connection. Homicide Studies, 13(3), 261–273.
Chavez, L. R. (2008). The Latino threat: Constructing immigrants, citizens, and the nation.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Chishti, M., & Hipsman, F. (2015, May 21). In historic shift, new migration flows from Mexico
fall below those from China and India. Migration Information Source. Retrieved from
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/historic‐shift‐new‐migration‐flows‐mexico‐
fall‐below‐those‐china‐and‐india.
Davis, R. C., Erez, E., & Avitabile, N. (2001). Access to justice for immigrants who are victimized: The perspectives of police and prosecutors. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 12(3),
183–196.
De Baca, V. C. (Ed.). (1998). La gente: Hispano history and life in Colorado. Denver, CO:
Colorado Historical Society.
De Genova, N. (2008). “American” abjection: “Chicanos,” gangs, and Mexican/migrant
­transnationality in Chicago.” Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, 33(2), 141–174.
Desmond, S. A., & Kubrin, C. E. (2009). The power of place: Immigrant communities and
adolescent violence. Sociological Quarterly, 50(4), 581–607.
Desmond, S. A., & Kubrin, C. E. (2015). The power of place revisited: Why immigrant communities have lower levels of adolescent violence. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice,
13(4), 345–366.
Dinovitzer, R., Hagan, J., & Levi, R. (2009). Immigration and youthful illegalities in a global
edge city. Social Forces, 88(1), 337–372.
Epstein, L. M., & Goff, P. A. (2011). Safety or liberty? The bogus trade‐off of cross‐deputization policy. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 11(1), 314–324.
Feldmeyer, B., & Steffensmeier, D. (2009). Immigration effects on homicide offending for
total and race/ethnicity‐disaggregated populations (White, Black and Latino). Homicide
Studies, 13(3), 211–226.
Fussell, E. (2011). The deportation threat dynamic and victimization of Latino migrants:
Wage theft and robbery. Sociological Quarterly, 52(4), 593–615.
82
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
Goff, P. A., Epstein, L. M., & Reddy, K. S. (2013). Crossing the line of legitimacy: The impact
of cross‐deputization policy on crime reporting. Psychology, Public Policy and Law,
19(2), 250–258.
Goffman, A. (2009). On the run: Wanted men in a Philadelphia ghetto. American Sociological
Review, 74(3), 339–357.
Golash‐Boza, T. M. (2012). Immigration nation: Raids, detentions, and deportations in
post‐9/11 America. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
Goldberg, D. T. (2002). The racial state. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Gordon, M. M. (1964). Assimilation in American Life: The role of race, religion, and national
origins. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Gould, S. J. (1981). The mismeasure of man. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Graif, C., & Sampson, R. J. (2009). Spatial heterogeneity in the effects of immigration and
diversity on neighborhood homicide rates. Homicide Studies, 13(3), 242–260.
Gray, M. (1998). Drug crazy: How we got into this mess and how we can get out. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Gupta, J., Acevedo‐Garcia, D., Hemenway, D., Decker, M. R., Raj, A., & Silverman, J. G.
(2010). Intimate partner violence perpetration, immigration status, and disparities in a
community health center‐based sample of men. Public Health Reports, 125(1), 79–87.
Hagan, J., & Palloni, A. (1999). Sociological criminology and the mythology of Hispanic
immigration and crime. Social Problems, 46(4), 617–632.
Haile‐Mariam, T., & Smith, J. (1999). Domestic violence against women in the international
community. Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America, 17(3), 617–645.
Harris, K. M. (1999). The health status and risk behavior of adolescents in immigrant families. In D. J. Hernandez (Ed.), Children of immigrants: Health, adjustment, and public
assistance (pp. 286–347). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Herbst, E. (2013). The likelihood of gang membership: Immigrant generational differences
among Hispanic youth (Master’s thesis). Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State
University, Bowling Green, Ohio.
Hirsch, J. (1999). En el norte la mujer manda: Gender, generation, and geography in a
Mexican transnational community. American Behavioral Scientist, 42(9), 1332–1349.
Howell, J. C., & Egley, A., Jr. (2005). Moving risk factors into developmental theories of gang
membership. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 3(4), 334–354.
Huntington, S. P. (2004). Who are we? The challenges to America’s identity. New York, NY:
Simon & Schuster.
Hussey, J. M., Hallfors, D. D., Waller, M. W., Iritani, B. J., Halpern, C. T., & Bauer, D. J. (2007).
Sexual behavior and drug use among Asian and Latino adolescents: Association with
immigrant status. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 9(2), 85–94.
Immigration Commission. (1911). Report of the Immigration Commission. US Congress, Senate,
61st Congress, S. Doc. 750, Vol. 36. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Judicial Watch. (2009, January 30). Illegal immigrant gangs commit most US crime. Judicial
Watch Blog: Corruption Chronicles. Retrieved from http://www.judicialwatch.org/
blog/2009/01/illegal‐immigrant‐gangs‐commit‐most‐u‐s‐crime/
Klein, A. (2015, July 9). FBI data backs up Trump claims on illegals and crime. WorldNetDaily.
Retrieved July 17, 2016 from http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/fbi‐data‐backs‐up‐trump‐
claims‐on‐illegals‐and‐crime/
Lara‐Millán, A. (2014). Public emergency room overcrowding in the era of mass imprisonment. American Sociological Review, 79(5), 866–887.
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
83
Lariscy, J. T., Hummer, R. A., & Hayward, M. D. (2015). Hispanic older adult mortality in
the United States: New estimates and an assessment of factors shaping the Hispanic
­paradox. Demography, 52(1), 1–14.
Lee, M. T., Martinez, R., Jr., & Rosenfeld, R. (2001). Does immigration increase homicide?
Negative evidence from three border cities. Sociological Quarterly, 42(4), 559–580.
Lee, S. (2014). Policing wage theft in the day labor market. UC Irvine Law Review, 4(2), 655–678.
Luibhéid, E. (2002). Entry denied: Controlling sexuality at the border. Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press.
MacDonald, J. M., Hipp, J. R., & Gill, C. (2013). The effects of immigrant concentration on
changes in neighborhood crime rates. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 29(2),
191–215.
Markides, K. S., & Coreil, J. (1986). The health of Hispanics in the southwestern United
States: An epidemiologic paradox. Public Health Reports, 101(3), 253–265.
Martinez, R., Jr., & Lee, M. T. (2000). On immigration and crime. In G. Lafree (Ed.),
The nature of crime: Continuity and change (Vol. 1 of Criminal justice 2000). Washington,
DC: National Insitute of Justice.
Martinez, R., Jr., Stowell, Jacob I., & Cancino, J. M. (2008). A tale of two border cities:
Community, context, ethnicity, and homicide. Social Science Quarterly, 89(1), 1–16.
Martinez, R., Jr., Stowell, J. I., & Lee, M. T. (2010). Immigration and crime in an era of
­transformation: A longitudinal analysis of homicides in San Diego neighborhoods,
1980–2000. Criminology, 48(3), 801–833.
Massey, D. S., Durand, J., & Malone, N. J. (2002). Beyond smoke and mirrors: Mexican
­immigration in an era of economic integration. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Menjívar, C., & Bejarano, C. (2004). Latino immigrants’ perceptions of crime and police
authorities in the United States: A case study from the Phoenix metropolitan area. Ethnic
and Racial Studies, 27(1), 120–148.
Migration Policy Institute. (2017). US immigrant population and share over time,
1850–­present. Retrieved from http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data‐hub/
charts/immigrant‐population‐over‐time?width=1000&height=850&iframe=true
Milkman, R., González, A. L., & Narro, V. (2010). Wage theft and workplace violations in Los
Angeles: The failure of employment and labor law for low‐wage workers. Report,
Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Los Angeles.
Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5jt7n9gx
Miller, H. V. (2011). Acculturation, social context, and drug use: Findings from a sample of
Hispanic adolescents. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 36(2), 93–105.
Miller, J. M., Miller, H. V., Zapata, J. T., & Yin, Z. (2008). Mexican‐American youth drug use
and acculturation: A note on the mitigating effects of contextual dynamics. Journal of
Drug Issues, 38(1), 199–214.
Morenoff, J. D., & Astor, A. (2006). Immigrant assimilation and crime: Generational
­differences in youth violence in Chicago. In R. Martinez, Jr. & A. Valenzuela, Jr. (Eds.),
Immigration and crime: Race, ethnicity and violence. New York, NY: New York University
Press.
Nast, T. (1882, March 18). Let the Chinese embrace civilization, and they may stay [Cartoon].
Harper’s Weekly. Retrieved from https://thomasnastcartoons.com/2014/03/31/let‐the‐
chinese‐embrace‐civilization‐and‐they‐may‐stay‐18‐march‐1882/
National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement. (1931). Report on crime and the
foreign born. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
84
Philip M. Pendergast, Tim Wadsworth, and Joshua LePree
Nemoto, T., Aoki, B., Huang, K., Morris, A., Nguyen, H., & Wong, W. (1999). Drug use behaviors among Asian drug dealers in San Francisco. Addictive Behaviors, 24(6), 823–838.
Ngai, M. (2004). Impossible subjects: Illegal aliens and the making of modern America.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Nielsen, A. L., & Martinez, R., Jr. (2009). The role of immigration for violent deaths. Homicide
Studies, 13(3), 274–287.
Ojeda, V. D., Patterson, T. L., & Strathdee, S. A. (2008). The influence of perceived risk to
health and immigration‐related characteristics on substance use among Latino and
other immigrants. American Journal of Public Health, 98(5), 862–868.
Ousey, G. C., & Kubrin, C. E. (2009). Exploring the connection between immigration and
violent crime rates in US cities, 1980–2000. Social Problems, 56(3), 447–473.
Palermo, T., Bleck, J., & Peterman, A. (2014). Tip of the iceberg: Reporting and gender‐based
violence in developing countries. American Journal of Epidemiology, 179(5), 602–612.
Palloni, A., & Arias, E. (2004). Paradox lost: Explaining the Hispanic adult mortality
advantage. Demography, 41(3), 385–415.
Passel, J. S., & Cohn, D. (2016, September 21). Unauthorized immigrant population stable for
half a decade. FactTank. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.
org/fact‐tank/2016/09/21/unauthorized‐immigrant‐population‐stable‐for‐half‐a‐decade/
Pfaelzer, J. (2007). Driven out: The forgotten war against Chinese Americans. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Portes, A., & Wilson, K. (1980). Immigrant enclaves: An analysis of the labor market experiences of Cubans in Miami. American Journal of Sociology, 86(2), 295–319.
Raj, A., & Silverman, J. (2002). Violence against immigrant women: The roles of culture, context, and legal immigrant status on intimate partner violence. Violence Against Women,
8(3), 367–398.
Rankin, B., & Torpy, B. (2010). It’s a dead end in MS‐13. Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Retrieved from http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/its‐a‐dead‐end‐in‐ms‐13/nQdtt/
Reid, L. W., Weiss, H. E., Adelman, R. M., & Jaret, C. (2005). The immigration–crime
­relationship: Evidence across US metropolitan areas. Social Science Research, 34(4),
757–780.
Richie, B. (2012). Arrested justice: Black women, violence, and America’s prison nation.
New York, NY: New York University Press.
Román, E. (2013). Those damned immigrants: America’s hysteria over undocumented
­immigration. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Runner, M., Yoshihama, M., & Novick, S. (2009). Intimate partner violence in immigrant refugee communities: Challenges, promising practices, and recommendations. Princeton, NJ:
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Sampson, R. J. (2006, March 11). Open doors don’t invite criminals. New York Times, p. A27.
Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/opinion/open‐doors‐dont‐invite‐
criminals.html
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Raudenbush, S. (2005). Social anatomy of racial and ethnic
disparities in violence. American Journal of Public Health, 95(2), 224–232.
Schumacher, J. A., & Leonard, K. E. (2005). Husbands’ and wives’ marital adjustment, verbal
aggression, and physical aggression as longitudinal predictors of physical aggression in
early marriage. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(1), 28–37.
Selod, S., & Embrick, D. G. (2013). Racialization and Muslims: Situating the Muslim experience in race scholarship. Sociology Compass, 7(8), 644–655.
Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context
85
Sokoloff, N. J., & Pearce, S. C. (2011). Intersections, immigration, and partner violence:
A view from the new gateway—Baltimore, Maryland. Women and Criminal Justice,
21(3), 250–266.
Stowell, J. I., & Martinez, R., Jr. (2009). Incorporating ethnic‐specific measures of immigration in the study of lethal violence. Homicide Studies, 13(3), 315–324.
Stowell, J. I., Messner, S. F., McGeever, K. F., & Raffalovich, L. E. (2009). Immigration and the
recent violent crime drop in the United States: A pooled, cross‐sectional time‐series
analysis of metropolitan areas. Criminology, 47(3), 889–928.
Theodore, N., Valenzuela, A., Jr., & Meléndez, E. (2006). La esquina (The corner): Day
laborers on the margins of New York’s formal economy. Journal of Labor and Society,
9(4), 407–423.
Thomas, W. I., & Thomas, D. S. (1928). The child in America: Behavior problems and ­programs.
New York, NY: Knopf.
Valdez, A., Cepeda, A., & Kaplan, C. (2009). Homicidal events among Mexican American
street gangs: A situational analysis. Homicide Studies, 13(3), 288–306.
Vaughn, M. G., Salas‐Wright, C. P., Cooper‐Sadlo, S., Maynard, B. R., & Larson, M. (2015).
Are immigrants more likely than native‐born Americans to perpetrate intimate partner
violence? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 30(11), 1888–1904.
Vega, W. A., Alderete, E., Kolody, B., & Aguilar‐Gaxiola, S. (1998). Illicit drug use among
Mexicans and Mexican Americans in California: The effects of gender and acculturation. Addiction, 93(12), 1839–1850.
Velez, M. B. (2009). Contextualizing the immigration and crime effect: An analysis of homicide in Chicago neighborhoods. Homicide Studies, 13(3), 325–335.
Wadsworth, T. (2010). Is immigration responsible for the crime drop? An assessment of the
influence of immigration on changes in violent crime between 1990 and 2000. Social
Science Quarterly, 91(2), 531–553.
Yin, Z., Zapata, J. T., & Katims, D. S. (1995). Risk factors for substance use among Mexican
American school‐age youth. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 17(1), 61–76.
Yoshioka, M. R., DiNoia, J., & Ullah, K. (2001). Attitudes toward marital violence: An examination of four Asian communities. Violence Against Women, 7(8), 900–926.
Zatz, M. S., & Smith, H. (2012). Immigration, crime, and victimization: Rhetoric and reality.
Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 8(1), 141–159.
Zhou, M, & Bankston, C. L. (2006). Delinquency and acculturation in the twenty‐first
century: A decade’s change in a Vietnamese American community. In R. Martinez, Jr. &
A. Valenzuela, Jr. (Eds.), Immigration and crime: Race, ethnicity and violence. New York,
NY: New York University Press.
4
Hate Crime Research in the
Twenty‐First Century
Janice A. Iwama
Throughout US history, crimes driven by bias1 have occurred, particularly against
newcomers and minorities whose growing presence is commonly viewed as a threat
to existing social groups (Chacon & Davis, 2006; Chavez, 2008; Levin & McDevitt,
2002; Shively, McDevitt, Farrell, & Iwama, 2013; Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2001;
Stowell, 2007; Wang, 2012). In the United States alone, a number of examples can be
found, from the lynching of African Americans in the South to recurring attacks
against each new wave of immigration (Hepworth & West, 1988; Hovland & Sears,
1940; Levin & McDevitt, 2002; Martinez, 2008). However, it was not until the second
half of the twentieth century, with a series of violent attacks targeting minorities and
ensuing protests by civil rights groups, that the attention of legislators, law enforcement officials, and the American public was drawn to the prevalence and impact of
hate crimes across the United States (Grattet & Jenness, 2001).
While many civil rights groups began to collect data and publish reports on the
substantial impact of biased acts on their constituents and communities to distinguish them from crimes in general, the term “hate crime” did not surface until the
1980s, when journalists and policy advocates used it to describe crimes targeting
African Americans, Asians, and Jews (Shively & Mulford, 2007). Yet without any
official hate crime data collection system in place, policymakers and practitioners
were unaware of the extent and nature of the problem in the United States (Anti‐
Defamation League, 2012; Grattet, Jenness, & Curry, 1998; McDevitt & Iwama,
2016; Shively, 2005). In 1990, the US Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act
(HCSA) requiring the US Attorney General to collect data on crimes which
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
88
Janice A. Iwama
“manifest prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity” from
law enforcement agencies across the country and to publish an annual report on
the findings.
This chapter begins by providing an overview on the development of federal hate
crime legislation which followed concerns raised by advocacy and civil rights organizations seeking to bring awareness of the rising levels of violence fueled by
discrimination and prejudice in the United States (McDevitt & Iwama, 2016). Next,
I discuss the development of national hate crime data collections since the initial
passage of HCSA, along with the limitations found in each of the datasets with
regard to the underreporting and misclassification of hate crime. Although the
passage of hate crime legislation and the subsequent development of hate crime data
collections led to an advance in hate crime literature, research has since declined
following the challenges associated with using hate crime data collections.
Nevertheless, I discuss empirical studies that have examined the economic, demographic, and political contexts in which hate crimes are more likely to occur, and
conclude with some recommendations for future research.
Hate Crime Legislation
With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which gave the federal government
permission to prosecute anyone who discriminates against any person because of
his or her race, Color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations,
employment, and federally funded programs (Public Law 88‐352, 78 § 241), the federal government established a framework to reduce discrimination and violence
against minority groups in the United States by giving the US Attorney General the
power to file discrimination lawsuits. Yet, as the violence against minorities
continued to escalate in the 1970s, national civil rights organizations such as the
Anti‐Defamation League (ADL), the forerunners of the National LGBTQ Task
Force, and the Southern Poverty Law Center began to collect data and report on
these incidents to raise awareness of the nature and impact of violence born of
­bigotry, and demand legislation to remedy the problem (Grattet & Jenness, 2001).
For example, in 1979 the ADL started to record data on anti‐Semitic incidents using
a national survey collected by each of its regional offices. Based on information
gathered from victims, community leaders, and law enforcement officials, it began
to publish reports in 1980 describing the characteristics of these crimes to illustrate
the significant damage caused by these incidents on the victims and their communities. Nevertheless, despite the widespread coverage of these incidents by journalists and policy advocates, who originally coined the term “hate crime” to distinguish
them from non‐bias crimes in the 1980s, the general public viewed them as isolated
incidents or instances of social unrest. There was no national hate crime data collection to give an understanding of the actual location, size, and scope of the problem
(Perry, 2009; Tafoya, 1991).
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty-First Century
89
Recognizing that these types of incidents have severe and negative consequences
on communities and its members, the US Commission on Civil Rights (1983) conducted an investigation of these incidents and concluded that there existed a number
of contributing circumstances in addition to the rhetoric of hate and acts of violence.
In particular, the Commission contended: “Effective police responses to incidents of
racial and religious violence are necessary to keep such incidents from spreading.
If the police fail to respond or respond in ways which clearly demonstrate a lack
of sensitivity, perpetrators can interpret the police inactivity to indicate official
sympathy or even official sanction” (p. 14). Furthermore, it urged the federal
government to conduct further examination of bias‐motivated violence, with preliminary findings indicating that underreporting of such incidents was more
severe than originally alleged.
In order to understand the nature and magnitude of the problem, the Hate Crime
Statistics Act was first introduced in 1987, reintroduced in the following years, and
finally enacted by the US Congress and signed by President George H. W. Bush in
1990 (Marovitz, 1993; Nolan, Akiyama, & Berhanu, 2002; Shively et al., 2013). Under
this legislation, Congress was able to recognize and effectively address this issue in a
number of ways. First, the HCSA established a standard definition of hate crimes to
distinguish them from non‐hate crimes by describing hate crimes as “crimes that
manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation,
or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder, non‐negligent
­manslaughter; forcible rape; aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation; arson;
and destruction, damage or vandalism of property.”2
Second, the Act recognized the need to gather data on the prevalence of hate
crimes in order to determine patterns and develop preventive strategies to address
the issue. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was given this responsibility and
tasked to acquire information on hate crime statistics from law enforcement agencies
across the country to provide information on this type of crime (Federal Bureau of
Investigation, 2016). Finally, the US Congress modified HCSA in 1994 to include
enhanced penalties for crimes motivated by bias as a deterrence measure and to
acknowledge that hate crimes have a negative impact that extends beyond the
individual victim and affects the community as a whole (Freeman, 1996).
Additionally, as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of
1994, the US Congress included provisions requiring the US Sentencing Commission
to create sentencing guidelines that enhanced penalties for individuals convicted of
hate crimes under federal civil rights law.
With the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes
Prevention Act in 2009, the federal hate crime legislation was amended to include
categories for gender, gender identity, persons with disabilities, and juveniles
(Cheng, Ickes, & Kenworthy, 2013). Additionally, it expanded the federal government’s jurisdiction over the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes and
increased the level of funding to help local programs combat hate crimes.
Nevertheless, Grattet and Jenness (2001) argue that the most salient categories, such
90
Janice A. Iwama
as race and national origin, reflect “the oldest, most established and most recognized
axes of oppression” (p. 33). In other words, the reporting patterns and trends of
these types of incidents are much clearer than those on the more recently introduced
categories due to the lengthy public discourse and widespread public acceptance of
these earlier categories as groups that require protection in hate crime legislation.
However, policymakers and practitioners remain concerned with the underreporting of all protected categories of hate crime given the damage caused by hate crimes
in making members of minority communities feel fearful, angry, and suspicious
of other groups and, therefore, unlikely to report hate crimes to law enforcement
officials (Shively et al., 2013).
Hate Crime Data Collection
In accordance with HCSA, the FBI became responsible for the national collection of
hate crime data, having previously collected, published, and archived crime statistics
since 1930. Under a separate but similar reporting system to their Uniform Crime
Reports (UCR) program, the FBI began to collect information in 1991 on hate
crimes reported by thousands of city, college, university, county, state, tribal, and
federal law enforcement agencies, which voluntarily participated in its hate crime
data collection. In 2015, a total of 14,997 city, county, state, university and college,
tribal, and federal agencies submitted hate crime statistics to the UCR program,
­covering 283 million inhabitants, or 88.3 percent of the total US population
(Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016). Due to the availability of annual information,
the ability to disaggregate the data to a smaller unit of analysis (e.g., city, college,
university, etc.), and the public accessibility of this data, this reporting system has
been widely used by scholars to assemble findings on patterns and trends in hate
crimes (Grattet & Jenness, 2001; Shively et al., 2013; Stacey, 2015). However, two
additional sources of information to the UCR, the National Incident Based Reporting
System (NIBRS) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), were
­developed much later to respond to some of the limitations in the FBI’s hate crime
reporting system.
The FBI introduced the NIBRS in 1991 as a means of providing for a more comprehensive, detailed report of crime incidents than permitted by the UCR system.
For example, NIBRS sought to address limitations in the UCR system such as the
hierarchy rule, which restricted law enforcement agencies to reporting only the
most serious offense per incident, disregarding multiple‐offense incidents. By eliminating this rule, NIBRS permits law enforcement agencies to account for all offenses
that occur during the reported incident that are considered “mutually exclusive”
(Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016). In 1995, bias was added as a motivating
factor for crimes, and the participating rate by agencies has been growing steadily,
with many agencies now submitting reports to both the UCR system and NIBRS.
Unfortunately, like the UCR data collection system, NIBRS also depends on the
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty-First Century
91
­ articipation of law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the hate crime data collected
p
by NIBRS covers fewer jurisdictions than those reporting to the UCR system.
For example, in 2014, 6,520 law enforcement agencies participated in NIBRS data
collection, representing about one‐third (35.2 percent) of the total number of law
enforcement agencies participating in the UCR data collection system (Federal
Bureau of Investigation, 2016). Therefore, while NIBRS offers a more comprehensive look at the hate crimes being reported to police, it only accounts for hate crimes
reported by a much smaller portion of the nation’s population than those reflected
in the UCR data.
In comparison to the UCR and NIBRS hate crime data collections, the National
Crime Victimization Survey is a useful alternative to collecting hate crime
information from law enforcement agencies. The NCVS is an annual data collection
conducted by the US Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and began
asking respondents in 2000 if they had been victims of vandalism and various
­interpersonal crimes, and whether bias was involved as a factor in the offenses committed against them (Harlow, 2005; Wilson, 2014).3 In comparison to police reports,
victimization surveys avoid the problems of dependence upon the public’s
­willingness to report crimes to police and are not highly dependent upon statutory
definitions of hate crime or law enforcement investigations, training, and record
keeping. Unfortunately, common challenges with victimization surveys in general
include obtaining unbiased samples of sufficient size, designing sampling and
measurement instruments that will capture respondents with experiences and traits
of interest, and respondents’ recollections of events and their willingness to disclose
such events, which are often traumatic in nature (Shively et al., 2013). Additionally,
while the NCVS data support the assessment of national trends across all hate
crimes, they cannot be used to examine hate crime trends using smaller units of
analysis such as state or county levels (Addington, 2008). It is also difficult to
examine trends in specific subcategories of hate crime, such as those targeting Latino
victims. Current efforts are being made to reassess the coverage and reliability of
NCVS data to use in future research examinations of the reporting of crimes such as
hate crimes (Shook‐Sa, Lee, & Berzofsky, 2015).
Limitations in Hate Crime Data Collection
Aside from the limitations faced by each of the national data collection sources
(UCR, NIBRS, and NCVS), there are a number of challenges with collecting hate
crime data in general. First, local law enforcement agencies reporting hate crime
statistics are subject to each of their respective state’s hate crime legislation.
Unfortunately, hate crime legislation varies widely by state in terms of (1) the specific
traits legally defined as targets of hate crime motivation; (2) whether and how it
addresses criminal penalties and civil remedies; (3) the range of crimes covered; (4)
whether the statutes require data collection, and for what crime types; and (5)
92
Janice A. Iwama
whether training about hate crime is required for law enforcement personnel
(McDevitt et al., 2000; Shively, 2005; Shively et al., 2013). For example, California
hate crime statutes protect individuals against violence or threats of violence aimed
at them or their property based on their race, Color, religion, ancestry, national
origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age or disability, or position in a
labor dispute, or because of a perceived characteristic based on one of these
­categories. Unlike many other states, California includes protection for crimes motivated by age and political affiliation. Also, as a part of the Bane Act in California’s
civil law (Cal. Pen. Code § 422.75), it “provides for sentencing enhancements of one
to three years for certain bias‐motivated felonies” against targeted groups protected
by California hate crime laws.
In comparison, Indiana is one of five states that do not have any hate crime penalty enhancement laws and do not mandate police training on how to respond to
hate crimes. Nevertheless, Indiana has bias crime reporting legislation that defines a
bias crime as
an offense in which the person who committed the offense knowingly or intentionally:
(a) selected the person who was injured; or (b) damaged or otherwise affected property
by the offense because of the color, creed, disability, national origin, race, religion, or
sexual orientation of the injured person or of the owner or occupant of the affected
property or because the injured person or owner or occupant of the affected property
was associated with any other recognizable group or affiliation.
(Indiana Code 10‐13‐3‐1; see Indiana Civil Rights Commission 1999)
While this legislation provides law enforcement agencies with a standard definition
for the purpose of gathering hate crime data, agencies are unable to respond
­effectively to these crimes without any penalty enhancement in their hate crime
laws. Many advocates argue that this type of legislation, in turn, leads to the underreporting of hate crime by community members since agencies are unable to offer
their citizens protections against such crimes (Nasatir, 2014). Consequently, these
variations across state laws are reflected in the national hate crime data collection
effort, undermining our ability to understand the nature and scope of hate crime at
the national level.
Second, the HCSA mandated that the federal government collect data on hate
crimes, but it did not require state or local law enforcement agencies to participate
in the FBI’s data reporting program (McDevitt et al., 2003; Nolan & Akiyama, 1999;
Nolan, McDevitt, Cronin, & Farrell, 2004). According to the 2015 hate crime
statistics, 14,997 law enforcement agencies provided hate crime data, but only 1,742,
or 11.6 percent, of those agencies reported hate crimes in their jurisdictions (Federal
Bureau of Investigation, 2016). With a majority of the agencies reporting zero hate
crime incidents to the FBI, these statistics continue to underestimate the actual
number of incidents involving hate crimes (Levin & Nolan, 2011; McDevitt et al.,
2003; Shively, 2005). For instance, local law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles,
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty-First Century
93
California reported 92 racially motivated hate crimes according to the FBI hate
crime statistics for 2015. In contrast, law enforcement agencies in Houston, Texas
reported a total of 12 racially motivated hate crimes in 2015 (Federal Bureau of
Investigation, 2016). Even accounting for the different population sizes of each city,
Los Angeles with an estimated 4 million residents and Houston with an estimated
2.3 million residents, the disparity in reporting practices is evident.
Finally, apart from the restrictions imposed on hate crime statistics by the hate
crime legislation, researchers also suggest that the disparities in hate crime reporting
may be a function of internal factors at local level rather than true incidence
(McDevitt et al., 2003). Primary among these internal factors is whether police officers recognize that an incident was motivated by bias, with many studies suggesting
numerous definitional ambiguities as to what behavior characterizes hate crimes
generally, and bias motivation more specifically (Bell, 2002; Boyd, Berk, & Hamner,
1996; Garofalo & Martin, 1993; Martin, 1995; McVeigh, Welch, & Bjarnason, 2003;
Nolan et al., 2004). For example, Haas, Nolan, Turley, and Stump (2011), after examining the magnitude of error in official hate crime reporting, found that classification
errors undermined the accuracy of hate crime statistics in West Virginia. The largest
number of undercounts appeared to stem from the failure of officers to recognize
“bias indicators” when they were present in a given situation. Additionally, police
organizations commonly do not have the necessary structures, resources, or culture
to help officers working in highly discretionary environments to successfully identify bias motivation among the criminal incidents to which they respond (Balboni &
McDevitt, 2001; Bell, 2002; McDevitt et al., 2003).
Hate Crime Research
The topic of hate crime as a national concern led to a growing interest among a
number of scholars across different fields of study, such as criminology, political
­science, psychology, and sociology (e.g., Barnes & Ephross, 1994; Boyd et al., 1996;
Dunbar, Quinones, & Crevecoeur, 2005; Gutierrez, 1996; Herek, Gillis, Cogan, &
Glunt, 1997; Levin & Rabrenovic, 2001; McDevitt et al., 2003; Perry, 2003). Research
grew starting in the 1980s (e.g., D’Augelli, 1989; Finn, 1988a, 1988b; Finn & McNeil,
1987; Herek, 1989; Sinensky & Freeman, 1988; Southern Poverty Law Center, 1989)
and continued in the 1990s after the passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990
(e.g., Bell, 2002; Dharmapala & Garoupa, 2004; Eitle & Taylor, 2008; McDevitt et al.,
2003; Perry, 2002; Shively, McDevitt, Cronin, & Balboni, 2001; Taylor, 1991; Winters,
1996). One of the major conclusions from this large body of literature is that hate
crimes have severe consequences that affect not only the victims and their families,
but entire communities.
While hate crime legislation and data collection fostered this growing body of
hate crime research, less attention has been paid to providing a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. Given the inconsistency in the hate crime data, most hate
94
Janice A. Iwama
crime research has focused on the impact of the legislation and law enforcement
practices on reported hate crimes (Cronin, McDevitt, Farrell, & Nolan, 2007; Hall,
2011; King, Messner, & Baller, 2009; McDevitt et al., 2003; McVeigh et al., 2003;
Nolan & Akiyama, 1999). Studies looking to explain this phenomenon have largely
employed a sociological approach that has examined the relationship between hate
crime and macroeconomic conditions or demographic transformations.4 Competing
hypotheses have primarily emerged from the defended communities and social
­disorganization perspectives, with mixed results in indicating support for one perspective over the other in explaining the prevalence of hate crimes. Additionally,
some of the recent literature has started to examine the impact of antecedent events
on hate crimes, given recent events that have caused concern over the rising level of
hate crimes against particular groups. The following sections will examine the
economic, demographic, and political explanations that have been tested to provide
a better understanding of the prevalence of hate crimes, along with recommendations for future research.
Hate Crime and Economic Change
Scholars using economic conditions to explain hate crime often interpret it as an as
outcome of displaced frustration and competition for material resources. For example,
Hovland and Sears (1940) conducted one of the first controlled studies testing
the displaced frustration hypothesis. They argued that the frustration caused by the
economic downturns in the South led Southern Whites to transform this frustration
into aggression aimed at vulnerable racial targets. Using data from 14 states in the
South from 1882 to 1930, they found a strong inverse relationship between anti‐Black
lynching and two economic measures, cotton prices and an economic index called
the Ayres index. In a reanalysis of this relationship by Mintz (1946) and, later, by
Hepworth and West (1988), neither study found evidence to support a relationship
between anti‐Black lynching and cotton prices; a weak relationship was discovered
between anti‐Black lynching and the economic index used in Hovland and Sears’s
study. On the other hand, Beck and Tolnay (1990) also examined the association between cotton prices and the lynching of Blacks and found evidence that violence
against Blacks was associated with the economic misfortunes of Whites, particularly
marginal White cotton farmers, according to data from 1882 to 1930. In a more
recent examination of lynching data, Green, Strolovitch, and Wong (1998) found no
evidence to support the relationship between economic downturn and anti‐Black
lynching after replicating Hepworth and West’s (1988) study and extending it through
the Great Depression era. However, they contextualize their conclusions by
­suggesting that the current political conditions may act as a mediating factor in this
relationship. Specifically, they suggest that “the relationship between economic discontent and intergroup aggression may hinge, then, on the ways in which political
leaders and organizations frame and mobilize such grievances” (p. 89).
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty-First Century
95
Other studies featuring economic conditions have also explained hate crimes as a
possible outcome of a competition for material resources, in addition to political
conditions. For example, Olzak (1990) hypothesized that racial violence would
increase in relation to a rise in economic competition resulting from an influx of
immigrants, the urbanization of Blacks, economic contractions, and political
­challenges to White supremacy in the South. Using data from 1882 to 1914, she
­discovered that economic slumps during this time period, as well as the rising
­competition caused by an increase in the immigrant population, were significantly
associated with increasing violence against Blacks. Furthermore, the rise in the level
of hate crimes during the most recent economic recession in 2007 and 2008 has
been linked to the widespread blame placed on the rising immigrant population
(e.g., “they” are stealing our jobs, “they” are costing us too much in welfare) as published in mainstream media and extremist websites (Anti‐Defamation League, 1992;
Gerstenfeld, 2013; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2009).
Although the relationship with economic conditions has been promoted as a
promising explanation for predicting the recent rise in the level of hate crimes
(Pinderhughes, 1993; Tolnay & Beck, 1995), macro‐level studies have found little
evidence to support this hypothesis. For example, Espiritu (2004) found the impact
of economic conditions in explaining the variation in hate crime incidents reported
in the 1990s across the United States to be inconclusive. Green and colleagues (1998)
also found little evidence to support the relationship, using unemployment rates and
New York City Police Department hate crime data collected from 1987 to 1995
(Green et al., 1998; Jenness & Broad, 1997). While they acknowledge that the divergent findings might stem from the different time periods under investigation, they
highlight the questionable methodology used in earlier studies examining anti‐
Black lynching and economic downturns at the turn of the twentieth century and
suggest further research to examine this complex relationship.
Hate Crime and Population Change
Much of the scholarly work on demographic patterns and hate crimes has been
informed by hypotheses stemming from the realistic group conflict theory.
According to this theory, “intergroup hostility is produced by the existence of
conflicting goals and reduced by the existence of mutually desired superordinate
goals attainable only through intergroup cooperation” (Jackson, 1993, p. 397). One
hypothesis derived from this theory, the defended communities perspective, conceives demographic changes as the catalyst for increasing hate crime in a community.
Specifically, the defended communities perspective suggests that residents share a
common identity which hinges on their community’s racially homogeneous qualities, and that a sudden growth of the minority population will produce outbursts of
violence that revolve around trying to protect their community’s identity and maintain the quality of life in their community. According to his ethnographic study of
96
Janice A. Iwama
Chicago, Suttles (1972) found that some communities, which he called “defended
neighborhoods,” were bound by a common identity, such as race or ethnicity, which
they conserved through a variety of different practices, including “delinquent gangs,
by restrictive covenants, by sharp boundaries, or by a forbidding reputation” (p. 21).
For example, street corner gangs may claim “turf ” and scare off outsiders using
defensive tactics for the purpose of segregating conflicting populations and maintaining their common identity.
In another ethnographic study revealing changes in the lives of Jews and Italians
in a Brooklyn community during the 1970s, Rieder (1985) also observed residents of
the predominantly White community express blatant prejudiced attitudes and adopt
hostile behavior, including acts of violence, toward the in‐migration of Latino and
African American families into their communities. This bias stemmed from their
fear that a growing number of minorities would change the community’s image.
In contrast to Rieder (1985), DeSena’s (1990) ethnographic study focused on more
covert methods of resistance applied by a predominantly White, blue‐collar neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York called Greenpoint. Specifically, she observed the
use of housing, the church, and the role of women to resist changes to the demographic makeup of the community. However, she found evidence to support the
“defended neighborhoods” perspective, as initially illustrated by Suttles (1972), by
arguing that the community’s resistance was a product of the changing ethnic
composition during the in‐migration of Latino residents to communities in
­
Brooklyn, New York in the 1980s. While these studies find support for the defended
neighborhoods perspective, the qualitative nature of their work makes it difficult to
reproduce across other spaces and times to understand how defended communities
could be tested to explain hate crimes in the present context.
Other hypotheses drawn from realistic group conflict theory examining the link
between racial composition and racially motivated hate crimes have revealed mixed
support (Tolnay, Beck, & Massey, 1989). The power‐threat hypothesis, for example,
predicts that hate crime incidents are more likely in areas with a large concentration
of minorities (Blalock, 1957). Tolnay and colleagues (1989) tested this argument by
examining the association between Black concentration and anti‐Black lynching in
the South. Using county‐level data from 10 Southern states on lynchings used in
earlier studies, the authors tested whether earlier findings on the power‐threat
­hypothesis were supported. Contrary to these previous studies, however, they highlighted methodological issues that had influenced the authors’ results, which had
drawn support for the power‐threat hypothesis. In their own examination using
the same datasets and repairing some of these shortcomings, they discovered no
­evidence to support the power‐threat hypothesis (Corzine, Creech, & Corzine, 1983;
Reed, 1972; Tolnay et al., 1989).
Another set of arguments stemming from this area of research have hypothesized
that racially motivated hate crimes will be greatest in areas where minorities make
up a substantial portion of the population and the proportion will reach a certain
point before the prevalence of hate crimes begins to decrease (Green et al., 1998).
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty-First Century
97
Although there is little agreement on what the tipping point is, for example what
percentage of the population must the minority population reach before witnessing
a decline in violence, some scholars have pointed in a different direction. They argue
that interracial hate crimes, as well as racially motivated crimes, could increase as
communities become heterogeneous, where each group makes up 50 percent of the
population, due to the increasing likelihood of interracial criminal encounters (Blau,
1977; Green et al., 1998; Sampson, 1984). However, few scholars have tested these
hypotheses and the results have shown mixed support in their ability to predict
racially motivated hate crimes. As the number of diverse communities rises with the
changes to the racial and ethnic makeup of the United States, these questions will
need to be addressed in order to predict and prevent future hate crimes in many
communities.
Hate Crime and Political Change
Early historical accounts have posited a strong link between the passage of national
anti‐immigrant policies and practices and anti‐immigrant violence across the
United States and in Europe, but most of these assumptions have remain untested
(Green et al., 1998). With limited information available on crimes targeting immigrants during most of the twentieth century, few scholars have been able to unravel
whether the political climate is associated with outcomes of hate against the groups
being targeted. More recently, researchers have sought to determine whether these
associations hold true given contemporary anti‐immigrant rhetoric. For example,
Disha, Cavendish, and King (2011) explored the effects on anti‐Arab and anti‐
Muslim hate crimes of the terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001
in the United States, given the political and public rhetoric that followed blaming
all Arabs and Muslims for these attacks. The authors found a strong relationship
between the terrorist attacks and the rise in hate crimes targeting Arabs and
Muslims, but found that hate crime offenses remained consistent given the locations and the size of the Arab and Muslim population. In another study, King and
Sutton (2013) also examined the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks on
anti‐Arab and anti‐Muslim hate crimes, as well as the effect of the acquittal of O. J.
Simpson on anti‐White and anti‐Black hate crimes, and the effect of the 1999
Vermont state trial, which recognized same‐sex couples in Vermont, on anti‐gay
hate crimes. The study found a positive and significant association between the
September 11 terrorist attacks and the O. J. Simpson trial and hate crimes against
race and religion, but no support for a link between the 1999 Vermont state trial
and anti‐gay hate crimes. The authors suggested that certain singular political
events may have a more significant impact on hate crimes than other events,
although the findings were limited in examining only three particular events, which
may have differed in the levels of political rhetoric and sentiment supporting either
side of the political causes.
98
Janice A. Iwama
Yet limitations in the data collection have prevented some studies from identifying the effects of certain politicized events on hate crimes. For example, with the
debate on immigration legislation and rising anti‐immigrant sentiment, the US
Congress passed a House Appropriations Bill directing the National Institute of
Justice to “evaluate trends in hate crimes against new immigrants, individuals who
are perceived to be immigrants, and Hispanic‐Americans, and to assess the underlying causes behind any increase in hate crimes against such groups” (US House of
Representatives, 2009, p. 679). Using hate crime statistics from the FBI’s UCR data,
Shively and colleagues (2013) identified a statistically significant increase in anti‐
Latino hate crimes in the mid‐2000s and a slight downturn at the end of the decade.
However, the legal, spatial, and temporal limitations in the data collection made it
difficult to assess the causes behind the rise in hate crimes. First, the uneven geographic distribution of crimes across different communities made it difficult for the
authors to explain what types of conditions might have led to the rise in hate crimes
in the mid‐2000s. Second, the difficulty in observing significant trends for subgroups, such as anti‐Latinos, was challenging due to inconsistent reporting over
time unless all hate crimes were being observed. Finally, none of the national hate
crime data collection systems collected information on hate crimes against immigrants because they did not offer protections against those hate crimes motivated by
bias against immigrants. Nevertheless, the authors offered suggestions that might
help improve our ability to form a better understanding on the prevalence of hate
crimes despite these limitations.
Summary
Following the passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, hate crime as a public
policy issue has dramatically grown, in large part due to the creation of a national
hate crime reporting system, as well as an expansion of federal and state hate crime
legislation and a growth in the hate crime literature. First, the FBI, which became
responsible for the task of developing a national hate crime reporting system, began
collecting data from a limited number of participating law enforcement agencies
covering less than one‐third of the US population in 1991, expanding to nearly
15,000 law enforcement agencies covering about 88.3 percent of the US population
(Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016; McDevitt et al., 2003; Nolan et al., 2002).
Second, additional changes to federal hate crime legislation and a rise in the number
of states with hate crime statutory provisions have ensured that hate crimes are
investigated and reported by local authorities, which are largely responsible for
investigating and prosecuting most hate crimes reported in the United States. Finally,
the growth in the national hate crime reporting system along with the rapid spread
of federal and state hate crime legislation have significantly contributed to a rise in
the volume of hate crime research. However, the limitations faced by the national
hate crime data collection, the variations in federal and state hate crime legislation,
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty-First Century
99
and the recent decline in hate crime literature have left many research questions
unanswered and many policymakers, practitioners, and scholars concerned about
the future of hate crime research and policy.
Despite these challenges, it is evident that studies examining the effects of
economic, demographic, and political changes have attracted significant interest
among hate crime researchers, and have shown some promise in explaining this
phenomenon. As economic, demographic, and political forces continue to drive
change in communities across the United States, it is important to understand how
they influence the prevalence of hate crimes. For example, how does the economic
recession and rising immigration population contribute to the level of hate crimes in
particular communities experiencing a growth in poverty and a rise in the new
immigrant population? How does the rise in anti‐immigrant sentiment influence
hate crimes against different groups? Does the passage of anti‐immigrant legislation
lead to a rise in hate crimes against different groups?
At the same time, these studies could also offer researchers an opportunity to
direct future research in ways that improve future data collection, legislation, and
work on underexamined areas in hate crime research. For example, the limitations
in US hate crime data collections have indicated that reported hate crime data are
subject to the identification, collection, and reporting of hate crime by each state
according to their legislation. To date, most research has explained the prevalence of
hate crime in the context of local communities. An important question might also
be to ask whether hate crime collection, reporting, and prosecution are influenced
by the economic and political climate of the local law enforcement agency. To what
extent and under what economic and political conditions are local law enforcement
agencies less likely to identify, collect, report, and prosecute hate crimes? Are racially
heterogeneous communities more likely to identify and report hate crimes than
homogeneous communities? How does the rise in the Latino population influence
the rise in the reporting, identification, and prosecution of hate crimes against Latinos?
Additionally, understudied areas in hate crime research such as hate crimes
against immigrants may profit from emerging areas of research on hate crimes by
providing a measure of the size and scope of this issue. With immigration policies
and practices continuing to target immigrants, many researchers in the area of
immigrant victimization have sought to focus their efforts on understanding
particular groups of victims who may be more vulnerable to violence, abuse, and
exploitation. For example, Zatz and Smith (2012) highlight the effects of anti‐­
immigrant laws and enforcement practices on increasing the levels of vulnerability
of day laborers and domestic workers. Yet we know so little about the effect of anti‐
immigrant legislation or public rhetoric on bias behavior. Nevertheless, as Green
and colleagues (1998) emphasize, it is important to “distinguish[ing] between hostile racial attitudes and actions” and to understand how the former lead to the latter
(p. 398). Therefore, it is important to capture both the spatial and the temporal
effects, which could have a direct and causal effect on reported anti‐immigrant hate
crimes in the context of recent anti‐immigrant rhetoric and legislation.
100
Janice A. Iwama
Notes
1 The term hate and bias crime are often used interchangeably. Hate crime is the term most
commonly used and as such has been chosen as the main term to be used in the present
study.
2 Hate Crime Statistics Act 1990, H.R.1048. 101st Congress (1989–1990). Available at
https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st‐congress/house‐bill/1048/text.
3 When the Bureau of Justice Statistics first began collecting information from the NCVS,
it developed the questionnaire items to identify victims of hate crimes with the US
Census Bureau.
4 Although there are studies that address individual‐level attributes such as psychological
causes that predispose different individuals to aggression and violence against a victim’s
social group, this approach faces the challenge of tracking individuals over time and
recording their behavior to test the individual‐level attributes believed to dispose
­individuals to commit hate crimes.
References
Addington, L. (2008, February 12). Current issues in victimization and the NCVS’s ability to
study them (Presentation). Bureau of Justice Statistics Data User’s Workshop,
Washington, DC.
Anti‐Defamation League. (1992). 1991 Audit of anti‐Semitic incidents. New York, NY: Author.
Anti‐Defamation League (2012, September 19). Statement by Anti‐Defamation League Senate
Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights on hate crimes
and the threat of domestic extremism. Retrieved from http://www.adl.org/assets/pdf/
combating‐hate/Senate‐Judiciary‐Subcommittee‐HCPA‐statement.pdf
Balboni, J. M., & McDevitt, J. (2001). Hate crime reporting: Understanding police officer perceptions, departmental protocol, and the role of the victim. Justice Research and Policy,
3(1), 1–27.
Barnes, A., & Ephross, P. H. (1994). The impact of hate violence on victims: Emotional and
behavioral responses to attacks. Social Work, 39(3), 247–251.
Beck, E. M., & Tolnay, S. T. (1990). The killing fields of the deep South: The market for cotton
and the lynching of Blacks, 1992–1930. American Sociological Review, 55(4), 526–539.
Bell, J. (2002). Policing hatred: Law enforcement, civil rights, and hate crime. New York, NY:
New York University Press.
Blalock, H. M., Jr. (1957). Per cent non‐White and discrimination in the South. American
Sociological Review, 22(6), 677–682.
Blau, P. M. (1977). Inequality and heterogeneity: A primitive theory of social structure. New
York, NY: Free Press.
Boyd, E. A., Berk, R. A., & Hamner, K. M. (1996). Motivated by hatred or prejudice:
Categorization of hate‐motivated crimes in two police divisions. Law & Society Review,
30(4), 819–850.
Chacon, J. A., & Davis, M. (2006). No one is illegal: Fighting violence and state repression on
the US–Mexico border. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Chavez, L. R. (2008). The Latino threat: Constructing immigrants, citizens, and the nation.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty-First Century
101
Cheng, W., Ickes, W., & Kenworth, J. B. (2013). The phenomenon of hate crimes in the United
States. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, 761–794.
Corzine, J., Creech, J., & Corzine, L. (1983). Black concentration and lynchings in the South:
Testing Blalock’s power‐threat hypothesis. Social Forces, 61(3), 774–796.
Cronin, S., McDevitt, J., Farrell, A., & Nolan, J. J. (2007). Bias‐crime reporting: Organizational
responses to ambiguity, uncertainty, and infrequency in eight police departments.
American Behavioral Scientist, 51, 213–231.
D’Augelli, A. R. (1989). Lesbians’ and gay men’s experiences of discrimination and
harassment in a university community. American Journal of Community Psychology,
17(3), 317–321.
DeSena, J. N. (1990). Protecting one’s turf: Social strategies for maintaining urban neighborhoods. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Dharmapala, D., & Garoupa, N. (2004). Penalty enhancement for hate crimes: An economic
analysis. American Law and Economics Review, 6(1), 185–207.
Disha, I., Cavendish, J. C., & King, R. D. (2011). Historical events and spaces of hate:
Hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims in post‐9/11 America. Social Problems,
58(1), 21–46.
Dunbar, E., Quinones, J., & Crevecoeur, D. A. (2005). Assessment of hate crime offenders:
The role of bias intent in examining violence risk. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice,
5(1), 1–19.
Eitle, D., & Taylor, J. (2008). Are Hispanics the new threat? Minority group threat and fear of
crime in Miami‐Dade County. Social Science Research, 37, 1102–1115.
Espiritu, A. (2004). Racial diversity and hate crime incidents. Social Science Journal, 41,
197–208.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2016, November 14). FBI releases 2015 hate crime statistics.
Retrieved from https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate‐crime/2015/resource‐pages/hate‐crime‐
2015‐_summary_final
Finn, P. (1988a). Bias crime: A special target for prosecutors. Prosecutor, 21(4), 9–15.
Finn, P. (1988b). Bias crime: Difficult to define, difficult to prosecute. Criminal Justice, 3(1),
19–25.
Finn, P., & McNeil, T. (1987). The response of the criminal justice system to bias crime:
An exploratory review. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates, Inc.
Freeman, S. M. (1996). Penalty‐enhancement law are needed to fight hate crime. In P. A.
Winters (Ed.), Hate Crimes. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press.
Garofalo, J., & Martin, S. (1993). The law enforcement response to bias‐motivated crimes. In
R. J. Kelly (Ed.), Bias crime: American law enforcement and legal responses. Chicago, IL:
Office of International Criminal Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Gerstenfeld, P. B. (2013). Hate crimes: Causes, controls, and controversies. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Grattet, R., & Jenness, V. (2001). The birth and maturation of hate crime policy in the United
States. In P. B. Gerstenfeld & D. R. Grant (Eds.), Crimes of hate: Selected readings.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Grattet, R., Jenness, V., & Curry, T. R. (1998). The homogenization and differentiation of hate
crime law in the United States, 1978 to 1995: Innovation and diffusion in the criminalization of bigotry. American Sociological Review, 63, 286–307.
Green, D. P., Strolovitch, D. Z., & Wong, J. S. (1998). Defended neighborhoods, integration,
and racially motivated crime. American Journal of Sociology, 104(2), 372–403.
102
Janice A. Iwama
Gutierrez, E. (1996). The “dotbuster” attacks: Hate crime against Asian Indians in Jersey City,
New Jersey. Middle States Geographer, 29, 30–38.
Haas, S. M., Nolan, J. J., Turley, E., & Stump, J. (2011). Assessing the validity of hate crime reporting:
An analysis of NIBRS data. Charleston, WV: Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center.
Hall, N. (2011). Policing hate crime in London and New York City: Some reflections on the
factors influencing effective law enforcement, service provision and public trust and
confidence. International Review of Victimology, 18(1), 73–87.
Harlow, C. W. (2005). Hate crime reported by victims and police. Washington, DC: Bureau of
Justice Statistics.
Hepworth, J. T., & West, S. G. (1988). Lynchings and the economy: A time‐series reanalysis
of Hovland and Sears (1940). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 239–247.
Herek, G. M. (1989). Hate crimes against lesbians and gay men: Issues for research and policy.
American Psychologist, 44(6), 948–955.
Herek, G. M., Gillis, J. R., Cogan, J. C., & Glunt, E. K. (1997). Hate crime victimization among
lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12, 195–215.
Hovland, C. I., & Sears, R. R. (1940). Minor studies of aggression: VI. Correlation of lynchings with economic indices. Journal of Psychology, 9, 301–310.
Indiana Civil Rights Commission. (1999). Hate crimes resource manual (4th ed.). Retrieved
from http://www.in.gov/icrc/2346.htm
Jackson, J. W. (1993). Realistic group conflict theory: A review and evaluation of the theoretical and empirical literature. Psychological Record, 43(3), 395–405.
Jenness, V., & Broad, K. (1997). Hate crimes: New social movements and the politics of violence.
New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter.
King, R. D., Messner, S. F., & Baller, R. D. (2009). Contemporary hate crimes, law enforcement, and the legacy of racial violence. American Sociological Review, 74, 291–315.
King, R. D., & Sutton, G. M. (2013). High times for hate crimes: Explaining the temporal
clustering of hate‐motivated offending. Criminology, 51(4), 871–894.
Levin, J., & McDevitt, J. (2002). Hate crimes revisited: America’s war on those who are different.
Cambridge, MA: Westview Press.
Levin, J., & Nolan, J. (2011). The violence of hate: Confronting racism, anti‐Semitism, and other
forms of bigotry. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Levin, J., & Rabrenovic, G. (2001). Hate crimes and ethnic conflict: An introduction.
American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 574–587.
Marovitz, W. A. (1993). Hate or bias crime legislation. In R. J. Kelly (Ed.), Bias crime: American
law enforcement and legal responses. Chicago, IL: Office of International Criminal Justice.
Martin, S. E. (1995). A cross‐burning is not just an arson: Police social construction of hate
crimes in Baltimore County. Criminology, 33(3), 303–326.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2008). The impact of immigration policy on criminological research.
Criminology, 7(1), 53–58.
McDevitt, J., Balboni, J. M., Bennett, S., Weiss, J. C., Orchowsky, S., & Walbolt, L. (2000).
Improving the quality and accuracy of bias crime statistics nationally: An assessment of
the first ten years of bias crime data collection (Executive summary). Center for Criminal
Justice Policy Research, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.
McDevitt, J., Cronin, S., Balboni, J., Farrell, A., Nolan, J., & Weiss, J. (2003). Bridging the
information disconnect in bias crime reporting. Washington DC: Bureau of Justice
Statistics, US Department of Justice.
Hate Crime Research in the Twenty-First Century
103
McDevitt, J., & Iwama, J. (2016). Challenges in measuring and understanding hate crime. In
T. S. Bynum & B. M. Huebner (Eds.), The handbook of measurement issues in criminology
and criminal justice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
McVeigh, R., Welch, M. R., & Bjarnason, T. (2003). Hate crime reporting as a successful
social movement outcome. American Sociological Review, 68, 843–867.
Mintz, A. (1946). A re‐examination of correlations between lynchings and economic indices.
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(2), 154–160.
Nasatir, L. (2014, March 12). Indiana needs a hate crime law. Indy Star. Retrieved from http://
chicago.adl.org/news/indiana‐needs‐a‐hate‐crime‐law/
Nolan, J., & Akiyama, Y. (1999). An analysis of factors that affect law enforcement participation in hate crime reporting. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 15, 111–127.
Nolan, J. J., Akiyama, Y., & Berhanu, S. (2002). The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990:
Developing a method for measuring the occurrence of hate violence. American
Behavioral Scientist, 46, 136–153.
Nolan, J. J., McDevitt, J., Cronin, S., & Farrell, A. (2004). Learning to see hate crimes:
A framework for understanding and clarifying ambiguities in bias crime classification.
Justice Professional, 17, 91–105.
Olzak, S. (1990). The political context of competition: Lynching and urban racial violence,
1882–1914. Social Forces, 69(2), 931–961.
Perry, B. (2002). Defending the Color line: Racially and ethnically motivated hate crime.
American Behavioral Scientist, 46(1), 27–50.
Perry, B. (2003). Hate and bias crime: A reader. New York, NY: Routledge.
Perry, B. (2009). Hate crimes: Understanding and defining hate crime. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Pinderhughes, H. (1993). The anatomy of racially motivated violence in New York City:
A case study of youth in southern Brooklyn. Social Problems, 40(4), 478–492.
Reed, J. S. (1972). Percent black and lynching: A test of Blalock’s theory. Social Forces,
50(3), 356–360.
Rieder, J. (1985). Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn against liberalism. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Sampson, R. J. (1984). Group size, heterogeneity, and intergroup conflict: A test of Blau’s
Inequality and heterogeneity. Social Forces, 62(3), 618–639.
Shively, M. (2005). Study of literature and legislation on hate crime in America. Prepared for
the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice.
Shively, M., McDevitt, J., Cronin, S., & Balboni, J. (2001). Understanding the prevalence and
characteristics of bias crime in Massachusetts high schools. Boston, MA: Northeastern
Center for Criminal Justice Policy Research.
Shively, M., McDevitt, J., Farrell, A., & Iwama, J. (2013). Understanding trends in hate crimes
against immigrants and Hispanic Americans. Washington, DC: National Institute of
Justice.
Shively, M., & Mulford, C. F. (2007). Hate crime in America: The debate continues. NIJ
Journal (257), 8–13.
Shook‐Sa, B. E., Lee, P., & Berzofsky, M. (2015). Assessing the coverage and reliability of
­subnational geographic identifiers in the NCVS public‐use file. Washington, DC: Bureau
of Justice Statistics.
Sinensky, J. P., & Freeman, S. M. (1988). Hate crime statutes: A response to anti‐Semitism,
­vandalism and violent bigotry. Washington, DC: Anti‐Defamation League.
104
Janice A. Iwama
Southern Poverty Law Center. (1989). Hate violence and White supremacy: A decade review,
1980–1990. Montgomery, AL: Author.
Southern Poverty Law Center. (2009). Climate of fear: Latino immigrants in Suffolk County, N.Y.
Retrieved from https://www.splcenter.org/20090831/climate‐fear‐latino‐immigrants‐
suffolk‐county‐ny
Stacey, M. (2015). The effect of law on hate crime reporting: The case of racial and ethnic
violence. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 40, 876–900.
Steffensmeier, D., & Demuth, S. (2001). Ethnicity and judges’ sentencing decisions: Hispanic‐
Black‐White comparisons. Criminology, 39(1), 145–178.
Stowell, J. I. (2007). Immigration and crime: The effects of immigration on criminal behavior.
New York, NY: LFB Scholarly.
Suttles, G. D. (1972). The social construction of communities. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Tafoya, W. (1991). Rioting in the streets: Deja vu? In N. Taylor (Ed.), Bias crime: The law
enforcement response. Chicago, IL: Office of International Criminal Justice.
Taylor, N. (Ed.). (1991). Bias crime: The law enforcement response. Chicago, IL: Office of
International Criminal Justice.
Tolnay, S. E., & Beck, E. M. (1995). A festival of violence: An analysis of Southern lynchings,
1882–1930. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Tolnay, S. E., Beck, E. M., & Massey, J. L. (1989). Black lynchings: The power threat hypothesis revisited. Social Forces, 67(3), 605–623.
US Commission on Civil Rights. (1983). Intimidation and violence: Racial and religious
­bigotry in America. Washington, DC: Author.
US House of Representatives. (2009). Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban
Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 (House Report 111‐366).
Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Wang, X. (2012). Undocumented immigrants as perceived criminal threat: A test of the
minority threat perspective. Criminology, 50(3), 743–776.
Wilson, M. M. (2014). Hate crime victimization, 2004–2012: Statistical tables. Washington,
DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Winters, P. A. (Ed.). (1996). Current controversies: Hate crimes. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven
Press.
Zatz, M. S., & Smith, H. (2012). Immigration, crime, and victimization: Rhetoric and reality.
Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 8, 141–159.
5
Native American Crime, Policing,
and Social Context
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
Police on America’s Indian reservations face many of the same challenges as police
in other jurisdictions—social and cultural problems like alcoholism, domestic
­violence, addiction, and men faced with unemployment and little opportunity to
provide for their families. But some challenges are peculiar to reservations. Officers
on the largest reservations often have to patrol hundreds of square miles alone,
sometimes without effective radio communication. Not only must they deal
with the regular offenses listed in the Uniform Crime Index, but they must
face the more intangible problems that stem from the unflattering stereotyping of
Native Americans.
Crime on American Indian reservations, just as elsewhere, does not exist in a
vacuum. It is the product of political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors. However,
Indian reservations introduce a different dynamic to those factors: the strained,
often confusing federal–tribal relationship that stripped Native Americans of their
geographic homes and traditional, cultural identities. For Native American males,
that loss of identity was especially damaging, driving them toward crime or other
antisocial behavior out of frustration or as a way to recapture a personal identity.
This chapter explores the mix of factors that contribute to crime in Indian Country
and often drive crime statistics there higher than in other regions of the United States.
Indigenous people in the United States are generally defined by geography as
either American Indians, from the continental United States, or Alaska Natives. In
this chapter the terms “American Indian” or “Native American” will represent all
Native Peoples in the United States, even though the indigenous people of North
America have never been a homogeneous or monolithic group (Limerick, 1987).
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
106
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
The term “Indian Country,” as defined in 1948 by 18 U.S. Code, Section 1151 (Legal
Information Institute, 2017a), will refer to all land within reservation boundaries,
individual and family allotments, and dependent Indian communities. The terms
“tribe” or “tribal” are used in the context of the federal government’s use of the term
to designate organized groups of Native Americans. Finally, the terms “Euroamerican”
or “Eurocentric” mean the dominant society in the United States that traces its roots
to Europe and European settlement, and the term “criminal justice system” represents specifically the courts and judiciary processes, excluding corrections and law
enforcement.
History of Conquest and Removal
The history of Native Americans with the dominant Eurocentric culture has been
one of mistrust, fear, enmity, brutality, and marginalization since Columbus’s
­voyages sparked European exploration and conquest of the Americas. Through
slavery, disease, and warfare, the Spanish conquered the American Southwest; in
the east, from Virginia north to Massachusetts, the English alternately used,
then fought Native Americans. After the English brutally ended King Philip’s War
in 1676 in Massachusetts, and the Spanish did the same with Popé’s rebellion in
Santa Fe in 1680, Native Americans had no choice but to go along with the will of
the Eurocentric cultures.
The English, of course, became the dominant European culture in North
America, and wielded an adversarial policy toward Native Americans. Rebelling
Americans used the same strategy toward Native Americans as the English had
­earlier: befriending them for as long as necessary, then marginalizing, removing,
or killing them. By the early nineteenth century, the United States had embarked
on the reservation system that would forever mark federal–tribal relations. Simply,
the federal government gave Native Americans land, then forced them onto these
“reservations” and out of the way of Americans moving west in the spirit of
Manifest Destiny.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the federal government for the first
time to move Native tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River, culminating with
the infamous Cherokee “Trail of Tears” of 1838–1839, and the second and third
Seminole Wars (Ehle, 1988). In 1851, Congress passed the Indian Appropriations
Act authorizing the creation of reservations (reserved lands) in present day
Oklahoma. Additional reservations in the nineteenth century were established by
treaty or executive order. Reservations were carved from state and federal lands and
placed in “trust” under the management of the Office of Indian Affairs and later the
Bureau of Indian Affairs. By the turn of twentieth century, federal policy and public
opinion had shifted from removal and isolation to assimilation.
The history of reservation policy is checkered with fraud and federal ineptness, all
under the mantel of paternalism—the idea that Whites knew what was best for
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
107
Native Americans. Beginning with the Dawes General Allotment Act in 1887 and
continuing through 1934, the federal government, under the influence of market
interests, ended tribal land grants in favor of individual (family) allotments of
40–160 acres. The government encouraged Native Americans to become farmers
and assimilate into the American cultural fabric. The result was the tribal loss of 90
million acres for “outside” development (Indian Land Tenure Foundation, 2017)).
The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 reversed the allotment policy as a whole
and restored portions of Native lands. Subsequent Acts of Congress in the late
­twentieth century transferred additional lands to some tribes and allowed tribal
governments to purchase lands for expansion. However, the seizure of Native lands
did not end in 1934. Between 1953 and 1961, Congress passed 13 Acts to terminate
landholdings of over 100 tribes. These lands were largely small rancherias in
California and Oregon (Nielsen & Silverman, 2009; Wilkinson, 2005). Termination
ended in the 1960s as public opinion and government policy shifted from assimilation to self‐determination. Establishing the boundaries of self‐determination
remains a work in progress.
Over 55 million acres (about 86,000 square miles) of land are owned by Indian
nations (US Forest Service). Reservations range in size from 106 acres for the
Paugussetts in Connecticut to nearly 17 million for the Navajo in Arizona. The
Navajo Nation is the largest reservation with nearly 27,000 square miles, similar in
size to West Virginia. Reservation populations range from approximately 100 to
over 180,000 (Navajo). A majority of 326 reservations are west of the Mississippi
River (Sutton, 1975). While some of the reservations are large, they are but a
fraction—perhaps only 5 percent—of lands that Native Americans originally held.
Not all of the 567 federally recognized tribes have a specified reservation. Some
tribes share a reservation, or have more than one (such as the Apache and Navajo),
and some have no reservation at all. Reservations exist in urban, suburban, and
rural environments, with rural dominating. More American Indians live off the
reservation than on. In 2010 an estimated 4.8 million people lived on American
Indian reservations. About one‐quarter (1.1 million) of the individuals living on
reservations self‐identified themselves as American Indians (S. Perry, 2015). The
total number of Native Americans in 2010 was 5.2 million (S. Perry, 2012).
Seventy ­percent of reservation Indians live in rural communities (Taylor &
Kalt, 2005).
This clash of cultures robbed Native Americans of more than land. Before
Europeans arrived, Native Americans may have numbered 8 million. Over the next
300 years, their numbers fell to perhaps as few as 350,000 in the early 1950s (Riegal
& Athearn, 1964; Wilkinson, 2005). Their displacement nearly erased traditional
tribal cultural values. “Unhealthy lifestyles, unintentional accidents, suicide attempts,
alcohol abuse, and societal neglect are symptoms of this disenfranchisement” (Joe,
2001, p. 242). Centuries of marginalization and a legacy of conquest have driven
American Indians to the periphery of the political, social, and economic mainstream
of America.
108
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
Tribal Sovereignty
The federal government recognizes the sovereignty of 567 American Indian tribes in
the United States (as of 2015). Sovereignty connotes the inherent right of self‐
government or autonomy and the power of self‐determination; however, the meaning
is not absolute and is subject to interpretation. The first attempt to define American
Indian tribal sovereignty, or perhaps better defined as semi‐sovereignty, was the 1831
US Supreme Court case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia. In it, the Cherokee Nation sought
an injunction against Georgia state laws that curtailed their rights. Chief Justice John
Marshall dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction. In denying jurisdiction, Marshall
argued that the Cherokee could not be considered “foreign nations” and thus were
subject to the Constitution. However, this did not mean that they were totally
dependent upon the states. Recognizing the unique relationship between Native
Peoples and the national government, Marshall observed that the Cherokee were
“domestic dependent nations” (Stites, 1981; see also Harjo, 2014). In essence, the
Cherokee and all American Indians were wards of the federal government.
While this definition lacks clarity as to how one nation can exist within another
and both be sovereign, the subsequent 180 years of Congressional legislation and
Supreme Court rulings attempted to define this government‐to‐government,
nation‐to‐nation relationship. Popular thought at the time of the Cherokee Nation
case and for the next several decades was that American Indians were a “dying race”
and a hindrance to progress (Duthu, 2008).
The US Constitution classifies all treaties (inherently including American Indian
tribes) as among the “supreme law of the land,” and thus recognizes Indian affairs as
a unique area of federal concern and interest. The Office of the Attorney General in
1995 outlined three basic principles regarding Indian affairs: (1) “The Constitution
invests Congress with plenary power over Indian affairs”; (2) “Indian tribes retain
important sovereign powers over their members and territory, subject to the plenary
power of Congress”; and (3) “the United States has a trust responsibility to Indian
tribes, which guides and limits the Federal Government in dealings with Indian
tribes” (Office of the Attorney General, 1995). While the term “tribe” is still used by
the federal government in official language to distinguish tribal government from
the US Government, the preferred title today of American Indian tribes is “Nation,”
reflecting the new reality of sovereignty (for example, the Navajo Nation). Since
1924, American Indians have held dual citizenship as citizens of both the United
States and their native nation.
Today federally recognized Indian nations have the authority to adopt their own
constitutions, enact civil laws to regulate conduct and commerce, elect councils
(­legislatures) and tribal leaders, and establish their own police agencies and courts
to enforce the rule of law within their nation boundaries. Management and oversight of American Indian affairs began within the War Department by Act of
Congress in 1789. In 1832, Congress created the Office of Indian Affairs and in 1849
transferred authority from the War Department to the Department of the Interior.
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
109
The Office of Indian Affairs was renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947. Since
the 1960s, advancing self‐determination has been an American Indian core interest
in the improvement of government‐to‐government relations (Luna‐Firebaugh,
2009; Meredith, 1993).
Law Enforcement on the Reservation
In the field of law enforcement, American Indians have policed themselves under
the supervision of the Office (now the Bureau) of Indian Affairs since the late
nineteenth century. Initially the US Army and the Office of Indian Affairs employed
and managed tribal police directly under contract, a practice continued today with
numerous smaller tribes. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration and
Congress in the 1950s sought to divest the federal government of “responsibility” for
Indian Country policing by transferring criminal and civil jurisdiction to the states
or tribes, with the exception of major felony crimes (Tyler, 1973).
In 1953 the federal government—with American Indian tribal consultation and
consent—transferred both criminal and civil jurisdiction over offenses by or against
American Indians to six states under Public Law 83‐280. Those were California,
Minnesota (except the Red Lake Reservation), Nebraska, Oregon (except for the
Warm Springs Reservation), Alaska, and Wisconsin (except for the Menominee
Reservation). Public Law 280 also permitted other states to acquire partial jurisdiction at their option. Indian tribes opposed that provision because it did not provide
for consultation and consent (Tyler, 1973). In 1968, Congress amended that
­omission to allow transfer with consent of whole or partial tribal jurisdiction to nine
additional states: Nevada, Idaho, Iowa, Washington, South Dakota, Montana, North
Dakota, Arizona, and Utah (Luna‐Firebaugh, 2007).
The trend toward divestiture/termination stalled with the growing awareness of
the public and lawmakers of the shared responsibility for Indian Country self‐­
governance and self‐determination in the 1970s. Among other Acts of Congress,
Public Law 93‐638 (January 4, 1975; US Department of Interior, 2018) included
provision for Indian nations to organize, maintain, and manage their own law
enforcement agencies with the financial assistance of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Additional amendments to Public Law 638 allow Indian nations to exercise complete
law enforcement autonomy using tribal funds (S. Perry, 2005). While not a common
practice due to the cost of providing law enforcement services, several tribes,
including the largest, the Navajo Nation, have constituted their own police force.
By 2000, 188 Indian nations had some form of a justice system independent from
state or federal institutions (S. Perry, 2005).
The early American government recognized in American Indian treaties the
right of tribal jurisdiction over crimes committed within their own territories.
The question of jurisdiction over interracial crimes committed in Indian Country
became a major problem with growing Euroamerican incursions and settlement.
110
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
Congress addressed the problem with the 1817 General Crimes Act, which provided
that federal courts had jurisdiction over interracial crimes committed in Indian
Country. Offenses committed by Indians against Indians on the reservation
remained exclusively under tribal jurisdiction unless otherwise stipulated in a treaty.
The quality of American Indian justice in tribal courts or councils by the late
nineteenth century, however, came under question. Tribal justice commonly involves
peacemaking/restorative justice traditions that center on restitution rather than
revenge in order to restore harmony. The issue came to head following a murder in
1881 on the Lakota Sioux Rosebud Reservation. Crow Dog, a former tribal police
chief, shot and killed Spotted Tail, a Lakota. The cause of the altercation remains
undetermined. Practicing restorative justice, the tribal council mediated a settlement
of restitution involving money, a blanket, and eight horses. However, federal authorities were not satisfied, and they prosecuted Crow Dog for murder in a federal court.
He was found guilty and sentenced to hang. In a landmark Supreme Court case in
1883, the court ruled in Ex parte Crow Dog (Justia, 2018; Luna‐Firebaugh, 2007;
Wilkinson, 2005) that the federal government, unless authorized by Congress, did
not have jurisdiction over offenses committed by an American Indian against
another Indian already tried in a tribal court or council. Crow Dog was therefore
released from jail.
The US Congress in 1885 addressed limits on tribal jurisdiction with the Major
Crimes Act. The Act enumerated seven offenses that came under federal jurisdiction if committed by an American Indian in Indian Country. These crimes were
murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burglary, and larceny.
Trial for any of these offenses committed by an American Indian was held in either
the territorial or federal court within whose jurisdiction the crime occurred.
Jurisdiction over other lessor offenses remained with tribal governments (18 U.S.
Code, Section 1152: Legal Information Institute, 2017b).
In 1949 Congress expanded the list of offenses under federal jurisdiction when
committed by an American Indian in Indian Country to include maiming, kidnapping, sexual abuse, incest, felony assault, assault on a person less than 16 years old,
and felony child abuse or neglect (18 U.S. Code, Section 1153: Legal Information
Institute, 2017c). Congress has amended and clarified the list of offenses, which now
includes terrorism. Other federal crimes of general applicability not limited to
territorial jurisdiction include drug offenses, bank robbery, failure to report child
abuse, and felony in possession of firearm (Mikkanen, 2010).
The Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wheeler (1978) that, as separate
­sovereigns, tribes and the federal government have concurrent jurisdiction. In the
same year, the Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe that
tribes have no criminal jurisdiction over non‐Indians in tribal court. If both the
offender and victim are non‐Indian, jurisdiction is with the county or state. However,
if the offender is non‐Indian and the victim is an enrolled tribal member, the power
to arrest and prosecute lies solely with the federal government. A tribal officer
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
111
can make the arrest if the offender is an enrolled tribal member and the victim a
non‐Indian, but the prosecution will still go to federal court (Cardani, 2009;
Prygoski, 1995).
In Duro v. Reina (1990) the Supreme Court further limited tribal jurisdiction by
removing the right of one tribal government to “impose criminal sanctions” on a
member of another tribe (Prygoski, 1995). State authority over tribal sovereignty
was at the center of Nevada v. Hicks in 2001. The Supreme Court in Hicks ruled that
state agents had the right to exercise processes (warrants) on tribal lands over a
tribal member for an offense committed off the reservation (Cardani, 2009; Luna‐
Firebaugh, 2007). These rulings reveal the complexity of concurrent jurisdiction
and its limitations. Confusion and frustration over jurisdiction is the legacy of dual
sovereignty. The intersection of tribal, federal, and state authority (including states
under Public Law 280) often leads to the failure to prosecute offenders (Bulzomi, 2012).
While the majority of Indian Country investigations opened by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) in 2014 were referred to federal prosecutors, 59.6 percent of
the cases were declined for lack of sufficient evidence and another 16.3 percent were
declined and referred to another prosecuting authority (US Department of Justice,
2014). The lack of sufficient evidence points to the need for more precise law enforcement training, while referrals to other prosecuting authorities reflects the confusion
over jurisdictional boundaries.
While the federal government has jurisdiction over major felony crimes committed by American Indians on the reservation, it has sought a closer working relationship with tribal nations. Congress addressed the disparity of justice in Indian
Country in 2010. The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 (see US Department of
Justice, 2016) stipulated concurrent jurisdiction with the nations regarding all
offenses listed under Title 18 Section 1153 (Legal Information Institute, 2017c) and
urged greater cooperation between federal and tribal criminal justice and investigative agencies. Under the new law, the US government agreed to accept concurrent
jurisdiction at the request of and after consultation with the “Indian tribe” before
proceeding with prosecution. In order to enhance prosecution rates for crimes in
Indian Country, the law authorized the Department of Justice to hire and train both
federal and tribal prosecutors and law enforcement personnel, coordinate the flow
of criminal history information among agencies, establish multidisciplinary teams
to tackle crime, and appoint an assistant US attorney for tribal liaison, among other
elements (US Department of Justice, 2016). The result has been an effort to encourage
cooperation and coordination across jurisdictional lines. As the statistics from 2014
reveal, greater cooperation and training are needed.
The ultimate question of exactly who has jurisdiction over criminal acts committed on the reservation comes to the point of who is the offender and who is the
victim. In short, if the perpetrator of a crime is a non‐Indian and the victim is either
an American Indian or non‐Indian, the federal government has jurisdiction. If both
the offender and victim are non‐Indian, then the state has jurisdiction. However, if
112
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
both the offender and victim are American Indians, then the tribe has jurisdiction
unless the offense is one of the enumerated crimes in the Major Crimes Act or those
added under supplemental legislation. In these cases, the federal government and
the tribe share jurisdiction, or in states under Public Law 280 the state has exclusive
jurisdiction (Cardani, 2009; Tribal Court Clearinghouse, 2017a; also 18 U.S. Code,
Section 1152: Legal Information Institute, 2017b).
Crime is not limited by geography. Because reservations are typically ­encompassed
by county and state, or in some cases municipal boundaries, law enforcement
efforts can benefit from mutual assistance, especially in cases of emergency or the
use of task forces. Cooperative policing across jurisdictional lines, whether county,
municipal or state, can be empowered through mutual aid agreements, cross‐­
deputization, or state certification of officers. While all three processes are common
in national law ­enforcement models, issues of sovereignty and traditional widespread insular policing p
­ ractices cloud intergovernmental agreements in Indian
Country. A survey in 2000 reported by Luna‐Firebaugh (2007) revealed that of
76 tribal law enforcement agencies surveyed, only 43 had established mutual aid
agreements with neighboring jurisdictions or cross‐deputized officers. A separate
survey in 2003 of 76 individual officers reported that only 10 were cross‐deputized
(Luna‐Firebaugh, 2007).
Since its creation in 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has had the responsibility for investigating all of the enumerated and some of the general applicability
offenses in Indian Country. Willing to assist when called upon for any crime, the
primary focus of the FBI is on the most serious crimes, including murder, bank robbery, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and terrorism (Butler, interview with Executive
Director John Billison, Navajo Division of Public Safety, March 10, 2015). Over 100
special agents from 19 different field offices investigate crimes in the nations (Federal
Bureau of Investigation, 2018). As with state and municipal law enforcement
agencies, Indian nations can voluntarily submit crime data to the FBI’s Uniform
Crime Report (UCR). The number of tribal law enforcement agencies reporting in
2013 was 158 compared to 12 in 2008 (S. Perry, 2015). The FBI asks Indian Country
law enforcement agencies to report eight UCR Part 1 crime types: murder, rape,
­robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny‐theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson
(S. Perry, 2015).
The FBI reported in 2012 that approximately one out of every four violent crimes
prosecuted federally by the Department of Justice occurs on reservations (Federal
Bureau of Investigation, 2012). Approximately 75 percent of the crimes investigated
by the FBI in Indian Country fall under the headings of investigations into deaths,
physical or sexual abuse of a child, violent felony assaults, and rape (Federal Bureau
of Investigation, 2018).
The Drug Enforcement Agency also has a presence in Indian Country, along with
the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management,
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, United States Marshals
Service, and the United States Attorney’s Office (US Department of Justice, 2014).
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
113
The federal government sets the length of sentences for offenses committed in
Indian Country. Congress passed legislation in 1968 commonly known as the Indian
Civil Rights Act. While the Act affirmed the civil rights of American Indians,
Congress stipulated that tribal courts could not impose fines over $5,000 or imprisonment for a term over one year. Thus major crimes, violent crimes, would only
entail upon conviction a $5,000 fine and one year in jail. The Tribal Law and Order
Act of 2010 slightly modified this imposed sentencing rule to allow imprisonment
up to three years and a fine no greater than $5,000 per year for a total of $15,000.
Perhaps the effect of the Crow Dog case still resonates in the halls of Congress, where
Euroamerican concepts of revenge trumped restitution. In short, the perception
­lingers that Indian Country cannot be fully trusted to hand down appropriate
­sentences, thus assuring major crimes will be transferred to federal jurisdiction.
The number of tribal law enforcement agencies operating in 2012 totaled 178
(S. Perry, 2012). In addition, the Bureau of Indian Affairs provided law enforcement services to 42 tribes. These departments serve over 55 million acres of Indian
Country with about 3,000 officers. Tribal police departments range from two or
three officers to over 300. The Navajo Nation police and Oglala Sioux Nation
police departments are the two largest law enforcement agencies in Indian
Country. Together these departments serve about 15 percent of all tribal residents
(Wakeling, Jorgensen, Michaelson, & Begay, 2001). While the majority of officers
are male, women officers in 2000 constituted 14.8 percent of the officers,
­compared to the national average of 13.5 percent in police departments (Luna‐
Firebaugh, 2009).
The Navajo Nation Department of Public Safety is the largest tribal police
department, with approximately 240 full‐time sworn personnel who, over three
shifts, are required to cover nearly 27,000 square miles. With approximately
25 ­officers on duty per shift, some of the officers are responsible for over 1,000
square miles (Butler, interview with John Billison, March 10, 2015). The percentage
of tribal police officers is proportionality less than half of the law enforcement
presence in comparable rural communities nationwide (Wakeling et al., 2001).
Numerous obstacles to law enforcement exist on large reservations, including
geographical isolation and distance to point of service, radio reception, limited cellphone and telephone service, road conditions, off‐road access, and the number of
officers on duty at any given time (Wakeling et al., 2001). Spending for law enforcement in Indian Country is equivalent to only 60 cents on the dollar spent overall in
the United States (Hamby, 2009). On the reservation, 1.3 officers serve every 1,000
citizens compared to 2.9 officers in non‐Indian communities with populations
under 10,000 (Tribal Court Clearinghouse, 2017b).
The most common law enforcement service model in Indian Country is
community policing. Community policing is based on the principle of engagement,
of linking police and the public in one common cause to proactively address the
­prevention of crime and service to the community. Native American values of
family, collective responsibility and sharing, in addition to the peacemaking
114
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
­tradition, mean that are often viewed as mediators and contributors to the community
(Judicial Council of California, 2010; Luna‐Firebaugh, 2007; National Criminal
Justice Training Center, 2013; Wakeling et al., 2001).
In 2015, tribal governments operated 79 correctional facilities, detention centers,
or other confinement facilities (S. Perry, 2015). These facilities housed 2,287 inmates
in midyear 2013. The average number of inmates per facility increased nearly 11
percent from 2000 to 2013 (Perry, 2015). The Indian Country jail population
increased 4 percent between 2013 and 2014 (Minton, 2015). At midyear 2014, local
non‐Indian jails held about 10,400 American Indians (S. Perry, 2015). The 2014
Department of Justice survey (S. Perry, 2015) reports that since 2010 about 31 percent
of inmates held in tribal jails were convicted of violent crimes. At midyear 2013
domestic violence (15 percent) and aggravated or simple assault (10 percent)
accounted for the largest percentage of violent offenders. Seven percent of the jail
population was held for unspecified violence (5 percent), with rape or sexual assault
at 2 percent (S. Perry, 2015).
Since 2010 about 30 percent of inmates in tribal jails have been confined
for violent crimes (Minton, 2014). By midyear 2013, drug‐related offenses were
8 percent, and driving while intoxicated (DWI) and driving while under the
influence (DUI) were also 8 percent. A first‐time report in midyear 2013 included
public intoxication (17 percent), burglary (2 percent), and larceny‐theft at 1 percent
(S. Perry, 2015). While the majority of Indian Country inmates are male, the
percentage of female inmates increased to 25 percent in 2014 from 20 percent in
2010 (Minton, 2014). Overall, national crime data reveal that violent victimization
of American Indians and Alaska Natives is 2.5 times greater than that of other ethnic
and racial subgroups within the United States (Bulzomi, 2012; Greenfeld & Smith,
1999; S. Perry, 2015).
Crime Trends in Indian Country
Strained Indian nation criminal justice systems must deal with a complex array of
crimes and causes. The occurrence of violent crime and property crime in Indian
Country is on the rise. Rates of violent victimization for Native Americans, both
male and female, are higher than for any other ethnicity or race (S. Perry, 2004,
2015). Department of Justice statistics also report that 62 percent of violent criminal
acts committed in Indian Country involve alcohol, compared to 42 percent for the
national average (S. Perry, 2004).
The adverse effects of marginalization in Indian Country have a direct impact not
only on quality of life and life expectancy, but also on the potential for victimization,
arrest, and incarceration. American Indians are more likely than any other racial or
ethnic group in America to suffer from crime and victimization. In 2002, the rates
of crime and victimization for youths aged between 12 and 17 were 45 per 1,000 for
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
115
Asians, 95 for Whites, and 97 for African Americans, but 145 for Native Americans
(Winters, 2014). The Bureau of Prisons reports that 79 percent of all its youth in
­custody are Native Americans (Winters, 2014). This number has increased 50 percent since 1994 (Andrews & McKinney, 2000).
Victimization takes many forms, not the least of which is suffering name‐calling
and verbal harassment both on and off the reservation. Expressions of hate have
become “normative parts of the everyday experience of Native Americans” (B. Perry,
2008, pp. 76–77). Hate speech reinforces the marginalization of people. Hate may
also be the motivation for murder, assault, arson, sexual exploitation, and abuse. The
Department of Justice under director Eric Holder made the prosecution of hate
crimes in America a top priority.
Domestic violence and sexual assault have high occurrences in Indian Country.
Native American women both on and off the reservation suffer especially high and
alarming rates of victimization. Two in five American Indian women are victims of
domestic violence, higher than any other racial or ethnic group (Tjaden & Thoennes,
2000). The rate of co‐occurrence of child abuse and domestic violence for American
Indians is not known but nationally, men who batter their companion also abuse
their children in 49 percent to 70 percent of cases (Eagle, Clairmont, & Hunter, 2011).
Native American women are nearly three times as likely to experience rape or
sexual assault compared to either White, African American, or Asian American
women (Bachman, Zaykowski, Kallmyer, Poteyeva, & Lanier, 2008). In 86 percent of
these cases the assailant is non‐Indian (S. Perry, 2004). Homicide rates with
American Indian women as victims are second only to those for African American
women, but higher than for Whites (Bachman et al., 2008; US Department of the
Interior, 2014).
In 2013, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act,
which recognizes tribal authority to exercise “special domestic violence criminal
jurisdiction” over anyone in their territory, American Indian or not, who commits
domestic violence, dating violence, or violates certain protective orders. The Act
also grants tribal justice systems civil jurisdiction to issue and enforce protective
orders over any individual within the tribe’s authority (US Department of
Justice, 2014).
The scourge of methamphetamine (meth) has swept over Indian Country, making it the drug of choice. The FBI estimates that 40 percent of all violent crimes committed on the reservation involve meth (Community Oriented Policing Services,
2013). Use of meth by American Indians is double the national rate (Indian Country
Media Network, 2010).
Driving while intoxicated and driving under the influence continue to be a
problem on the reservation. However, the number of jailed DWI or DUI offenders
has dropped from 17 percent in 2000 to 8 percent of the total inmates in midyear
2013 (S. Perry, 2015). In contrast, the number of arrests for property offenses between 2008 and 2012 has increased 21 percent (S. Perry, 2014).
116
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
Sociocultural Factors That Contribute to Social Dissonance
Crime in Indian Country strongly correlates with sociocultural problems that resulted
from the collision of Native and mainstream society. With a population of 5 million
people, American Indians are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups and one of the
youngest. For example, 42 percent of the Navajo Nation population is 18 years old or
younger (Navajo Nation, 2004). Nationally, approximately 28.1 percent of American
Indians are below 16 years old (US Department of the Interior, 2014).
Common characteristics of reservation communities include poverty, substandard housing, chronic unemployment and underemployment, limited educational
opportunities and school failure, and geographical isolation. Those realities
combined with social‐psychological risk factors, including dysfunctional families,
domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse, alcoholism, lowered self‐concept,
gang presence, acculturation stress, lack of opportunity, health issues, a sense of
hopelessness, and antisocial behavior are all associated with significant crime rates
in Indian Country. Those elements are especially acute among American Indian
youth (Bachman, 1992; Borowsky, Resnick, Ireland, & Blum, 1999; Cameron, 1999;
Dorpat, 1993; Dreyer & Havighurst, 1970; Duclos, LeBeau, & Elias, 1993; Joe, 2001;
Lester, 1997a, 1997b; Shore, 1993; Strickland, 1996; Thatcher, 2004). Nationally, 1 in
25 of American Indians, age 18 and older, is under the jurisdiction of the criminal
justice system (Greenfeld & Smith, 1999).
During the era of reservation allotments, the federal government usually gave
American Indians land of little economic consequence. As a result, poverty is high.
An estimated 18 of the 36 largest reservations have a poverty “underclass” of more
than 40 percent of all households (Lester, 1999). In 2010, an estimated 23 percent of
American Indian families earned incomes below the poverty line (US Department
of the Interior, 2014). Poverty robs people of opportunity and hope. American
Indian poverty rates are more than double those for the whole American population
(Hamby, 2009). An estimated 49–50 percent of Native Americans are unemployed,
but the variance from tribe to tribe ranges from nearly 20 percent to 80 percent (US
Department of the Interior, 2014). However, poverty is not a universal reservation
experience. Some smaller tribes—such as the Maricopa and Pechanga Band of
Luiseno Mission Indians—enjoy a high standard of living due to a casino economy.
Still, no trickle‐down effect of casino money has yet proven to be a boon to Indian
Country as a whole.
The idea of paternalism has motivated the federal government’s traditional
response to the “Indian problem.” Historical attempts to integrate and assimilate
American Indians into the mainstream of Euroamerican dominant culture have
disrupted many of their long‐held traditions and beliefs. In many ways American
Indians find themselves between two worlds: unwilling to accept the impoverishment of one, unable to cope with the pressures of the other. To survive in contemporary America requires an ability to live their own traditional values astride
two cultures.
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
117
Only since the 1970s have both parties made a more serious effort to grapple
with longstanding problems and collaborate for solutions. But there remains a great
need to accomplish more, including law enforcement and justice system assistance.
American Indians have a strong, indigenous culture that is significantly different
from the dominant Eurocentric culture. Traditional Eurocentric values focus on
individuality and the rights of the individual, whereas Native Americans value
community and a collective sense of worth (Beck, Walters, & Francisco, 1977). The
American Indian community believes that life should be lived in balanced harmony
with the natural, physical (secular), and spiritual realms of being as a totality, in a
holistic way (Beck et al., 1977; Bryde, 1971; Cook, 1993; Frank, Moore, & Ames,
2000; Iverson, 2000; Joe, 2001; Trafzer & Weiner, 1999). In American Indian culture,
balance and harmony are building blocks of self‐esteem (Crozier‐Hogle & Wilson,
1997; Dreyer & Havighurst, 1970; Foley, 1997; LaPena, 1997). Disruptions in the
harmony of well‐being is often perceived to be the cause of illness and suffering.
Balance results from restoring harmony between humankind and the natural world
(Trafzer & Weiner, 1999). American Indians share a similar socioeconomic history,
making it possible to describe a set of social conditions and problems that are fairly
general across tribes (Beauvais & Segal, 1992).
The problem of acculturation for Native Americans, particularly in the area of
adjusting to the everyday necessity of making a living in the Euroamerican world, is
made more complicated by the spirit of competition. In contemporary America,
competition in the marketplace and in every facet of life, including education, is a
reality that is very difficult for American Indians, and Native youth in particular, to
understand and accommodate (Frank et al., 2000; Trafzer & Weiner, 1999).
Frustration and even anger result from the demands to assimilate, which in turn
promote withdrawal and self‐doubt (Albon, 1971; Frank et al., 2000; Trafzer &
Weiner, 1999). An estimated 10 percent or 200,000 Native Americans under the age
of 19 suffer “serious emotional disturbances” (Winters, 2014). It has been estimated
that 38 percent of American Indians 25 years and older have only a sixth grade
­education or less (Meredith, 1993). The high school dropout rate is the highest in
the nation (Winters, 2014).
This frustration, combined with the Euroamerican culture’s paternal and even
condescending attitude toward American Indians, results in the internalization of
negative feelings of self‐worth. Anger and even hostility follow the experience of
being treated as second‐class citizens (Winters, 2014). It has been documented that
cultural conflict is often a precursor of violent behavior (Bachman, 1992). Research
reveals that conditions of poverty, discrimination, lack of cultural identity, and
cultural anomie provide the conditions for American Indian youth to view gangs as
attractive (Donnermeyer, Edwards, Chavez, & Beauvais, 1996).
Individual behaviors associated with gang involvement include high prevalence
rates of alcohol and drug use, poor academic adjustment and school achievement,
high rates of dropping out of school, and living in communities with a history
and tolerance of family and interpersonal violence (Donnermeyer et al., 1996).
118
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
In 1999, 375 gangs and 4,652 gang members were active on American reservations
(US Senate, 1999). An estimated 5 percent of males (but less than 1 percent of
females) on reservations are gang members (Donnermeyer et al., 1996).
Additional modalities for American Indians include suicide, carbon monoxide
poisoning, asthma, diabetes, cirrhosis and chronic liver disease, cancer, heart disease, and substance abuse. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for American
Indian youth (Borowsky et al., 1999; Joe, 2001; US Senate, 1999). While overall rates
of completed suicide among American Indians were stable between 1950 and 1980,
the rates decreased for older populations and increased on many reservations from
200 percent to 300 percent among those 15–24 years of age (Strickland, 1996).
Suicide rates among Native youth are twice the national rate for all youth. American
Indians of all ages in 1990 suffered an average suicide rate 95 percent higher than
that of the general population (Pritzker, 1999). Adolescent suicide is a major health
concern on America’s reservations.
Death or illness by unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning is the most common
cause of poisoning death in the United States (Ralston & Hampson, 2000). The three
causes of this poisoning among American Indians were vehicle exhaust, outdoor
fires, and electric generators used in enclosed spaces. Each of these causal factors are
congruent with a rural Native American environment. There is conclusive evidence
that asthma problems are highest among low‐income populations, whether urban
or rural (Stout et al., 2001).
Diabetes has swept over the American Indian population regardless of age in
­epidemic proportions (Wilson, Susan, Lynch, Saria & Peterson, 2001). While the
prevalence of diabetes varies with age, older American Indians between the age of
65 and 74 have a 49 percent probability of onset (Wilson et al., 2001). Cirrhosis and
chronic liver disease are tied with suicide as the second highest cause of death among
Native Americans aged 15–44 after accidents (Pritzker, 1999). American Indian
children experience unintentional injury or death at almost twice the national rate
for all races (Committee on Native American Child Health, 1999).
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis are 3.9 times as prevalent among American
Indians as in the general population (Beauvais, 1998). In the case of specific cancers
such as nasopharyngeal, gall bladder, and stomach, the incidence rates are higher for
American Indians than any other ethnic group in the United States (Joe, 2001).
Heart disease is also a leading cause of death among Native Americans. In addition
to heart disease, all Native populations are at high risk for obesity and hypertension
(Joe, 2001). Smoking is one of the primary factors for cancer and heart disease and
American Indians have the highest rates of cigarette smoking, 39 percent, regardless
of gender or age, compared to the general population (Committee on Substance
Abuse, 2001). Smokeless tobacco remains a problem as well, but its use is less prevalent among Native populations (Committee on Substance Abuse, 2001).
The life expectancy for American Indian males in 1994 was 67.2 years compared
to 72.2 for White males. For Native women, life expectancy was 75.1 years compared
to 78.8 for all other races (Joe, 2001).
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
119
The tragic consequences of alcohol abuse have disproportionately fallen upon
Native Americans. Their age‐adjusted alcoholism mortality rate in 1993 was approximately six times the rate for the general American population (Frank et al., 2000).
The Indian Health Service believes that no other condition adversely affects as many
aspects of American Indian life as alcoholism (Bachman, 1992). The abuse of alcohol
on America’s reservations has been widely reported (Bachman, 1992; Butler, del
Carmen, & Hollis, 2016; Colorado, 1985; Fixico, 2000; Frank et al., 2000; Kunitz &
Levy, 2000; Leatham, 1975; Leland, 1976; Levy & Kunitz, 1974). The arrest rate
among American Indians for DUI, liquor law violations, and public intoxication are
higher than for any other ethnic or racial group in the United States (S. Perry, 2004).
The permissive normative systems of Native Americans combined with transcultural learned drinking behavior has contributed to the ruinous effects of alcohol
across generations (Beals, Novins, Whitesell, Spicer, Mitchell & Manson, 2005;
Beauvais, 1998; Frank et al., 2000; Venner & Feldstein, 2006; Walls, Whitbeck, Hoyt
& Johnson, 2007). Traditional values for most tribes include sharing, cooperation,
independence, and meeting needs based on the group. There are similarities between these values and alcoholic behaviors (Boyd‐Ball, 1997; Fixico, 2000; O’Connell
et al., 2007; Warner & White, 2003). Drinking among adults ranges from 30 percent
to 84 percent, compared to 67 percent for the general non‐Indian population. There
is also a variation for the prevalence of drinking that is gender based but otherwise
uniform across the tribes. The prevalence for men is double the rate for women
(Beauvais, 1998).
The single greatest problem is alcohol, regardless of age. Native American youth
report using alcohol at a younger age than any other group in America (Cameron,
1999). Statistics from one national survey revealed that about 50 percent of all non‐
Indian adolescents have used alcohol, but the comparable figure for American
Indian youth was 80 percent (Gale, 1991). While a similar number of Native and
non‐Indian youth in grades 7–12 report having tried alcohol, Native youth appear to
drink greater quantities and experience more negative consequences from their
drinking than their non‐Indian peers (Beauvais, 1998). Alcohol is the “key gateway”
to the next experience or drug (Beauvais, 1998; Cameron, 1999).
Drug and alcohol abuse appear to be a problem that shows limited variability
from one American Indian community or tribe to the next (Beauvais, 1998; Beauvais
& Segal, 1992). However, drug use and alcohol use among Native youth are closely
linked, more so than for adults (Beauvais, 1998). National school surveys indicate
that drug use is higher among Native youth compared with non‐Indian youth for
nearly all drugs, and for marijuana in particular (Beauvais, 1998). The association
between substance abuse, alcohol in particular, and juvenile delinquency is widely
reported. Substance abuse is the single most common manifestation of risk‐taking
behavior among American Indian youth (Austin, 1990; Beauvais, 1996).
Alcohol, marijuana, and inhalants, in that order, were the three most commonly
abused drugs among Native American youth (Austin, 1990; Beauvais, 1996;
Cameron, 1991; Lester, 1999; Oetting & Beauvais, 1982). There is a correlation
120
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
­between alcohol and antisocial behavior. The crimes that most occupy Indian
Country law enforcement directly or indirectly are related to alcohol abuse (Wakeling
et al., 2001). But law enforcement has identified a new threat to young and old alike
in Indian Country: 74 percent of police agencies report that methamphetamine is
their greatest drug threat (Community Oriented Policing Services, 2013).
Research in Indian Country
Conducting law enforcement or justice system research in Indian Country has a
variety of challenges, including but not limited to the specificity of raw data, politicization of the research process, mistrust of “outsiders” and their motives, inherent
weakness in survey methodologies, availability of records, and diverse tribal justice
systems. Arrest, jail, and prosecution statistics are public records and are available
upon request usually for a nominal fee. However, it may be difficult due to inaccessibility or poorly stored and deteriorated paper records to determine individual
accountability from original citations or warrants. For example, the number of
arrests for public intoxication over a given time is available, but how many arrests of
the same person cannot always be determined if the Native law enforcement agency
has not digitized its records, which is a common problem.
A sad history of inappropriate or misleading research conducted within tribal
communities also complicates matters for serious researchers. In some cases,
research results have been used against members of the tribal community or discussed openly out of context. The result is a mistrust of researchers and institutional
motives, and a reluctance of Native Americans to participate in research (National
Institute of Justice, 2009). Researchers must carefully work to gain the trust and
respect of research subjects and contacts to make their efforts worthwhile.
In many cases permission to conduct appropriate and informative research is not
only required from the public safety unit or justice system, but also from the tribal
council or governing body. The resulting politicized environment is not insurmountable, but again it requires time, patience, and the building of mutual trust and
respect. Two National Institute of Justice documents are most helpful for all
researchers who contemplate conducting a research project in Indian Country:
Tribal Crime and Justice: Research Challenges (National Institute of Justice, 2009);
and “Conducting research in tribal communities” (National Institute of Justice,
2013). Respect for tribal government and culture, and securing the appropriate
tribal approvals are the core requirements.
The National Crime Victims Survey and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report and
National Incident Based Reporting System do not provide 100 percent coverage and
are voluntary (Hickman, 2000). Not all tribal communities or their law enforcement
agency, if applicable, comply with these federal surveys. National surveys come from
studies outside Indian Country and are not representative of tribal communities.
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
121
In the specific case of the National Crime Victims Survey, the sample size of individuals and households is too small to produce reliable estimates of violence against
Native Americans (National Institute of Justice, 2017).
Representative studies of crime and violence in Indian Country have never been
done across all tribal communities; there simply is no single system to collect and
analyze aggregate Indian Country crime and prosecution data ((National Institute
of Justice, 2017; US Department of Justice, 2014). Differences in criminal codes and
definitions of the law, lack of coordination and communication between tribal, state,
and federal agencies, and limited tribal resources all hamper collecting date on
crime in Indian Country (Wakeling et al., 2001).
Current research endeavors have largely focused on Native American health
issues, including alcoholism, diabetes, drug addiction, and teen suicide. Research on
reservation crime has been largely limited to statistical analysis of crime rates. There
is yet a great deal to be learned about Native American social structures and interactions. We have a good historical understanding of the marginalization of Native
America, but how that translates to the individual and group level is still not fully
explored. There is a need to study the impact of drug courts and the peacemaking
process, on the societal and jurisdictional levels. Preservation of Native culture is a
very real problem that needs to be studied from the perspectives of both mainstream
America and tribal communities. The economy of crime on the reservation is
another area needing attention. There are numerous gaps, as already pointed to, in
our understanding of Native America in the context of mainstream America. There
are exciting opportunities for research but they must be tempered with the simple
fact that research on the reservation is difficult to impossible to conduct without the
full support of the tribal council and corresponding agencies.
Conclusion
Criminological theories are equally applicable to American Indian and non‐Indian
communities alike. There are several theories that are perhaps most adaptable to
studies in Indian Country and certainly represent current research, including anomie
and strain, differential association and differential anticipation, labeling, and routine
activity. Anomie and strain theory aptly helps to explain the the social dissonance that
occurs between conflicting Native and mainstream cultures. The theory of differential
association, with its emphasis on learning law‐violating behavior, and differential
anticipation theory, with its concept that expectations determine conduct, are useful
with labeling and strain theories to better understand the underlying causes of gang
culture and juvenile delinquency in general. Ecological/social disorganization theory
has a long history with American Indian studies, and the effects of poverty, victimization, and crime, often fueled by alcohol, have destabilized many Native American
­families. The same effects exist in mainstream rural and urban America.
122
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
Just as many of the challenges to policing in Indian Country are peculiar to those
regions, so must research into those challenges be. Researchers must take the time to
understand their subjects and gain their trust, using something of an anthropological approach rather than a straight, objective criminal justice or political science
approach. Only then will researchers fully grasp the problems of reservation crime
and policing and thus be able to suggest solutions.
References
Albon, J. (1971). Cultural conflict in urban Indians. Mental Hygiene, 55(2), 199–215.
Andrews, C., & McKinney, K. (2000). OJJDP tribal youth program. Juvenile Justice, 7(2),
9–19.
Austin, G. A. (Ed.). (1990). Substance abuse among Native American youth (Prevention
Research Update No. 1). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin‐Madison, Western
Center for Drug‐Free Schools and Communities.
Bachman, R. (1992). Death and violence on the reservation: Homicide, family violence and
suicide in American Indian populations. New York, NY: Auburn House.
Bachman, R., Zaykowski, H., Kallmyer, R., Poteyeva, M., & Lanier, C. (2008, August). Violence
against American Indian and Alaska Native women and the criminal justice response:
What is known (NIJ Publication No. 223691). Washington, DC: US Department of
Justice.
Beals, J., Novins, D. K., Whitesell, N. R., Spicer, P., Mitchell, C. M., & Manson, S. M. (2005).
Prevalence of mental disorders and utilization of mental health services in two American
Indian reservation populations: Mental health disparities in a national context. American
Journal of Psychiatry, 162(9), 1723–1732.
Beauvais, F. (1996). Trends in Indian adolescent drug and alcohol use. In M. O. Nielsen, &
R. A. Silverman (Eds.), Native Americans, Crime and justice (pp. 89–95). Boulder, CO:
Westview.
Beauvais, F. (1998). American Indians and alcohol. Alcohol Health and Research World, 22(4),
253–259.
Beauvais, F., & Segal, B. (1992). Drug use patterns among American Indian and Alaskan
Native youth: Special rural populations. Drugs & Society, 7(1–2), 77–94.
Beck, P. V., Walters, A. L., & Francisco, N. (1977). The sacred: Ways of knowledge, sources of
life. Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College Press.
Borowsky, I. W., Resnick, M. D., Ireland, M., & Blum, R. W. (1999). Suicide attempts among
American Indian and Alaska Native youth. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine,
153(6), 573–580.
Boyd‐Ball, A. J. (1997). How background factors impact substance use patterns among
American Indian youth in treatment (Doctoral dissertation). University of Oregon.
Bryde, J. F. (1971). Modern Indian psychology. Vermillion, SD: University of South Dakota.
Bulzomi, M. J. (2012). Indian country and the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010. Retrieved from
https://leb.fbi.gov/2012/may/indian‐country‐and‐the‐tribal‐law‐and‐order‐act‐of‐2010
Butler, R. R., del Carmen, A., & Hollis, M. E. (2016). Navajo juveniles and alcohol related
arrests in Arizona: A longitudinal comparative analysis. Law Enforcement Executive
Forum, 16(2), 1–14.
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
123
Cameron, L. A. (1999). Understanding alcohol abuse in American Indian/Alaskan Native
youth. Pediatric Nursing, 25(3), 297–300.
Cardani, J. F. (2009). The jurisdictional jungle: Navigating the path. In M. O. Nielsen &
R. A. Silverman (Eds.), Criminal justice in Native America (pp. 114–133). Tucson, AZ:
University of Arizona Press.
Colorado, P. (1985). Native American alcoholism: An issue of survival (Doctoral dissertation).
Brandeis University.
Committee on Native American Child Health. (1999). The prevention of unintentional
injury among American Indian and Alaska Native children: A subject review. Pediatrics,
104(6), 1397–1399.
Committee on Substance Abuse. (2001). Tobacco’s toll: Implications for the pediatrician.
Pediatrics, 107(4), 794–798.
Community Oriented Policing Services. (2013, November). Strategic efforts to address methamphetamine in Indian country. BOLO (3). Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
Cook, J. E. (1993). Take pride and be proud. In J. Piper (Ed.), Papers from the third, fourth,
and sixth Navajo studies conferences (pp. 55–60). Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Nation
Historic Preservation Department.
Crozier‐Hogle, L., & Wilson, D. B. (Eds.). (1997). Surviving in two worlds: Contemporary
Native American voices. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Donnermeyer, J. F., Edwards, R. W., Chavez, E. L., & Beauvais, F. (1996). Involvement of
American Indian youth in gangs. Free Inquiry in Creative Sociology, 24(2), 167–174.
Dorpat, N. (1993). Substance abuse education/intervention program. In C. W. Duclos & S. M.
Manson (Eds.), Calling from the rim: Suicidal behavior among American Indian and
Alaska Native adolescents (pp. 122–133). Denver, CO: National Center for American
Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research.
Dreyer, P. H., & Havighurst, R. J. (1970). The self‐esteem of American Indian youth: The
personal‐social adjustment of American Indian youth (Report No. DHEW‐RC‐004‐923).
Washington, DC: US Department of Health, Education & Welfare Office of Education
(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 045 273).
Duclos, C. W., LeBeau, W., & Elias, G. L. (1993). American Indian adolescent suicidal
behavior in detention environments: Cause for continued basic and applied research.
In C. W. Duclos & S. M. Manson (Eds.), Calling from the rim: Suicidal behavior among
American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents (pp. 189–213). Denver, CO: National
Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research.
Duthu, N. B. (2008). American Indians and the law. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Eagle, M. W., Clairmont, B., & Hunter, L. (2011, December). Responses to co‐occurrence of
child maltreatment and domestic violence in Indian country: Repairing the harm and
­protecting children and mothers. West Hollywood, CA: Trial Law and Policy Institute.
Ehle, J. (1988). Trail of tears: The rise and fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York, NY:
Doubleday.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2012, June 1). Journey through Indian Country, Part 1:
Fighting crime on tribal lands. Retrieved from https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/
journey‐through‐indian‐country
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2018). Indian Country crime. Retrieved from https://www.
fbi.gov/investigate/violent‐crime/indian‐country‐crime
Fixico, D. L. (2000). The urban Indian experience in America. Albuquerque, NM: University
of New Mexico Press.
124
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
Foley, K. (1997). These things are absolutely essential. In L. Crozier‐Hogle & D. B. Wilson
(Eds.), Surviving in two worlds: Contemporary Native American voices (pp. 142–149).
Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Frank, J. W., Moore, R. S., & Ames, G. M. (2000). Historical and cultural roots of drinking
problems among American Indians. American Journal of Public Health, 90(3), 344–351.
Gale, N. (1991). Fighting alcohol and substance abuse among American Indian and Alaskan
Native youth. Charleston, WV: Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools
(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EDU‐RC‐91‐8).
Greenfeld, L. A., & Smith, S. K. (1999, February). American Indians and crime (NCJ 173386).
Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
Hamby, S. (2009). Finding their way: Challenges and resources of American Indian victims
of sexual assault. In M. O. Nielsen & R. A. Silverman (Eds.), Criminal justice in Native
America (pp. 61–76). Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Harjo, S. S. (Ed.). (2014). Nation to nation: Treaties between the United States and American
Indian Nations. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books.
Hickman, M. J. (2003, January). Tribal law enforcement, 2000 (NCJ 197936). Washington,
DC: US Department of Justice.
Indian Country Media Network. (2010, May 14). Ad campaign launched to combat
meth use in Indian country. Indian Country Today. Retrieved from https://
indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/ad‐campaign‐launched‐to‐combat‐meth‐use‐
in‐indian‐country/
Indian Land Tenure Foundation. (2017). Land tenure history: History of allotment. Retrieved
from https://www.iltf.org/resources/land‐tenure‐history/allotment.
Iverson, P. (2002). Diné: A history of the Navajos. Albuquerque, NM: University of New
Mexico Press.
Joe, J. R. (2001). Out of harmony: Health problems and young Native American men. Journal
of American College Health, 49(5), 237–242.
Judicial Council of California. (2010, May). Native American Communities Justice Project:
Beginning the dialogue: Domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, & teen‐dating violence
(Policy Paper). Sacramento, CA: Author.
Justia. (2018). Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556 (1883). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.
com/cases/federal/us/109/556/
Kunitz, S. J., & Levy, J. E. (2000). Drinking conduct disorder, and social change: Navajo experiences. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
LaPena, F. (1997). Tradition is evidence for the truth of life. In L. Crozier‐Hogle & D. B. Wilson
(Eds.), Surviving in two worlds: Contemporary Native American voices (pp. 52–60).
Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Leatham, R. C. (1975). A study of the relationship between self‐concept variables and different
lengths of sobriety for male American Indian alcoholics and male American Indian non‐
alcoholics (Doctoral dissertation). University of South Dakota.
Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. (2017a). 18 U.S. Code § 1151—Indian
country defined. Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1151
Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. (2017b). 18 U.S. Code § 1152— Laws
­governing. Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1152
Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. (2017c). 18 U.S. Code § 1153—Offenses
committed within Indian country. Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/
text/18/1153
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
125
Leland, J. H. (1976). Drinking styles in an Indian settlement: A numerical folk taxonomy
(Doctoral dissertation). University of California.
Lester, D. (1997a). Suicide in American Indians. New York, NY: Nova Science.
Lester, D. (1997b). Unemployment and suicide in American Indian youth in New Mexico.
Psychological Reports, 81(1), 58.
Lester, D. (1999). Crime and the Native American. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Levy, J. E., & Kunitz, S. J. (1974). Indian drinking: Navajo practices and Anglo‐American
­theories. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Limerick, P. N. (1987). The legacy of conquest: The unbroken past of the American West.
New York, NY: W.W. Norton.
Luna‐Firebaugh, E. (2007). Tribal policing: Asserting sovereignty, seeking justice. Tucson, AZ:
University of Arizona Press.
Luna‐Firebaugh, E. (2009). More than just a red light in your rearview mirror. In M. O.
Nielsen & R. A. Silverman (Eds.), Criminal justice in Native America (pp. 134–146).
Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Meredith, H. (1993). Modern American Indian tribal government and politics. Tsaile, AZ:
Navajo Community College Press.
Mikkanen, A. O. (2010, December). Indian country criminal jurisdictional chart. Retrieved
from https://www.justice.gov/usao‐wdok/file/941561/
Minton, T. D. (2015, October 25). Jails in Indian country, 2014 (BJS Publication No. 248974).
Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
National Criminal Justice Training Center. (2013). Successful tribal community policing initiatives: A resource for communities developing public safety programs and strategies.
Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
National Institute of Justice. (2009). Tribal crime and justice: Research challenges. Retrieved
from http://www.nij.gov/topics/tribal‐justice/research/pages/research‐challenges.aspx
National Institute of Justice. (2013, February 26). Conducting research in tribal communities.
Retrieved from http://www.nij.gov/topics/tribal‐justice/research/pages/conducting.aspx
National Institute of Justice. (2017). Tribal crime and justice. Retrieved from http://www.nij.
gov/topics/tribal‐justice/pages/welcome.aspx
Navajo Nation. (2004). Chapter images: Profiles of 110 Navajo Nation chapters. Division of
Community Development. Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Nation.
Nielsen, M. O., & Silverman, R. A. (Eds.). Criminal justice in Native America. Tucson, AZ:
University of Arizona Press.
O’Connell, J. M., Novins, D. K., Beals, J., Whitesell, N., Libby, A. M., Orton, H. D., …
AI‐SUPERPFP Team. (2007). Childhood characteristics associated with stage of
substance use of American Indians: Family background, traumatic experiences,
­
and childhood behaviors. Addictive Behaviors, 32(12), 3142–3152.
Oetting, E. R., & Beauvais, F. (1982). Drug use among Native American youth: Summary of
findings (1975–1981). Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University.
Office of the Attorney General. (1995, June 1). Memorandum on Indian sovereignty. Retrieved
from https://www.justice.gov/ag/attorney‐general‐june‐1‐1995‐memorandum‐indian‐
sovereignty
Perry, B. (2008). Silent victims: Hate crimes against Native Americans. Tucson, AZ: University
of Arizona Press.
Perry, S. W. (2004, December). American Indians and crime: A BJS statistical profile, 1992–2002
(NCJ 203097). Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
126
Randall R. Butler and R. Steven Jones
Perry, S. W. (2005, December). Census of tribal justice agencies in Indian country, 2002 (NCJ
205332). Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
Perry, S. W. (2012, October). Tribal crime data collection activities, 2012 (NCJ 239077).
Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
Perry, S. W. (2014, July). Tribal crime data collection activities, 2014 (NCJ 246917).
Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
Perry, S. W. (2015, July). Tribal crime data collection activities, 2015 (NCJ 248785).
Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
Pritzker, B. M. (1999). Native America Today: A Guide to Community, Politics and Culture.
Santa Barbara, CA: ABC‐CLIO.
Prygoski, P. J. (1995) From Marshall to Marshall: The Supreme Court’s changing stance on
tribal sovereignty. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/newsletter/publications/
gp_solo_magazine_home/gp_solo_magazine_index/marshall.html
Ralston, J. D., & Hampson, N. B. (2000). Incidence of severe unintentional carbon monoxide
poisoning differs across racial/ethnic categories. Public Health Reports, 115(1), 46–51.
Riegel, R. E., & Athearn, R. G. (1964). America moves west (4th ed.). New York, NY:
Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Shore, J. H. (1993). Synopsis. In C. W. Duclos & S. M. Manson (Eds.), Calling from the rim:
Suicidal behavior among American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents (pp. 250–260).
Denver, CO: National Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health
Research.
Stites, F. N. (1981). John Marshall: Defender of the Constitution. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
Stout, J. W., White, L. C., Redding, G. J., Morray, B. H., Martinez, P. E., & Gergen, P. J. (2001).
Differences in asthma prevalence between samples of American Indian and Alaska
Native children. Public Health Reports, 116(1), 51–57.
Strickland, C. J. (1996). Suicide among American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Canadian
aboriginal youth: Advancing the research agenda. International Journal of Mental Health,
25(4), 11–32.
Sutton, I. (1975). Indian land tenure: Bibliographical essays and a guide to the literature.
New York, NY: Clearwater.
Taylor, J. B., & Kalt, J. P. (2005). American Indians on reservations: A databook of socio‐
economic change between the 1990 and 2000 census. Cambridge, MA: Malcolm Wiener
Center for Social Policy, Harvard University.
Thatcher, R. W. (2004). Fighting firewater fictions: Moving beyond the disease model of
­alcoholism in First Nations. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
Tjaden, P., & Thoennes, N. (2000, November). Full report of the prevalence, incidence, and
consequences of violence against women (NCJ 183781). Washington, DC: US Department
of Justice.
Trafzer, C. E., & Weiner, D. (1999). Introduction. American Indian Culture and Research
Journal, 23(3), 1–11.
Tribal Court Clearinghouse. (2017a). General guide to criminal jurisdiction in Indian country.
Tribal Law and Policy Institute. Retrieved from http://www.tribal‐institute.org/lists/
jurisdiction.htm
Tribal Court Clearinghouse. (2017b). Tribal law enforcement. Tribal Law and Policy Institute.
Retrieved from http://www.tribal‐institute.org/lists/enforcement.htm
Tyler, S. L. (1973). A history of Indian policy. Washington, DC: US Department of Interior.
Native American Crime, Policing, and Social Context
127
US Department of the Interior. (2014). 2013 American Indian population and labor force
report. Washington, DC: Office of the Assistant Secretary—Indian Affairs. Retrieved
from https://www.bia.gov/knowledge‐base/american‐indian‐population‐labor‐
force‐reports
US Department of Interior. (2018). Public law 93‐638 contracting and compacting. Retrieved
from https://www.doi.gov/ost/tribal_beneficiaries/contracting
US Department of Justice. (2014). Indian Country investigations and prosecutions report.
Washington, DC: Author.
US Department of Justice. (2016). Tribal Law and Order Act. Retrieved from http://www.
justice.gov/tribal/tribal‐law‐and‐order‐act.
US Forest Service. (1997). Forest Service National Resource Guide to American Indian and
Alaska Native Relations, Appendix D: Indian Nations. Retrieved from https://www.fs.fed.
us/spf/tribalrelations/pubs_reports/NationalResourceGuide.shtml
US Senate. (1999, May 26). Indian youth activities and initiatives: Oversight hearing on
­challenges confronting American Indian youth. 106th Congress, 1st Session.
Venner, K. L., & Feldstein, Sarah W. (2006). Native American motivational interviewing:
Weaving Native American and Western practices: A manual for counselors in Native
American communities. Albuquerque, NM: Authors.
Wakeling, S., Jorgensen, M., Michaelson, S., & Begay, M. (2001, July). Policing on American
Indian reservations (NCJ 188095). Washington, DC: US Department of Justice
Walls, M. L., Whitbeck, L. B., Hoyt, D. R., & Johnson, K. D. (2007).Early‐onset alcohol
use among Native American youth: Examining female caretaker influence. Journal of
Marriage and Family, 69(2), 451–464.
Warner, L. A., & White, H. R. (2003). Longitudinal effects of age at onset and first drinking
situations on problem drinking. Substance Use and Misuse, 38(14), 1983–2016.
Wilkinson, C. F. (2005). Blood struggle: The rise of modern Indian Nations. New York, NY:
W. W. Norton.
Wilson, C., Susan, L., Lynch, A., Saria, R., & Peterson, D. (2001). Patients with diagnosed
diabetes mellitus can be accurately identified in an Indian Health Service registration
database. Public Health Reports, 116(1), 45–50.
Winters, R. (2014, June 23). The quiet crisis in Native American juvenile justice. Corrections.
com. Retrieved from http://www.corrections.com/news/article/36513‐the‐quiet‐crisis‐
in‐native‐american‐juvenile‐justice
6
Crime and Delinquency among Asian
American Youth: A Review
of the Evidence and an Agenda
for Future Research
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
Race/ethnicity and juvenile delinquency has been a longstanding theme in criminological research. However, Asian American youths have received little attention in
the research literature, and far less is known about crime and delinquency among
this population compared with other racial/ethnic groups. Asian Americans,
according to the US Census Bureau (2017), are persons having origins in any of the
original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent,
including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan,
the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam. The historical lack of attention to
Asian American adolescents among scholars may be due to the relatively small
population size of this group, their low visibility in crime statistics, as well as the
“model minority” stereotype depicting Asian Americans as overachieving and
problem‐free (Deng, Kim, Vaughan, & Li, 2010; Jang, 2002). Recent evidence,
­however, shows that Asian Americans have become one of the fastest growing
­populations in the United States (US Census Bureau, 2012a), and Asian youth are
increasingly involved in crime and delinquency (Le, Arifuku, Louis, & Krisberg,
2001; Le, Arifuku, Louis, Krisberg, &Tang, 2001). It is therefore more important
than ever to explore, investigate, and understand the prevalence of crime and
delinquency among Asian American adolescents, as well as the correlates, causes,
and consequences. To date and to our knowledge, there are only two existing literature reviews covering this topic. Le (2002) summarizes the studies of juvenile
delinquency among Asian/Pacific Islanders from 1970 to 2000. Smokowski, David‐
Ferdon, and Stroupe (2009) review a small group of studies linking acculturation
and dating violence, youth violence, or self‐directed behavior in Asian/Pacific
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
130
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
Islander youth. In this state‐of‐the‐art review, we take stock of the limited but
expanding research on juvenile delinquency among Asian Americans, with a
particular focus on that published during the recent two decades, assess the ways
researchers have sought to understand Asian American adolescents’ delinquent
behaviors, discuss the challenges and opportunities in this field, and provide recommendations for future research.
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth:
A Better But Not Complete Picture
Asian American youth are often overlooked partially due to their small population
size. However, the demographic landscape of the United States is experiencing
significant changes, in which racial/ethnic minorities have become predominant,
and Asians, along with Latinos, are the fastest growing groups. From Census 2000 to
Census 2010, the Asian population increased by 46 percent from 11.9 million to
17.3 million, at a rate faster than all other race groups in the United States and more
than four times faster than the total population of the country (US Census Bureau,
2012b). A recent report indicates that the Asian population’s share of the US total
population increased from 4.2 percent in 2000 to 5.6 percent in 2010 and 6.6 percent
in 2014. Moreover, significant proportions of the growing minority population in
the United States are represented by children and adolescents. A quarter of the Asian
population is under age 18. The number of Asian American children increased
31 percent from 2000 to 2010 (O’Hare, 2011), and a 19.9 percent rise is expected
between 2010 and 2030 (US Census Bureau, 2016).
Unfortunately, most studies examining race/ethnicity and juvenile delinquency
have concentrated on Whites, African Americans, and Latinos, while Asian
American youth have rarely been a focus of interest (Rojas‐Gaona, Hong, & Peguero,
2016). Given the overriding “model minority” stereotype, Asian American youth are
historically regarded as problem‐free high achievers and hence are largely invisible
in the mainstream criminological literature (Zhang, 2002). However, this decades‐
long stereotype myth has been increasingly challenged, and a clearer picture of
Asian American youth has emerged in recent years (Choi & Lahey, 2006; Goebert,
Le, & Sugimoto‐Matsuda, 2013; Jang, 2002; Le, 2002; Zhou & Bankston, 2006).
Official statistics show relatively low crime and arrest rates among Asian American
youth (Hishinuma et al., 2015; Jang, 2002; Kitano & Daniels, 1995; Sickmund &
Puzzanchera, 2014). However, the picture is often tainted with limited and inconsistent classification of Asians (Le, Arifuku, Louis, Krisberg, & Tang, 2001). Asian
Americans in many cases, such as in the Uniform Crime Reports and the National
Crime Victimization Survey, are lumped within the “other” racial category. When
the Asian category is used, the classification varies. Sometimes Asians are aggregated with Pacific Islanders but other times not, resulting in highly inconsistent
and unclear findings, particularly for juvenile crime and delinquency. The Asian
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth
131
American population is tremendously heterogeneous and diverse, representing
more than 40 different ethnic groups with various histories, heritages, cultures,
­religions, languages, immigration experiences and patterns, and socioeconomic
backgrounds (Chang & Le, 2005). Appropriately disaggregated data are a must for a
better understanding of Asian American youth’s involvement in crime and
delinquency. Furthermore, the scant existing literature on Asian American youth
mostly focuses on gang activities and substance use, while many other types of
criminal and delinquent behaviors are extremely understudied (Bankston, 1998;
M. Lee & Martinez, 2006; Wong, 1997).
Rising efforts have been made in recent years to gather and analyze representative
data for Asian Americans, disaggregate this population, explore their ethnic variations, and examine a wider range of behaviors (Hishinuma et al., 2015; Smokowski
et al., 2009). Accumulating evidence, though still sparse and discrete, suggests
increasing problems and notable disparities among Asian American adolescents in
terms of their delinquency and offending (Lai, 2005; Le, 2002; Le & Stockdale, 2005).
First of all, the estimates of crime and delinquency for Asian American youth based
on national surveys provide mixed findings. Several studies using nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health
(Add Health) indicated that Asian American adolescents were less likely to commit
property crime (Bui, 2009), they had lower levels of violence and drug use than
other racial/ethnic groups (Feldmeyer & Cui, 2015), and the majority of them did
not engage in delinquent activities (Huynh‐Hohnbaum, 2006). A few studies derived
from the National Educational Longitudinal Study also reported that being Asian
American was associated with lower levels of school misbehavior and deviance
(Jang, 2002; Peguero, Popp, Latimore, Shekarkhar, & Koo, 2011). Grunbaum, Lowry,
Kaan, and Pateman (2000) analyzed the multiple‐year data of the Youth Risk
Behavior Survey, and found that the prevalence of physical fighting was significantly
lower among Asian students than Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. There are exceptions. For example, Choi and Lahey’s (2006) examination of the Add Health data
showed that Asian American youth were less engaged in aggressive offenses than
their Black and Latino counterparts, but they reported slightly more aggressive
offenses than White youth, as well as more nonaggressive offenses and substance
use than Black youth. Moreover, female Asian American youth reported more nonaggressive offences than White female youth.
Second, although Asian American adolescents on the whole tend to have lower
levels of involvement in crime and delinquency compared to other racial groups,
they display a wide variation in behaviors (Bankston & Zhou, 1997; Choi & Lahey,
2006; Zhou & Bankston, 1998, 2006). Some subgroups, in particular Southeast Asian
youth, face serious problems (Goebert et al., 2013; Umemoto & Ong, 2006; Zhou &
Bankston, 2006). The reports by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency
(Le, Arifuku, Louis, & Krisberg, 2001; Le, Arifuku, Louis, Krisberg, & Tang, 2001)
revealed that, in spite of the general low arrest, adjudication, and incarceration rates
among Asian American youth, several ethnic subgroups were overrepresented in
132
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
the official arrest statistics and institutional placements. For example, almost half of
the Asian arrests were Vietnamese and Filipino juveniles, and the recidivism rates of
Southeast Asian adolescents were higher than other subgroups. Nagasawa, Qian,
and Wong (2001) examined the delinquent behaviors among several Asian American
subgroups. Their results indicated that Filipino and Pacific Islander adolescents
were most likely to engage in delinquent behavior, while the Chinese adolescents
were least likely. Le and Wallen (2006) found a higher level of serious violence
among Southeast Asian adolescents compared to Chinese adolescents. Mayeda,
Hishinuma, Nishimura, Garcia‐Santiago, and Mark (2006) found that Filipino
American adolescents had significantly higher rates of violence‐related risk behaviors than Japanese American adolescents. Choi’s (2008) study based on the Add
Health data revealed that Korean and Filipino American adolescents engaged in
more aggressive delinquent acts than Chinese American adolescents, and Filipino
American adolescents also reported more nonaggressive delinquent offenses
than Chinese American adolescents. Subgroup variations of juvenile crime and
delinquency among Asian Americans are also documented in more recent studies.
Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk
Behavior Surveillance System, Sugimoto‐Matsuda, Hishinuma, and Chang (2013)
examined the prevalence of youth violence in the United States during 1999 to 2009.
The results showed that Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders had much higher rates
of violence than Asian Americans. Tam’s (2016) investigation of Asian youth’s arrests
in Los Angeles neighborhoods revealed that Southeast Asians were mostly likely to
be arrested for property offenses, Koreans for violent offenses, Chinese for weapons,
and Japanese for substance and other offenses. These studies suggest that disaggregating ethnic groups as well as offense types is crucial to providing a more accurate
picture of the patterns of crime and delinquency among Asian American youth.
Risk and Protective Factors: Theoretical Perspectives,
Methodological Approaches, and Empirical Findings
The exploration of crime and delinquency among Asian Americans is in its infancy,
and relevant conceptual and theoretical perspectives have been used in various and
inconsistent ways. Some studies are informed by immigration theories, including
assimilation/acculturation and segmented assimilation approaches (Juang &
Nguyen, 2009; Liu, Lau, Chen, Dinh, & Kim, 2009; Wang, Kim, Anderson, Chen, &
Yan, 2012; Zhou & Bankston, 1998, 2006), and others attempt to apply mainstream
criminological theories such as social learning theory, social control theory, anomie/
strain theory, etc. (Feldmeyer & Cui, 2015; Jang, 2002). In terms of data sources,
­earlier investigations of crime and delinquency among Asian American youth are
mostly based on data from small, regional surveys or ethnographic studies, while
recent studies increasingly utilize large‐scale, nationally representative datasets such
as Add Health (Bui & Thongniramol, 2005; Feldmeyer & Cui, 2015; Le & Stockdale
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth
133
2011; Willgerodt & Thompson, 2006). More advanced analytical methods, for
example structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and dyad analysis,
are gradually being adopted (Liu et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012). These growing
efforts have revealed a number of risk and protective factors for Asian American
adolescents.
Immigration and Crime/Delinquency
The most salient theme in the study of juvenile delinquency among Asian Americans
as well as other minorities is immigration (Rojas‐Gaona et al., 2016). The relationship between immigration and crime has been the focus of scholarly inquiry and
public debate for years (Bursik, 2006). The classical assimilation theory, based on
the experience of early European immigrants, portrays assimilation as a linear
progress of immigrants’ integration into the mainstream American middle class
(Warner & Srole, 1945). Meanwhile, criminological theories developed in the 1940s
and 1950s suggest linkages between immigration and crime resulted from blocked
opportunities, poor resettlement conditions, unsuccessful adaptations, and so on
(Merton, 1938; Sellin, 1938; Shaw & McKay, 1942). However, accumulating empirical
research, in particular on recent immigrants from Latin American and Asia, has
revealed diverse assimilation paths as well as complex impacts of immigration on
crime and delinquency (Bankston & Zhou, 1997; Chen & Zhong, 2013; Rojas‐Gaona
et al., 2016; Zhou & Bankston, 2006), which have fertilized new theoretical insights
such as segmented assimilation approach and immigrant revitalization perspective
(Martinez, 2002; Portes & Zhou, 1993). A great majority of the existing literature on
immigration and juvenile delinquency focuses on Latino youth, while a few studies,
which we will review, are on Asian American adolescents (Rojas‐Gaona et al., 2016).
Generational variations of crime and delinquency among immigrant children
have been the subject of considerable scholarly interest (Berardi & Bucerius, 2014).
Empirical evidence, with a few exceptions, generally shows that being in the second
or higher generation is associated with more risks of crime and delinquency compared to the first generation (Bersani, 2014a, 2014b; Bersani, Loughran, & Piquero,
2014; Portes, 2007; Sampson, 2008). The available research for Asian American
youth, though still extremely limited, largely suggests similar intergenerational
­disparities in their offending. For example, the results of Harris’s (1999) national
longitudinal study showed that the foreign‐born Asian American adolescents were
less likely than their later generation peers to engage in violence, delinquency, and
drug use. A few studies, utilizing the Add Health data, also reported generational
variations of violence and delinquency among Asian American youth. Bui and
Thongniramol (2005) found that the generational status of Asian American adolescents was associated with their substance abuse but neither property nor violent
delinquency. Specifically, second‐ and third‐plus‐generation Asians reported higher
levels of substance abuse than their first‐generation counterparts, but no significant
134
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
differences were found in their self‐reported violent and property delinquency
across generations. The study by Willgerodt and Thompson (2006) demonstrated
more delinquency in the second generation than in the first generation for Filipino
youth. Le and Stockdale (2011) found that second‐generation Asians had higher
rates of delinquency than the first generation.
A small body of literature, primarily based on assimilation and acculturation
­theories, has attempted to explain the generational disparities of juvenile crime and
delinquency among Asian Americans. In fact, simply using generational status as a
proxy measure of immigration has been challenged for not being able to fully capture
the multifaceted complexities of assimilation and acculturation (Nguyen, Messe,
& Stollak, 1999). Scholars have started to explore the relationships between
­various aspects of assimilation/acculturation and Asian adolescents’ violence and
delinquency. In terms of language use, Greenman and Xie (2008) found that English
language use at home was positively linked to delinquency for both Chinese and
Filipino youth. But Tam and Freisthler’s (2015) study reported that linguistic acculturation was not significantly associated with risk behaviors among children of
Southeast Asian immigrants. Ethnic identity was reported to be a protective factor
against delinquency for certain Asian American subgroups, for example Korean
youth (Shrake & Rhee, 2004), Vietnamese youth (Zhou & Bankston 1998), and
Cambodian American boys (Go & Le, 2005). However, Le and Stockdale’s (2008)
examination showed that ethnic identity was not significantly associated with Asian
youth’s serious violence. More consistent findings have been obtained with respect
to the impact of collectivism and individualism, which are typically considered to
respectively represent the heritage and mainstream cultural orientations for Asian
immigrants. In general, individualism was found to be positively related to problem
behaviors, aggression, and violence among Asian American adolescents, while collectivism demonstrated protective effects (Goebert et al., 2013; Le & Stockdale,
2005; Le & Wallen, 2006; Ngo & Le, 2007; Smokowski et al., 2009). Additionally, a
few studies examined adolescents’ involvement in both American and ethnic cultures. Using the Suinn‐Lew Asian Self‐Identity Acculturation scale (Suinn, Khoo, &
Ahuna, 1995), Ho (2008) found that bicultural orientation, in contrast to monocultural orientation, was related to lower rates of problem behaviors among Vietnamese
and Cambodian adolescents. Adopting a bi‐dimensional approach, Juang and
Nguyen (2009) found that Chinese American adolescents’ misconduct was not significantly related to their American or Chinese cultural orientation. Instead, specific
cultural values, such as family obligation and autonomy expectations, predicted
their behaviors.
Although the studies on Asian American youth, more often than not, have
­indicated that assimilation/acculturation placed youth at higher risks, the nexus
­between assimilation/acculturation and problem behaviors is far more complex
than a linear, unidimensional, and direct effect. Drawing upon the segmented
­assimilation theory, Zhou and Bankston’s (2006) follow‐up study on Vietnamese
youth discussed the bifurcated outcomes (i.e., outstanding academic performance
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth
135
and serious delinquent activities) in a multilevel model of social integration, which
suggests the importance of contextual domains. Y. Lee (1998) applied a multidimensional acculturation model (e.g., integration, assimilation, separation, and
­marginalization) to examine juvenile delinquency among Korean Americans. The
results showed that the delinquents and non‐delinquents did not differ significantly
in their acculturation modes but exhibited notable differences in their attachment to
parents, peer delinquency, etc. The study by Greenman and Xie (2008) considered
assimilation as a multifaceted process, which included acculturation measured
by language use and length of stay, structural assimilation in terms of friendship
composition, generational assimilation, and spatial assimilation referring to neighborhood ethnic composition. Indeed, these studies underscore the importance of
individual, family, neighborhood, and community elements in explaining the
­etiology of crime and delinquency among Asian American adolescents.
Gender Disparities
The intersection of gender and race/ethnicity has drawn increasing attention in
recent research on adolescent delinquency and violence (Choi, Tan, Yasui, &
Pekelnicky, 2014; Rojas‐Gaona et al., 2016), but only a very few studies touch on
gender disparities among Asian American youth. National estimates based on data
from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (Grunbaum et al., 2000) revealed that Asian
male students were significantly less likely to participate in physical fighting than
White male peers, whereas the prevalence of violence among Asian female students
was similar to that of White female students. In the sparse comparisons between
male and female within Asian American youth, boys are consistently found to have
higher rates of delinquency and violence than girls (Feldmeyer & Cui, 2015;
Hishinuma et al., 2015; Tam & Freisthler, 2015). Meanwhile, similar to other races,
Asian girls start out with lower levels of delinquency than Asian boys in early adolescence (Le & Stockdale, 2011). In addition, our search in the Asian American
­literature located two studies that probed gender differences regarding the impact of
peer relations and ethnic identity on Asian youth’s delinquency. Wong (1998) found
that the effects of peer relations, including association with delinquent peers and
attachment to friends, were rather consistent for both Chinese boys and girls.
However, the protective effect of Chinese culture against delinquency was stronger
for boys than girls. Using a Cambodian adolescent sample, Go and Le (2005) identified both gender similarities and differences. Their results indicated that peer
delinquency was a risk factor for both males and females, but search for ethnic
­identity was significantly associated with delinquency for males, while parental
­discipline was significantly related to delinquency for females. These findings
undoubtedly warrant further studies on Asian Americans to substantiate gender
­differences as well as to investigate interactions between gender and an array of
­possible predictors.
136
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
Discrimination, Victimization, and Life Stressors
The connections between life stressors, including discrimination and victimization, and youth crime and delinquency are theoretically and empirically well
established (Agnew, 1992; Barker, Arseneault, Brendgen, Fontaine, & Maughan,
2008; Cuevas, Finkelhor, Turner, & Ormord, 2007; Hoffmann & Cerbone, 1999;
Rojas‐Gaona et al., 2016; Simons, Chen, Stewart, & Brody, 2003). Nevertheless,
there have been only a few limited attempts to date to examine such connections
for the Asian American population. Shrake and Rhee’s (2004) study of Korean
American adolescents reported that perceived discrimination was a significant
predictor of both internalizing and externalizing problems, including aggression
and delinquency. From a sample of Cambodian, Chinese, Laotian, and Vietnamese
youth, Le and Wallen (2006) found that victimization was a robust risk factor for
serious violence as well as family and partner violence. Similarly, the study by
Deng et al. (2010) on Chinese American adolescents revealed negative effects of
victimization experiences on their delinquent behaviors,
discrimination and ­
which were moderated by cultural orientations. Using comprehensive measures of
stressful life events, three studies (Baker, Hishinuma, Chang, & Nixon 2010; Ho,
2008; Ngo & Le, 2007) consistently found that life stressors were significantly
associated with youth violence among Southeast Asian adolescents. Further investigations are clearly needed to substantiate the relationship between life stressors
and delinquency for Asian Americans and hence to fill the notable gap in the
literature.
Parenting and Family
A large volume of literature has documented the attributes and outcomes of Asian
Americans’ family values and relationships as well as parenting styles (Fong, 1973;
Kelley & Tseng, 1992; Kitano, 1973), but few studies rigorously assess the role of
family in Asian American juvenile delinquency. A handful of existing studies, nevertheless, present interesting findings. Juang and Nguyen (2009) found that stronger
family obligations were associated with lower levels of misconduct among Chinese
adolescents. Two studies based on Add Health data (Huynh‐Hohnbaum, 2006;
Willgerodt, 2008) both revealed positive effects of family for Asian American adolescents. Willgerodt (2008) reported that family bonds, measured by emotional
bonds, instrumental bonds, and family closeness, had significant protective effects
again delinquency and substance use among Chinese and Filipino youth. Consistent
with Willgerodt (2008), Huynh‐Hohnbaum (2006) found that parental monitoring
served as a protective factor for Asian adolescents’ property delinquency, and family
structure protected them from committing personal delinquency. On the contrary,
the results from Jang’s (2002) research showed that family bonding was not helpful
to explain differences in deviance between Asian and non‐Asian adolescents.
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth
137
Instead, family socioeconomic status and intactness substantially explained the
­disparities between the two populations. The findings reviewed above suggest that
studies on family and juvenile delinquency need to consider both family background
and dynamics.
An emerging argument in the literature of immigration and children calls for
scholarly attention toward assimilation and acculturation of parents in conjunction
with that of children (Goebert et al., 2013; Wong, 1997). A couple of studies on
Asian American youth demonstrate that intergenerational acculturation discrepancies are related to increased risk for delinquency and violence (Le & Stockdale,
2008; Le & Wallen, 2006; Ngo & Le, 2007; Wong, 1997). In addition, Liu et al.
(2009) reported that higher levels of maternal acculturation lead to more maternal
monitoring and less harsh discipline, which reduced Chinese American adolescents’ ­conduct problems such as stealing and vandalism. An intriguing work
along this research line is the longitudinal study by Wang et al. (2012) on Chinese
immigrant families, in which a parent–adolescent dyad approach was utilized to
consider the interdependency of father–child and mother–child acculturation
discrepancies in both Chinese and American orientations. Their findings
­
showed that parent–child discrepancies in American orientation, but not Chinese
orientation, were indirectly related to adolescent delinquency via parental
knowledge and peer deviance.
Peer and School
Studies of peer and school, though extensive in juvenile delinquency literature,
are few for Asian Americans. The limited available evidence, not surprisingly, has
confirmed that peer delinquency is a strong risky predictor of delinquency,
­violence, and drug use for Filipino (Willgerodt, 2008), Chinese, Cambodian,
Laotian, Vietnamese (Le, Monfared, & Stockdale, 2005; Le & Wallen, 2006), as well
as the general Asian American youth (Feldmeyer & Cui, 2015; T. Kim & Goto,
2000). Additionally, Wong (1998, 1999) reported that the association with
delinquent friends was related to higher levels of delinquency involvement, but
attachment to peers was linked to less engagement in delinquency for Chinese
­adolescents. Greenman and Xie (2008) found that having more non‐Chinese
friends was ­positively related to violence among Chinese Americans. These results
suggest the multiple dimensions of peer effects implied by social learning and
social bonding theories.
Three studies (Feldmeyer & Cui, 2015; Jang, 2002; Le et al., 2005) reported that
attachment and commitment to school was linked to lower levels of delinquency
and violence among Asian American adolescents. Besides, participation in school‐
based activities predicted increased school misbehavior (Peguero et al., 2011), while
high academic performance was related to less violence and substance abuse for
Asian American youth (Whaley & Noel, 2013).
138
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
Community and Neighborhood
Community or neighborhood processes have long been studied in criminology, and
their effects on Asian American delinquency have just emerged in recent years.
From a sample of Southeast Asian adolescents, Ho (2008) found that exposure to
community violence was related to higher externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Greenman and Xie (2008) reported that living in a non‐Asian neighborhood
was associated with less delinquency and violence for Filipino adolescents. In contrast, Desmond and Kubrin (2009) reported that living in immigrant communities
protected Asian adolescents against violence. Neighborhood type is also linked to
arrests. A very recent study on Asian youth in Los Angeles neighborhoods (Tam,
2016) revealed that, compared to living in non‐ethnic neighborhoods, living in an
ethnoburb (i.e., a suburban ethnic area) was associated with a higher likelihood of
being arrested for weapons and substance offenses relative to violence. Using a small
nonrepresentative sample from Northern Californian communities, Tam and
Freisthler (2015) explored neighborhood effects on justice system involvement,
gang association, and violence among children of Southeast Asian immigrants.
The results, though unable to generalize to a broader population, suggested that
concentrated disadvantage and immigrant concentration were not linked to
delinquency and offending. Given these extremely limited but highly mixed
­findings, studying neighborhood effects and Asian youth’s delinquency is undeniably an important and promising research avenue.
Intertwined Effects
A few studies emerging in recent years have been giving voice to the intertwined
effects of individual, peer, family, and neighborhood on violence and delinquency
among Asian American youth, for example mediating pathways, contextual effects,
and so on. Taking advantage of advanced analytical methods such as multilevel
modeling and structural equation modeling, these studies have yielded interesting
findings worth underlining. First of all, peer delinquency was found to be a
significant mediator between youth acculturation and aggression (Le & Stockdale,
2005), as well as between parent–adolescent acculturative dissonance and youth violence (Le & Stockdale, 2008). Peer delinquency and parental engagement also were
found to mediate the impact of parents’ refugee status on violence among Southeast
Asian youth (Spencer & Le, 2006). The longitudinal study by Wang et al. (2012)
demonstrated a mediating pathway between intergenerational acculturation discrepancy, perceived parental knowledge, peer deviance, and adolescent delinquency.
Specifically, they found that high levels of acculturation discrepancy were associated
with adolescent perceptions of less parental knowledge about their daily experiences, which were linked to more contacts with deviant peers, which in turn led
to more adolescent delinquency. This mediating pathway existed not only
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth
139
c­oncurrently within early and middle adolescence, but also longitudinally from
early to middle adolescence. In addition, two studies looked into the interplay of
family and community. Goebert et al. (2012) found that family dynamics mediated
the effects of community cohesion and violence exposure on youth violence. Liu
et al. (2009) reported that neighborhood disadvantage was associated with lower
levels of maternal monitoring, which was related to adolescents’ conduct problems.
Overall, these sparse but thought‐provoking efforts highlight the needs to develop
comprehensive models for better understanding juvenile delinquency and violence
among Asian Americans.
Future Research: Challenges and Opportunities
In spite of the rapid growth of the Asian American population, it has drawn little
attention from criminologists. Several reasons may have contributed to the shortage
of research on Asian youths in the United States. First, there are complex subgroups
of Asians, many of which are culturally and linguistically foreign to one another.
The myriad of diverse cultures in Asia, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan,
Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam, presents a
significant challenge to researchers. Such cultural and linguistic barriers make entry
into the ethnic enclaves difficult for researchers of different backgrounds. As a result,
most scholars who focus on particular ethnic groups are members of their own
groups, thus making comparative analysis difficult if not impossible. Second, there
are relatively few social scientists among Asian communities. Social sciences
­traditionally are not disciplines where large Asian students congregate. The opposite
cascading effects are easy to note in business, engineering, and medicine. Third,
Asian adolescents have been relatively few in number both in the general population
as well as in the criminal justice population. Their relatively low occurrences in the
justice population make meaningful statistical analysis and reporting difficult.
Finally, for decades, race and ethnicity as a research topic in the context of crime
and justice mostly refers to tensions and conflicts between Whites and Blacks and
recently between Whites and Blacks/Hispanics.
Research on crime and delinquency among Asian American youth is still in its
infancy (Goebert et al., 2013; Smokowski et al., 2009). The small body of existing
literature in this field that we have reviewed has yielded mixed while stimulating
findings, which clearly warrant further research. We close with a few comments on
the challenges, opportunities, and strategies of future studies.
First of all, as limited by the available data, the current picture of crime and
delinquency among Asian American youth is indeed sketchy and incomplete. Large‐
scale representative data are necessary for scholars to accurately estimate the prevalence and distribution of crime and delinquency in Asian American adolescents, as
well as to conduct generalizable research on its etiology. In the meantime, it is
essential to continue the efforts of disaggregating the Asian American adolescent
140
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
population by ethnicity (Goebert et al., 2013; Hishinuma et al., 2015; Smokowski
et al., 2009; Tam & Freisthler, 2015). Furthermore, prior studies have mainly focused
on a few specific ethnic groups such as Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese, while
explorations of Japanese, Asian Indians, and other ethnicities have been minimal.
Expanding research to include other Asian American groups will considerably
­contribute to our understanding of distinctions and similarities among different
ethnicities (Le, 2002). Additionally, prior studies on juvenile crime and delinquency
in Asian Americans, with a few exceptions (Zhang, 2002; Zhou & Bankston, 1998,
2006), have relied largely on quantitative data analysis. Qualitative techniques can
explore the processes and mechanisms of Asian American adolescents’ life experiences. Such attempts have the potential to stimulate the development of new
conceptual and theoretical approaches and thus to guide further quantitative inquiry
of crime and delinquency among Asian American youth.
Significant room also remains in our investigation of the crime and immigration
nexus for Asian American youth. First, previous studies have suffered from the
highly limited and inconsistent measurement of assimilation and acculturation
(Goebert et al., 2013; Greenman & Xie, 2008). Some studies used one or two simple
proxy measures such as generational status and language preference, while others
adopted a variety of acculturation scales, for example the Suinn‐Lew Asian Self‐
Identity Acculturation scale (Ho, 2008), the Vancouver Index of Acculturation
(Deng et al., 2010; Liu et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012), the Behavioral Acculturation
Scale (Wong, 1997, 1998, 1999), the Acculturation Scale (Juang & Nguyen, 2009;
Nguyen et al., 1999; Nguyen & von Eye, 2002), and the Multi‐Group Ethnic Identity
Measure (Le & Stockdale, 2008).
This inconsistency leads to difficulties and confusions in interpreting empirical
findings. More efforts are needed to develop comprehensive measures of acculturation for Asian American youth as well as to assess the validity of the measures across
different ethnic groups. Second, as reviewed, scholars have just started to explore the
impact of parental acculturation and intergenerational acculturative discrepancy on
delinquency among Asian immigrant children (Liu et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012).
Continuous research along this line would be fruitful. Third, an important but
almost invisible factor in existing literature is immigration type. Immigrants from
Southeast Asia in the 1970s and 1980s are largely represented by war‐traumatized,
ill‐prepared, and economically deprived refugees, whose children experienced
­frequent cultural clashes and social maladjustments (Ho, 2008; Zhou & Bankston,
2006). Another large group of Asian immigrants came to the United States through
human smuggling and took low‐skilled jobs in ethnic enclaves. Many recent
new arrivers, however, are well‐educated and have professional or entrepreneurial
backgrounds. Children raised in different types of immigrant families would inevitably exhibit divergent life trajectories and development outcomes. However, we are
unable to locate specific empirical studies that that compare and tease out these
nuanced effects of family backgrounds and immigration experiences on adolescent
behaviors.
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth
141
Another notable gap in the Asian American literature is the link between
psychological determinants and adolescent violence, which has been well established
in the general juvenile delinquency literature (Le, 2002). An early study on New
York City Chinatown delinquents (Sheu, 1986) revealed that delinquency were
instrumental for those adolescents to compensate their feelings of failure and to
uphold positive self esteem. The findings from a recent study by Feldmeyer and Cui
(2015) indicated that emotional strain, such as sadness, loneliness, depression, etc.,
was positively linked to violent delinquency among Asian Americans. As the
psychological challenges and problems faced by Asian American youth have been
widely discussed (Kiang, Cheah, Huynh, Wang, & Yoshikawa, 2016; S. Kim et al.,
2015), it is worthwhile to probe the relationships between aspects of psychological
well‐being and juvenile delinquency for this population.
Similarly, very little is known about the neighborhood effects on crime and
delinquency among Asian American adolescents. It is important to disentangle
the impact of neighborhood racial composition, ethnic community cohesion, and
concentrated disadvantage on crime and delinquency among Asian immigrant
adolescents.
Lastly, the emerging attention to the interplay of adolescents and their key social
domains, such as peer, family, school, and community, has shed new light on our
understanding of crime and delinquency among Asian American youth (Goebert
et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012). Future research should further investigate the interactions between multidimensional individual and contextual factors
by considering mediating and moderating pathways. Development of this research
line necessitates both theoretical and methodological innovations. Existing studies
on juvenile delinquency of Asian Americans are inconsistently and sometimes
immaturely informed by immigration theories and criminological theories.
An important and challenging task in future research is to elaborate and integrate
these theoretical approaches, and it is even more challenging to adapt them to Asian
Americans by incorporating the unique sociocultural attributes and practices of this
population. In addition, using longitudinal and multilevel data and implementing
advanced analytical strategies would accelerate our progress toward a boarder and
deeper understanding of crime and delinquency among Asian American youth.
References
Agnew, R. (1992). Foundation for a general strain theory of crime and delinquency.
Criminology, 30(1), 47–88.
Baker, C. K., Hishinuma, E. S., Chang, J. Y., & Nixon, D. C. (2010). The relationship among
exposure to stressful life events, drug use, and violence perpetration in a sample of
Native Hawaiian, Samoan, and Filipino adolescents. Journal of Interpersonal Violence,
25(3), 379–399.
Bankston, C. L., III. (1998). Youth gangs and the new second generation: A review essay.
Aggression and Violent Behavior, 3(1), 35–45.
142
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
Bankston, C. L., III, & Zhou, M. (1997). Valedictorians and delinquents: The bifurcation of
Vietnamese American youth. Deviant Behavior, 18(4), 343–364.
Barker, E. D., Arseneault, L., Brendgen, M., Fontaine, N., & Maughan, B. (2008). Joint
development of bullying and victimization in adolescents: Relations to delinquency
and self‐harm. Journal of American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry,
47(9), 1030–1038.
Berardi, L., & Bucerius, S. (2014). Immigrants and their children: Evidence on generational
differences in crime. In S. M. Bucerius & M. Tonry (Eds), Oxford handbook of ethnicity,
crime, and immigration (pp. 551–583). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Bersani, B. E. (2014a). A game of catch‐up? The offending experience of second‐generation
immigrants. Crime & Delinquency, 60(1), 60–84.
Bersani, B. E. (2014b). An examination of first and second generation immigrant offending
trajectories. Justice Quarterly, 31(2), 315–343.
Bersani, B. E., Loughran, T. A., & Piquero, A. R. (2014). Comparing patterns and predictors
of immigrant offending among a sample of adjudicated youth. Journal of Youth and
Adolescence, 43(11), 1914–1933.
Bui, H. N. (2009). Parent–child conflicts, school troubles, and differences in delinquency
across immigration generations. Crime & Delinquency, 55, 412–441.
Bui, H. N., & Thongniramol, O. (2005). Immigration and self‐reported delinquency: The
interplay of immigration generations, gender, race, and ethnicity. Journal of Criminal
Justice, 28(2), 71–99.
Bursik, R. J. (2006). Rethinking the Chicago School of criminology: A new era of immigration. In R. Martinez, Jr. & A. Valenzuela, Jr. (Eds.), Immigration and crime: Race, ­ethnicity,
and violence (pp. 20–35). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Chang, J., & Le, T. N. (2005). The Influence of parents, peer delinquency, and school attitudes
on academic achievement in Chinese, Cambodian, Laotian or Mien, and Vietnamese
youth. Crime & Delinquency, 51(2), 238–264.
Chen, X, & Zhong, H. (2013). Delinquency and crime among immigrant youth: An integrative review of theoretical explanations. Laws, 2, 210–232.
Choi, Y. (2008). Diversity within: Subgroup differences of youth problem behaviors among
Asian Pacific Islander American adolescents. Journal of Community Psychology, 36(3),
352–370.
Choi, Y. & Lahey, B. B. (2006). Testing the model minority stereotype: Youth behaviors across
racial and ethnic groups. Social Service Review, 80(3), 419–452.
Choi, Y., Tan, K. P. H., Yasui, M., & Pekelnicky, D. D. (2014). Race‐ethnicity and culture in the
family and youth outcomes: Test of a path model with Korean American youth and
­parents. Race and Social Problems, 6(1), 69–84.
Cuevas, C. A., Finkelhor, D., Turner, H. A., & Ormord, R. K. (2007). Juvenile delinquency
and victimization: A theoretical typology. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 22(12),
1581–1602.
Deng, S., Kim, S. Y., Vaughan, P. W., & Li, J. (2010). Cultural orientation as a moderator of the
relationship between Chinese American adolescents’ discrimination experiences and
delinquent behaviors. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(9), 1027–1040.
Desmond, S. A., & Kubrin, C. E. (2009). The power of place: Immigrant communities and
adolescent violence. Sociological Quarterly, 50(4), 581–607.
Feldmeyer, B., & Cui, W. (2015). Assessing the sources of Asian versus non‐Asian disparities
in delinquency. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 13, 30–58.
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth
143
Fong, S. L. M. (1973). Assimilation and changing social roles of Chinese Americans. Journal
of Social Issues, 29, 115–127.
Go, C. G., & Le, T. N. (2005). Gender differences in Cambodian delinquency: The role of
ethnic identity, parental discipline, and peer delinquency. Crime & Delinquency,
51(2), 220–237.
Goebert, D., Chang, J. Y., Chung‐Do, J., Else, I. R. N., Hamagami, F., Helm, S., … Sugimoto‐
Matsuda, J. J. (2012). Social ecological determinants of youth violence among ethnically
diverse Asian and Pacific Islander students. Maternal and Child Health Journal,
16(1), 188–196.
Goebert, D., Le, T. N. & Sugimoto‐Matsuda, J. J. (2013). Asian American violence: Scope,
context, and implications. In G. J. Yoo, M. Le & A. Y. Oad (Eds.), Handbook of Asian
American health (pp. 279–300). New York, NY: Springer.
Greenman, E., & Xie, Y. (2008). Is assimilation theory dead? The effect of assimilation on
adolescent well‐being. Social Science Research, 37, 109–137.
Grunbaum, J., Lowry, R., Kaan, L., & Pateman, B. (2000). Prevalence of health risk behaviors
among Asian American/Pacific Islander high school students. Journal of Adolescent
Health, 27, 322–330.
Harris, K. (1999). The health status and risk behaviors of adolescents in immigrant families.
In D. J. Hernandez (Ed.), Children of immigrants: Health, adjustment, and public
assistance (pp. 286–315). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Hishinuma, E. S., Chang, J. Y., Goebert, D. A., Helm, S., Else, I. R. N., & Sugimoto‐Matsuda,
J. J. (2015). Interpersonal youth violence perpetration and victimization in a diverse
Asian American and Pacific Islander adolescent sample. Violence and Victims, 30(2),
225–249.
Ho, J. (2008). Community violence exposure of Southeast Asian American adolescents.
Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 23, 136–146.
Hoffmann, J. P., & Cerbone, F. G. (1999). Stressful life events and delinquency escalation in
early adolescence. Criminology, 37(2), 343–374.
Huynh‐Hohnbaum, A. (2006). The role of the family in Asian American juvenile delinquency.
AAPI Nexus: Policy, Practice and Community, 4(2), 45–68.
Jang, S. J. (2002). Race, ethnicity, and deviance: A study of Asian and non‐Asian adolescents
in America. Sociological Forum, 17(4), 647–680.
Juang, L. P., & Nguyen, H. H. (2009). Misconduct among Chinese American adolescents:
The role of acculturation, family obligation, and autonomy expectations. Journal of
Cross‐Cultural Psychology, 40(4), 649–666.
Kelley, M. L., & Tseng, H. M. (1992). Cultural differences in child rearing: A comparison of
immigrant Chinese and Caucasian American mothers. Journal of Cross‐Cultural
Psychology, 23, 444–455.
Kiang, K., Cheah, C. S. L., Huynh, V. W., Wang, Y., & Yoshikawa, H. (2016). Annual review of
Asian American psychology, 2015. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 7(4), 219–255.
Kim, S. Y., Shen, Y., Hou, Y., Tilton, K. E., Juang, L., & Wang, Y. (2015). Annual review of Asian
American psychology, 2014. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 6(4), 291–332.
Kim, T. E., & Goto, S. G. (2000). Peer delinquency and parental social support as predictors
of Asian American adolescent delinquency. Deviant Behavior, 21(4), 331–347.
Kitano, H. L. (1973). Japanese‐American crime and delinquency. In S. Sue & N. Wagner
(Eds.), Asian‐Americans: Psychological perspectives (pp. 171–180). Palo Alto, CA: Science
and Behavior Books.
144
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
Kitano, H. L., & Daniels, R. (1995). Asian Americans. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Lai, M. H. (2005). Responding to Asian Pacific Islander youth violence: Lessons learned from
a community mobilization strategy. Crime and Delinquency, 51, 158–179.
Le, T. N. (2002). Delinquency among Asian/Pacific Islanders: Review of literature and
research. Justice Professional, 15(1), 57–70.
Le, T. N., Arifuku, I., Louis, C., & Krisberg, M. (2001). Not invisible: Asian Pacific Islander
juvenile arrests in San Francisco County. Oakland, CA: Asian Pacific Islander Youth
Violence Prevention Center, National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Le, T. N., Arifuku, I., Louis, C., Krisberg, M., & Tang, E. (2001). Not invisible: Asian Pacific
Islander juvenile arrests in Alameda County. Oakland, CA: Asian Pacific Islander Youth
Violence Prevention Center, National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Le, T. N., Monfared, G. & Stockdale, G. D. (2005). The relationship of school, parent, and peer
contextual factors with self‐reported delinquency for Chinese, Cambodian, Laotian or
Mien, and Vietnamese youth. Crime & Delinquency, 51(2), 192–219.
Le, T. N., and Stockdale, G. D. (2005). Individualism, collectivism, and delinquency in Asian
American adolescents. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 34(4), 681–691.
Le, T. N., & Stockdale, G. D. (2008). Acculturative dissonance, ethnic identity, and youth
­violence. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 14(1), 1–9.
Le, T. N., & Stockdale, G. D. (2011). Influence of generational status on developmental trajectories of delinquency for Asian, African American, Hispanic, and White youth. Asian
American Journal of Psychology, 2(4), 306–315.
Le, T. N., & Wallen, J. (2006). Youth delinquency: Self‐reported rates and risk factors of
Cambodian, Chinese, Lao/Mien, and Vietnamese youth. AAPI Nexus: Policy, Practice
and Community, 4(2), 15–44.
Lee, M. T., & Martinez, R., Jr. (2006). Immigration and Asian homicide patterns in urban and
suburban San Diego. In R. Martinez, Jr. and A. Valenzuela, Jr. (Eds.), Immigration and crime:
Race, ethnicity, and violence (pp. 90–116). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Lee, Y. H. (1998). Acculturation and delinquent behavior: The case of Korean American
youths. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 22(2),
273–292.
Liu, L. L., Lau, A. S., Chen, A. C., Dinh, K. T., & Kim, S. Y. (2009). The influence of maternal
acculturation, neighborhood disadvantage, and parenting on Chinese American adolescents’ conduct problems: Testing the segmented assimilation hypothesis. Journal of
Youth and Adolescence, 38(5), 691–702.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2002). Latino homicide: Immigration, violence and community. New York,
NY: Routledge Press.
Mayeda, D. T., Hishinuma, E. S., Nishimura, S. T., Garcia‐Santiago, O. & Mark, G. Y. (2006).
Asian/Pacific Islander youth violence prevention center: Interpersonal violence
and deviant behaviors among youth in Hawaii. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39(2),
276.e1–276.e11.
Merton, R. K. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3,
672–682.
Nagasawa, R., Qian, Z. & Wong, P. (2001). Theory of segmented assimilation and the adoption of marijuana use and delinquent behavior by Asian Pacific youth. Sociological
Quarterly, 42(3), 351–372.
Ngo, H. M., & Le, T. N. (2007). Stressful life events, culture, and violence. Journal of Immigrant
Health, 9, 75–84.
Crime and Delinquency among Asian American Youth
145
Nguyen, H. H., Messe, L. A., & Stollak, G. E. (1999). Toward a more complex understanding
of acculturation and adjustment. Journal of Cross‐Cultural Psychology, 30, 5–31.
Nguyen, H. H., & von Eye, A. (2002). The acculturation scale for Vietnamese adolescents
(ASVA): A bidimensional perspective. International Journal of Behavioral Development,
26, 202–213.
O’Hare, W. (2011). The changing child population of the United States: Analysis of data from
the 2010 census. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Peguero, A. A., Popp, A. M., Latimore, T. L., Shekarkhar, Z. & Koo, D. J. (2011). Social control
theory and school misbehavior: Examining the role of race and ethnicity. Youth Violence
and Juvenile Justice, 9(3), 259–275.
Portes, A. (2007). Migration, development, and segmented assimilation: A conceptual review
of the evidence. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
610(1), 73–97
Portes, A., & Zhou, M. (1993). The new second generation: Segmented assimilation and
its variants. The Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
530(1), 74–95.
Rojas‐Gaona, C. E., Hong, J. S., & Peguero, A. A. (2016). The significance of race/ethnicity in
adolescent violence: A decade of review, 2005–2015. Journal of Criminal Justice, 46,
137–147.
Sampson, R. J. (2008). Rethinking crime and immigration. Contexts, 7, 28–33.
Sellin, T. (1938). Culture conflict and crime. New York, NY: Social Science Research Council.
Shaw, C., & McKay, H. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Sheu, C. (1986). Delinquency and identity: Juvenile delinquency in an American Chinatown.
Albany, NY: Harrow and Heston.
Shrake, E. K., & Rhee, S. (2004). Ethnic identity as a predictor of problem behaviors among
Korean American adolescents. Adolescence, 39(155), 601–622.
Sickmund, M., & Puzzanchera, C. (2014). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2014 National report.
National Center for Juvenile Justice. Retrieved from https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/
nr2014/downloads/NR2014.pdf
Simons, R. L., Chen, Y., Stewart, E. A., & Brody, G. H. (2003). Incidents of discrimination and
risk for delinquency: A longitudinal test of strain theory with an African American
sample. Justice Quarterly, 20(4), 827–854.
Smokowski, P. R., David‐Ferdon, C., & Stroupe, N. (2009). Acculturation and violence in
minority adolescents: A review of the empirical literature. Journal of Primary Prevention,
30(3), 215–263.
Spencer, J. H., & Le, T. N. (2006). Parent refugee status, immigration stressors, and Southeast
Asian youth violence. Journal of Immigrant Health, 8, 359–368.
Sugimoto‐Matsuda, J., Hishinuma, E., & Chang, J. (2013). Prevalence of youth violence in the
US, 1999–2009: Ethnic comparisons and disaggregating Asian Americans and Pacific
Islanders. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 17(10), 1802–1816.
Suinn, R. M., Khoo, G., & Ahuna, C. (1995). The Suinn‐Lew Asian self‐identity acculturation
scale: Cross‐cultural information. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development,
23(3), 139–148.
Tam, C. (2016). Behind the model minority: An examination of ethnicity, place, and arrests among
Asian Youth in Los Angeles neighborhoods (PhD dissertation). University of California at
Los Angeles, Social Welfare 0864. Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8ss3n7x6
146
Yue Zhuo and Sheldon Zhang
Tam, C., & Freisthler, B. (2015). An exploratory analysis of linguistic acculturation, neighborhood, and risk behaviors among children of Southeast Asian immigrants. Child and
Adolescent Social Work Journal, 32(4), 383–393.
Umemoto, K., & Ong, P. (2006). Asian American and Pacific Islander youth: Risks, challenges, and opportunities. AAPI Nexus, 4(2), v–ix.
US Census Bureau. (2012a). The Asian population: 2010. Retrieved from https://www.census.
gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2012/dec/c2010br‐11.pdf
US Census Bureau. (2012b). The foreign‐born population in the United States: 2010. Retrieved
from http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2012/acs/acs‐19.pdf
US Census Bureau. (2016). Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month: May 2016. Retrieved
December 2016 from http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/facts‐
for‐features/2016/cb16‐ff.07_asian_pacific.pdf
US Census Bureau. (2017). Race: About. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/topics/
population/race/about.html
Wang, Y., Kim, S. Y., Anderson, E. R., Chen, A. C., & Yan, N. (2012). Parent–child acculturation discrepancy, perceived parental knowledge, peer deviance, and adolescent
delinquency in Chinese immigrant families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41(7),
907–919.
Warner, W. L., & Srole, L. (1945). The social systems of American ethnic groups. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Whaley, Arthur L., & Noel, L. T. (2013). Academic achievement and behavioral health among
Asian American and African American adolescents: Testing the model minority and
inferior minority assumptions. Social Psychology of Education, 16(1), 23–43.
Willgerodt, M. A. (2008). Family and peer influences on adjustment among Chinese, Filipino
and White youth. Nursing Research, 57(6), 395–405.
Willgerodt, M. A., & Thompson, E. A. (2006). Ethnic and generational influences on emotional distress and risk behaviors among Chinese and Filipino American adolescents.
Research in Nursing & Health, 29(4), 311–324.
Wong, S. K. (1997). Delinquency of Chinese‐Canadian youth: A test of opportunity, control,
and intergeneration conflict theories. Youth Society, 29(1), 112–133.
Wong, S. K. (1998). Peer relations and Chinese‐Canadian delinquency. Journal of Youth and
Adolescence, 27(5), 641–659.
Wong, S. K. (1999). Acculturation, peer relations, and delinquent behavior of Chinese‐
Canadian youth. Adolescence, 34(133), 107–19.
Zhang, S. X. (2002). Family, culture, and control of the delinquent Chinese boy in America.
In S. L. Cassel (Ed.), From Gold Mountain to the New Millennium: Chinese American
studies to the 21st century (pp. 239–259). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Zhou, M. (1997). Growing up American: The challenge confronting immigrant children and
children of immigrants. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 63–95.
Zhou, M., & Bankston, C. L. (1998). Growing up American: The adaptation of Vietnamese
adolescents in the United States. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Zhou, M., & Bankston, C. L. (2006). Delinquency and acculturation in the twenty‐first
century: A decade’s change in a Vietnamese American community. In R. Martinez,
Jr. and A. Valenzuela, Jr. (Eds.), Immigration and crime: Race, ethnicity, and violence
(pp. 117–139). New York, NY: New York University Press.
7
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory,
Research, and New Directions
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
Firmly situated within the conflict perspective, the racial threat hypothesis has
received considerable attention in criminology over the past several decades.
Its fundamental premise is that a large or growing minority group may be perceived
by the dominant group as a potential threat to their economic or political privilege,
which can lead to increased efforts at controlling the threatening population. As will
be detailed, the early theoretical and empirical work focused primarily on Blacks as
the minority group, though researchers have increasingly applied this perspective to
a number of other groups, including Latinos, immigrants, and Muslims. Likewise,
numerous aspects of the criminal justice system have been studied as formal
­mechanisms of control that may be activated or expanded in response to perceived
threat, including size and expenditures of the police, arrests, police stops and searches,
imprisonment, sentencing, and police use of force, while other studies have examined
informal mechanisms of control such as segregation, lynching, and other hate crimes.
A smaller but growing body of research has focused more directly on individual perceptions and attitudes, most often using survey data to link perceptions of minority
growth and encroachment on economic and political status with preferences for
more punitive criminal justice policies such as longer sentences, diverting juveniles
to the adult justice system, and increased use of the death penalty.
This chapter will begin by presenting the theoretical arguments underlying the
racial threat hypothesis, including an explanation of how it is rooted within the
broader conflict perspective of criminology. Next, a series of key methodological
issues will be identified, followed by a representative review of the empirical
­literature. Several important extensions of the hypothesis will then be outlined,
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
148
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
f­ ollowed by a discussion of some of the most recent developments in the area as well
as some suggestions for future research.
Early Theory and Research
The racial threat hypothesis is typically placed within the conflict perspective in
criminology, which is in turn rooted in social theory ranging back to the late
nineteenth century. In contrast with most mainstream criminological theories,
the conflict perspective views crime control not solely as a formal reaction to the
violation of commonly accepted social norms and legal rules, but also as a mechanism for preserving the superordinate status of the dominant group. Rather than
seeing the criminal justice system as a necessary and functional institution, conflict
theorists argue that the powerful segments of society also use the pretense of law and
order as a means of protecting and furthering their privileged social status.
This perspective is part of a more general conflict tradition in sociology, extending from the work of German social philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
(1848). They argued in their analysis of class conflict in nineteenth‐century Europe
that the primary interest of property owners was to maintain their superior economic
status by exploiting workers, and by dictating the ruling ideas of society. By manipulating fundamental societal institutions such as the media, education, and law, the
ruling class was able to effectively control the working class. Sociologist Max Weber
(1968) also recognized the salience of economic class in capitalist society, but he
attributed additional importance to group distinctions based on characteristics
other than class, such as religion, urban versus rural, and more directly relevant to
this volume, ethnicity, nationality, and citizenship. Although neither Marx and
Engels, nor Weber, wrote much about crime and the criminal justice system specifically, the work of twentieth‐century conflict theorists, upon which the racial threat
hypothesis is based, is a direct extension of these prior scholars.
The Conflict Perspective in Criminology
An essential argument of the conflict perspective is that societal rules grow out of a
power struggle between competing interest groups, including racial, ethnic, and immigrant groups as addressed in this volume. According to this perspective, that a rule is
officially sanctioned through legislation and enforced through the activity of the
criminal justice system is an indication that it addresses a behavior or condition perceived as threatening to the interests of one or more powerful groups. The ability
to translate self‐interest into law is a sign of power and importance, while subjection to
criminal labeling and processing by legal institutions signifies low status and a lack of
power. While this clearly draws on the broader conflict tradition in sociology, scholars
do not always agree upon the source of conflict and the underlying locus of power.
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
149
Austin Turk (1966) was among the first criminologists to draw on the conflict perspective as a means of analyzing crime and the criminal justice system. Following the
conflict tradition, he saw crime and law as a result of conflict between groups in
society, and specifically between opposing cultural normative structures. He drew
upon the theorizing of Ralf Dahrendorf (1959), who moved away from a strict
Marxist concern with economic relationships, and emphasized the broader distribution of power as the key source of conflict. According to Turk, the probability of legal
conflict is not necessarily determined by economic status, but by the cultural
difference between authorities and subjects. In an effort to control their own ­destinies,
relatively powerless subjects often break the laws of the more powerful segments,
while the powerful use their privileged position to criminalize the behavior of the
powerless. Essentially, Turk lays out the foundations of a critical criminological
­perspective by arguing that criminality is not a biological, psychological, or even
behavioral phenomenon, but rather an ascribed status conferred by those with
enough power to enforce their own cultural and self‐interested values over others.
Other conflict theorists maintain stronger ties to traditional Marxist thought,
arguing that crime is an inevitable result of the contradictions inherent in the
economic and political institutions of capitalist societies (Chambliss, 1975; Quinney,
1980). Not only do these systemic contradictions affect the amount of criminal
behavior that occurs in a given place at a given point in time, but they also influence
the need of the dominant class to secure its privileged position. One means of
controlling the dissatisfied masses is to increase legislative efforts and the enforcement of that legislation, targeting behaviors and groups that are threatening to the
status quo. Strict Marxists would argue that the very reason for the existence of the
state is as a device for controlling the exploited class and preserving the privilege of
the capitalist class, and one way of accomplishing this is through the creation and
manipulation of the criminal justice system (Quinney, 1980). Although writers such
as Quinney and Chambliss often identify racial differences in exposure to the
criminal justice system, they commonly discuss these in terms of the generally lower
socioeconomic standing of minorities. Therefore, following their perspective, any
claim that criminal law is racially discriminatory is simply an elaboration of the
more general claim that those with economic privilege have control over others.
The Racial Threat Hypothesis
Despite the fact that the early conflict theorists in criminology put forth primarily
economic arguments, subsequent scholars have emphasized both economic and
racial conflict as an explanation of variation in the application of criminal justice.
Racial arguments have been based predominantly on the work of race and ethnicity
theorists Herbert Blumer, Hubert Blalock, and Robert Blauner, and these writings
form the foundation upon which a vast literature has been developed in criminology
on the influence of racial competition and perceived threat.
150
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
Blumer’s (1958) model of group position contends that members of the dominant
group harbor feelings of hostility and competition toward out‐group members
partly due to a belief that the out‐group is inferior and inherently different, but also
due to a sense of group‐based entitlement to resources and statuses, and a perception that the out‐group poses a threat to their privileged position. By focusing
attention on perceptions of group threat and the zero‐sum competition for resources,
this model is distinct from previous classical models of prejudice in the argument
that the sense of group position and the perceived threat that it entails “is not reducible to learned individual feelings of group identity, affect, and stereotyping as
emphasized by the classical prejudice model” (Bobo & Hutchings, 1996, p. 955).
Rather, it is rooted at least partly in the subjective threat that the dominant group
perceives from minority groups.
In contrast with Blumer’s social‐psychological approach, but drawing on several
of the same themes, Blalock (1967) presents a macro‐social analysis of competition
and power relationships between majority and minority groups. Drawing on the
work of Bierstedt (1950), he identifies two general sources of collective power:
economic resources and the capacity for mobilization. He presents numerous
­propositions for the conditions under which one group will attempt to use power to
exercise control over others. Although the propositions never coalesce into a formal
theory, Blalock eventually proposes a “power‐threat” hypothesis, arguing that racial
discrimination is a mechanism of social control used by the majority group when it
perceives a threat from a minority group. More specifically, he argues that as the size
of a minority group increases, it poses more of a threat to the privileged status of the
majority group, so the majority group is likely to engage in discriminatory behavior
to reduce the organizational resources of the threatening group.
Blauner (1972) makes a similar proposition in the development of his thesis on
“domestic colonialism,” using the framework of colonialism to illustrate the argument
that racial discrimination and segregation are fundamental to American society.
He argues that much as class conflict is endemic to capitalism, racial oppression
and conflict are central to the modern colonial order in which White Westerners
maintain dominance over non‐Western people of color. Specific to criminal justice,
Blauner (1972) claims that the police are increasingly important for maintaining
the colonial status of Black Americans, arguing that the police are “key agents in the
power equation” and “they do the dirty work for the larger system” (p. 99). Blauner’s
statements on the role of the ghetto and segregation for maintaining control have also
influenced conflict research. On the topic of urban ghettos and barrios, he writes:
They provide the walls between the racially oppressed and the mainstream, shield the
White majority from the anger and hostility of the confined, and permit the middle
class to go about its daily business with a minimal awareness of how basic is racial division to American life. The modern ghetto is not the product of “blind” economic market
forces as many suppose. Rather, it is produced and maintained … The police and the
national guard are key factors in this equation. They channel the individual and
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
151
collective violence that stems from racial colonialism, keeping it within the ghetto’s own
boundaries and containing sporadic tendencies for it to spill over into “White” areas.
(Blauner, 1972, pp. 32–33)
Although Blalock and Blauner were writing in an era of intense racial conflict in
urban areas when overt measures of control were exercised to restore order, a similar
argument might be applied to the role of police and the broader criminal justice
system today, but operating in a more subtle, institutionalized way. Together, the
arguments put forth by these theorists can be combined to form a loose‐knit set of
hypotheses with regard to racial threat and social control.
As noted, Blalock specifically identified two primary forms of perceived threat:
economic and political. He argued that a large or increasing minority group may
elicit perceptions of economic threat when majority group members become
increasingly concerned about competition for jobs, desirable housing, and other
economic resources. Likewise, political threat occurs when a large or growing
minority group is perceived as threatening to the political dominance of the majority
group. In this context, the minority group would gain greater political power and
influence, such that the majority could no longer unilaterally impose their will.
Blalock further specified that the functional form of the relationship between
minority group size and discriminatory behavior would vary depending on whether
the basis of the threat was predominantly economic or political. Under the condition
of economic threat, he suggested that efforts by the majority group to maintain their
privileged economic standing will need to increase, but at a decelerating rate. This is
because early efforts at suppressing economic threat will yield an accumulation of
economic disadvantage among the minority group, effectively reducing their ability
to compete for scarce economic resources. As the minority group continues to grow,
the economic gap between the racial groups will be large enough that additional
growth will be less likely to evoke perceptions of economic threat, and additional
efforts to suppress the threat will be less necessary. On the other hand, Blalock
argued that if the majority group is primarily concerned about loss of political power
as the minority group grows in size, discriminatory behavior in response to this perceived threat will increase at an accelerating rate. This is because population growth
will yield growing political power and influence for the minority group, which will
require greater discriminatory efforts by the majority group to maintain political
dominance and control.
Methodological Issues
Since its early theoretical development, a vast research literature has accumulated in
which the threat perspective is applied to a variety of outcomes that are relevant to
criminologists. Before reviewing the research findings, it will be helpful to briefly
outline some of the key methodological issues that have emerged.
152
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
Static Versus Dynamic Measures of Threat
As will be described in the review of empirical research in the next section, most of
the early studies from the threat perspective have measured racial threat in broad,
macro‐level terms. In accordance with Blalock’s emphasis on the relative size of the
minority group, most early researchers, as well as many contemporary studies,
­operationalize threat using a measure of percent non‐White or percent Black.
For example, some of the earliest studies find that areas with a larger percentage of
Blacks or non‐Whites tend to have larger police forces (Jackson & Carroll, 1981;
Liska, Lawrence, & Benson, 1981), higher arrest rates (Liska & Chamlin, 1984; Liska,
Chamlin, & Reed, 1985), and higher incarceration rates (Bridges, Crutchfield, &
Simpson, 1987; Tittle & Curran, 1988).
However, Blalock also emphasizes the importance of growth in the minority
population in addition to relative size, and Liska (1992) explicitly argues that
“changes in the absolute or relative size of certain classes and distributions of people
and of certain acts may be as or even more threatening than their absolute or relative
size” (p. 186). Indeed, an early study by Chamlin (1989) finds that increases in measures of racial threat are associated with a significant increase in police size, while
static measures are unrelated. More recently, King and Wheelock (2007) find that
while static levels of percent Black are not associated with punitiveness, increases in
percent Black over the prior decade are associated with more punitive attitudes
among Whites. Similar results are found for the relative effects of static and dynamic
measures of racial threat on the likelihood of being designated as a habitual offender
(Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011).
Direct Versus Indirect Measures of Threat
Another argument related to the measurement of threat is that the presence of a
relatively large or growing minority population is not necessarily indicative of threat,
but perhaps only the potential for perceptions of threat. As Tittle and Curran (1988)
argue, “Relative numbers in a population do not necessarily reflect … the amount of
threat that might be perceived by an elite group” (p. 33). Moreover, the use of compositional measures such as percent Black does not allow a researcher to separately
test for effects of economic versus political threat. Researchers have addressed this
issue in different ways. Some have used race‐specific ratios of macro‐social characteristics to tap more directly into economic or political threat. For example, Jacobs
and Wood (1999) use the Black‐to‐White ratio of unemployment as an indicator of
economic rivalry or competition, and find that rates of White killings of Blacks are
higher in cities where the unemployment rate of Blacks approaches that of Whites.
Likewise, Eitle, D’Alessio, and Stolzenberg (2002) use the ratio of Black‐to‐White
votes cast in the general election to capture political threat, arguing that “this
­measure is a better indicator of Black political threat than Black population size
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
153
because voting requires an expenditure of time and effort on the part of the
individual” (p. 564). Though they find no significant effect of this measure on Black
arrest levels, subsequent studies find that measures of Black voting and political
­representation are associated with crime control mechanisms such as the likelihood
of jail and prison sentences (Wang & Mears, 2010) and police force size (Stults &
Baumer, 2007).
Another approach to developing more valid, direct measures of perceived threat
is the use of individual‐level surveys with questions asking whether respondents feel
threatened either economically or politically by minority groups. These survey
responses are then examined as potential predictors of other individual‐level outcomes such as support for punitive criminal justice policies, or the survey responses
are aggregated into larger geographic or political units such as cities, counties, or
metropolitan areas, in order to measure the prevailing attitudes of the place. For
example, King and Wheelock (2007) use data from the Annual Mosaic Survey to
show that changes in the racial composition of counties are associated with individual
perceptions that Blacks threaten material resources, which is in turn associated with
higher levels of individual punitiveness. Likewise, Stults & Baumer (2007) use aggregated survey responses to generate county‐level measures of perceived economic
and political threat to examine whether counties with higher levels of perceived
threat tend to have larger police forces. A strong illustration of the importance of
directly measuring individual perceptions as opposed to solely relying on objective
measures is provided in a study of perceptions of undocumented immigrants, where
Wang (2012) finds that the perceived size of the immigrant population was a
significant predictor of threat perceptions while the actual size was not.
Appropriate Units of Analysis
Another methodological issue that has been largely unaddressed in a systematic way
in the racial threat literature is determination of the appropriate unit of analysis for
measuring the presence of a potentially threatening population, prevailing perceptions of threat, and criminal justice outcomes related to those perceptions. Studies
have employed a wide range of geographic and political units, including census
block groups (Klinger, Rosenfeld, Isom, & Deckard, 2016), census tracts (Eitle &
Taylor, 2008; Petrocelli, Piquero, & Smith, 2003), police beats and precincts (Kane,
2003; Novak & Chamlin, 2008), counties (King & Wheelock, 2007; Ulmer & Johnson,
2004), county groups (Baumer, Messner, & Rosenfeld, 2003; Stults & Baumer, 2007),
metropolitan areas (Jacobs, 1979), states (Jacobs & Britt, 1979; Jacobs & Carmichael,
2002), and nations (Kent & Jacobs, 2004; Ousey & Unnever, 2012). In many cases,
the decision seems to be driven largely by availability of data, though some studies
specifically argue for the suitability of the unit of analysis they employ.
For example, in one of the earliest empirical studies from the threat perspective,
Jacobs (1979) recommends careful consideration of the appropriate unit for s­ tudying
154
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
the effects of economic inequality and threat on police force size, arguing that states
are too large and heterogeneous to provide meaningful results, while cities and
counties are equally unsuitable because the interactions that influence the relationships of interest often occur across city or county boundaries. He does note, however, that his use of metropolitan areas instead of these other units made little
difference in the results. Kane (2003) makes a similar argument in his analysis of the
deployment of police resources to areas within a single city: New York. He argues
that prior research on the relationship between racial threat and police size “is
limited by its collective spatial unit of aggregation, the city, which ignores potential
within‐city variations in both racial composition and the allocation of police
resources” (p. 266). He explains that although cities may increase their police
capacity in response to a growing minority population, a city‐level analysis cannot
show that the additional police were deployed in the areas with changing racial composition. Likewise, rather than increasing police size and expenditures, cities may
simply redistribute their existing resources, which a city‐level analysis would also
fail to capture. It is unlikely that a single unit of analysis is appropriate or preferred
across all studies of racial threat. However, it is incumbent upon the researcher to
either explain why the chosen unit is desirable for the given study, or at least explain
why a less desirable unit is still suitable.
Empirical Research on Racial Threat and Social Control
Early theoretical development of the threat hypothesis focused almost entirely on the
perceived threat that a large or growing Black population elicited among Whites. This
is not surprising given that scholars such as Blalock and Blauner were writing in the
1960s, a period in which Blacks were easily the largest minority group, and large‐scale
immigration from Latin American and Asian countries had not yet begun. The threat
hypothesis would eventually be extended to incorporate perceived threats from other
groups such as Latinos or illegal immigrants, and these topics will be discussed later
in the chapter. However, the majority of criminological research until very recently
has focused nearly exclusively on Blacks as the potentially threatening minority group
and Whites as the dominant majority. The following subsections will review a
­representative collection of studies categorized according to the outcomes examined,
which themselves map closely onto several different components of the criminal
­justice system and stages of the criminal justice process.
Police Size and Expenditures
Many of the seminal studies of racial threat examine whether variation in racial
composition across cities and metropolitan areas is predictive of variation in the
size of police forces as well as the relative amount of tax dollars spent on policing.
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
155
For example, several early studies find that Black percentage is a significant predictor of police force size in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s (Carroll & Jackson, 1982;
Greenberg, Kessler, & Loftin, 1985; Jacobs, 1979; Jacobs & Helms, 1999; Liska et al.,
1981), with some finding that the effect of Black percentage increased over time.
Similar results are found for the effect of racial composition on police spending. In
one of the earliest studies, Jackson and Carroll (1981) find a nonlinear effect of Black
percentage on municipal police expenditures, indicating that initial increases in
Black population size are associated with increases in expenditures, but the effect
levels off at around 50 percent Black, after which additional increases in Black
percentage are associated with declines in expenditures. Likewise, in a longitudinal
study of Chicago from 1904 to 1958, Chamlin (1990) reports that Black percentage
positively affects police expenditures.
More recent evidence of the influence of racial composition on police size is found
in several studies (D’Alessio, Eitle, & Stolzenberg, 2005; Kent & Carmichael, 2014;
Stucky, 2005; Stults & Baumer, 2007). For example, panel models using data from
1980–2010 show that the effect of racial composition on police size persists over
the decades, and appears to be strengthening over time (Carmichael & Kent, 2014;
Kent & Jacobs, 2005).
Arrest Rates and Traffic Stops
While the research on police size tends to be quite consistent and supportive of the
racial threat perspective, findings from studies examining arrest rates as a mechanism of crime control have been much more diverse. Early studies find that non‐
White percentage is positively associated with total arrest rates for both property
and personal crimes, as expected by the racial threat hypothesis (Chamlin & Liska,
1992; Liska & Chamlin, 1984). However, contrary to expectations, when arrest rates
are disaggregated by race, the percentage of non‐Whites or Blacks in an area is either
not significantly related or has a significant negative effect on Black arrest rates
(Chamlin & Liska, 1992; Liska & Chamlin, 1984; Parker, Stults, & Rice, 2005) and on
the likelihood of arrest for Blacks (Kirk & Matsuda, 2011; Stolzenberg, D’Alessio, &
Eitle, 2004). While this inverse effect is often interpreted as support for an extension
of the racial threat perspective referred to as the benign neglect hypothesis
(­discussed later), it does cast some doubt on the validity of the racial threat hypothesis for explaining variation in Black arrest rates.
Related to this body of research, studies have also examined the influence of racial
threat on police traffic stops and searches, though with mixed results. In support of
the racial threat hypothesis, Roh and Robinson (2009) find positive effects of neighborhood Black percentage on rates of both stops and searches, while Petrocelli et al.
(2003) find an effect of minority percentage on search rates but not stop rates.
However, we must exercise some caution in interpreting these results as support for
racial threat, since research also shows that stop and search rates are higher for both
156
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
Whites and Blacks when they are driving in areas where the majority of residents are
of a different race than themselves (Novak & Chamlin, 2008; Withrow, 2004). Rather
than responding to community perceptions of racial threat, the police may simply
be more suspicious of a driver, Black or White, when they appear to be out of place
relative to the surrounding environment (Brown, 1988). While this form of profiling
may be problematic for other reasons, it is not necessarily indicative of racial threat.
Police Use of Force
In addition to studying threat effects on police size, expenditures, and arrests,
researchers have also examined whether threat, again typically measured as Black
percentage, is positively related to the use of force by police. Early research lends
support to the racial threat hypothesis by demonstrating a positive effect of Black or
non‐White percentage on police use of deadly force, and especially against Blacks
(Jacobs & O’Brien, 1998; Liska & Yu, 1992; Sorensen, Marquart, & Brock, 1993).
Likewise, studies of civil rights complaints of police brutality show a positive effect
of percent Black (Holmes, 2000; Smith & Holmes, 2003). However, recent studies of
deadly force tend to find nonsignificant effects of racial composition (Eitle, D’Alessio, &
Stolzenberg, 2014; Klinger et al., 2016; Parker et al., 2005). For example, using
what is arguably a more valid measure of deadly force and using block groups as the
unit of analysis, Klinger et al. (2016) find that an initial positive effect of percent
Black on police use of deadly force is entirely mediated by rates of firearm violence
in neighborhoods. These results suggest, contrary to the racial threat hypothesis,
that the use of deadly force is primarily driven by crime‐related neighborhood
­characteristics rather than racial composition.
Incarceration and Sentencing
Results are also somewhat mixed for studies of racial threat and incarceration.
In support of the threat hypothesis, several studies find that incarceration rates tend
to be higher in areas with larger percentages of Blacks (Greenberg & West, 2001;
Jacobs & Carmichael, 2001; Jacobs & Helms, 1996; Western, 2006). However, some
find this effect only for overall incarceration but not for Blacks specifically (Britt,
2000), while others find significant effects only for Blacks (Bridges et al., 1987).
Moreover, several studies using racial imprisonment ratios as their outcome reveal
findings contrary to expectations—that racial disparities in imprisonment are
smaller in areas with larger Black populations (Bridges & Crutchfield, 1988; Hawkins
& Hardy, 1989; Yates, 1997). Keen and Jacobs (2009) argue that these discrepant
findings are due to a failure to account for expected nonlinear effects of racial
­composition and the conditioning effect of being in the deep South. Using a more
sophisticated modeling strategy that incorporates these extensions, they find a
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
157
significant relationship ­
between percent Black and the Black‐to‐White prison
admissions ratio that is positive up to a threshold of about 23 percent Black, after
which the effect diminishes.
Studies of racial threat and sentencing decisions are also numerous and somewhat
inconsistent in their findings. In two of the earlier studies, Bridges and Crutchfield
(1988) find support for the racial threat perspective, with a positive effect of percent
Black on racial disparity in aggregate sentence lengths, while Crawford, Chiricos,
and Kleck (1998) offer partial support for racial threat with the finding of a significantly higher Black–White difference in likelihood of sentencing as a habitual
offender in areas with higher Black percentages, though only for property crime.
More recently, Ulmer and Johnson (2004) find that Blacks and Hispanics receive
longer sentences in areas with greater minority percentages, and that these contextual effects explain all of the between‐county variation in the effects of race and
ethnicity. Support is also found in the examination of other sentencing outcomes,
such as departures from sentencing guidelines (Johnson, 2005), withholding of
adjudication (Bontrager, Bales, & Chiricos, 2005), and the probability of receiving a
prison sentence versus a less punitive sanction (Wang & Mears, 2010). Contrary to
expectations, however, Feldmeyer and Ulmer (2011) find that although Blacks and
Hispanics receive harsher sentences than Whites, Black sentences are not significantly influenced by percentage Black in the court district, and Hispanic sentences
actually tend to be shorter in areas where Hispanics comprise a larger proportion of
the population.
With regard to sentencing, perhaps the most consistent support for the racial
threat hypothesis comes from research on capital punishment. In support of the
threat hypothesis, a series of articles by Jacobs and colleagues find that racial composition is associated with the likelihood that the death penalty is legal in a state
(Jacobs & Carmichael, 2002), whether a state has used the death penalty (Jacobs &
Carmichael, 2004), the number of death sentences in a state (Jacobs, Carmichael, &
Kent, 2005; but see Jacobs & Carmichael, 2004), and whether a death penalty
­sentence actually leads to an execution (Jacobs, Qian, Carmichael, & Kent, 2007).
Punitive Attitudes
All of the empirical studies discussed so far share in common the investigation of
some objective outcome of the criminal justice system. In addition to this large body
of research, several studies have examined whether the punitive attitudes of individuals are influenced by racial threat. For example, Baumer et al. (2003) find that
support for capital punishment is greater in communities with higher percentages of
African Americans, while Soss, Langbein, and Metelko (2003) find that increases in
county‐level Black percentage are associated with higher levels of support for the
death penalty specifically among Whites. Likewise, King and Wheelock (2007) find
that Whites express greater overall punitiveness if they live in areas with recent
158
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
increases in percent Black. Some of the most recent studies of threat and punitiveness specifically examine the threat perceived from Latinos and immigrants, a topic
which will be discussed in a later section.
Informal Social Control and Compliance with the Law
In addition to studying the effects of perceived threat on formal mechanisms of
­control and punitiveness, researchers have also examined several outcomes that are
not directly related to crime control, but that may be viewed more generally as mechanisms of social control. For example, early researchers identified effects of racial
composition on the volume of lynchings (Corzine, Creech, & Corzine, 1983; Reed,
1972; Tolnay & Beck, 1992) and hate crimes (Green, Strolovitch, & Wong, 1998),
arguing that these actions were a means of suppressing competition and maintaining
group dominance. More recent research blends the study of crime control and social
control by examining compliance with hate crime laws, with the supportive finding
of less compliance in areas with a larger Black population, particularly in the South
(King, 2007; King, Messner, & Baller, 2009). Additional topics of study outside of
formal crime control include threat effects on felon disenfranchisement (Behrens,
Uggen, & Manza, 2003), punitive school discipline (Payne & Welch, 2010; Welch &
Payne, 2010), and voting for liberal policies in Congress (Jacobs & Tope, 2007).
Extensions and Recent Developments
There have been several extensions and elaborations of the threat hypothesis, and
particularly with regard to its application in criminology. These extensions have
either been in response to findings that are contrary to the racial threat hypothesis,
or in response to dramatic changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the
United States. The latter development, specifically, has led to a resurgence of studies
from the threat perspective.
Benign Neglect and Segregation
As mentioned earlier, Liska and Chamlin (1984) developed a modification of the
racial threat hypothesis which they describe as “benign neglect.” They argue that
where there is a large minority population, there is an increased likelihood that
crimes will be intraracial as opposed to interracial. In such cases where the offender
and victim are both members of the minority group, the police may be less likely to
intervene because they are more likely to perceive the crime as a personal or family
problem rather than a matter that requires a formal police response. In such
­contexts, minority victims may also be less likely to report crimes to police due to
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
159
levels of distrust, and even when they do report a crime, they may have more
­difficulty pressuring the police to pursue an arrest. Thus, the expectation of the
benign neglect hypothesis is in direct contrast with the expectation of the racial
threat hypothesis, with the former arguing that perceptions of threat, and in turn
crime control efforts, will actually be lower in areas with a large minority percentage.
Support for the benign neglect hypothesis is primarily found in studies examining
arrest where researchers have found a negative effect of Black percentage on arrest
rates (Chamlin & Liska, 1992; Liska & Chamlin, 1984; Parker et al., 2005). In order
to interpret this support of the benign neglect hypothesis as an extension of, and
thus support for, the racial threat hypothesis, Liska and Chamlin (1984) use victimization data to show that the negative effect of Black percentage on Black arrest rates
is entirely mediated by levels of interracial crime. That is, higher levels of non‐White
concentration are associated with lower levels of interracial robbery, which in turn
is associated with lower levels of Black arrest. Parker et al. (2005) report similar findings for the effect of racial composition on arrest rates, but findings reported by
Ousey and Lee (2008), including an investigation of the mediating influence of
interracial crime, fail to support the benign neglect hypothesis.
Liska and Chamlin (1984) also argue that residential segregation can lead to
reduced levels of arrest partly for the same reasons discussed, explaining that “by
increasing the ratio of intraracial to interracial crime for nonwhite offenders, the
segregation of nonwhites decreases the pressure on police to control crime, thereby
decreasing the arrest rate, especially that of nonwhites” (p. 385). Additionally, the
racial threat hypothesis would expect that a large or growing minority population
would be less likely to elicit perceptions of threat among the majority in areas where
the two groups experience less interaction with one another. This draws from the
writings of Blauner (1972), and extends directly from Spitzer’s (1975) discussion of
“problem populations” where he argues that racial residential segregation serves as
a method of containment, effectively separating the threatening group from the
majority group. Researchers have found support for the expected negative effect of
segregation on arrest rates (Liska & Chamlin, 1984; Parker et al., 2005) and on the
Black–White ratio of arrest likelihood (Stolzenberg et al., 2004), though the effect
appears to have declined over time (Chamlin & Liska, 1992). However, others find
null or positive effects on the ratio of Black‐to‐White arrest rates (Ousey & Lee,
2008) and a positive effect on police size (Stults & Baumer, 2007).
Ethnic and Immigrant Threat
As noted, early theoretical and empirical work from the threat perspective focused
almost solely on Blacks as the potentially threatening population, presumably
because at that time other racial and ethnic groups constituted such a small portion
of the non‐White population. Indeed, around the time that Blalock (1967) and
Blauner (1969) were contributing to the threat perspective, Blacks constituted
160
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
about 11 percent of the population in the United States, while Latinos comprised
only 3.5 percent. Moreover, around this time most large US cities were experiencing
growth in their Black population, paired with declines in the White population,
which together led to an increase in Black concentration in urban areas (Frey, 1979;
Tauber & Tauber, 1975). This rapid growth in urban Black concentration, and the
associated racial tensions and antagonism occurring in America’s urban centers,
created a context within which a strictly racial version of the threat hypothesis
would emerge.
Though studies of Black threat continue to dominate this area of research, rapid
growth of non‐Black minority groups in the United States through processes of
immigration and natural growth has led to an increasing focus on the potential
impact of perceived ethnic and immigrant threat on formal and informal social control, and especially threat from Latinos. While Latinos comprised only 3.5 percent of
the US population in 1960, by 2003 they had become the largest minority group, and
by 2016 they made up more than 17 percent of the population, constituting a ninefold increase in the Hispanic population since 1960 (Stepler & Brown, 2016). Much
of that increase was due to growth in the number of immigrants entering the country
throughout this period. All through the 1950s, an average of about 250,000 immigrants sought residence in the United States each year, but that number rapidly
expanded to a peak of about 1.8 million in 1990, with a yearly average since then
fluctuating around 1 million (Migration Policy Institute, 2018). This rapid growth in
the Hispanic and immigrant population has led researchers to expand the scope of
the racial threat hypothesis to also include threat from Hispanics and immigrants.
However, the amount of attention directed specifically to Hispanic and immigrant
threat, as opposed to simply including these as compositional controls, varies across
these studies.
Some threat researchers have included variables such as percent Hispanic largely
as control variables while still focusing primarily on threat from Blacks (Parker
et al., 2005), and others have examined Hispanic threat on an equal footing with
racial threat, but without any attempt to evaluate one source of threat as qualitatively
different than the other (Kane, 2003; Wang & Mears, 2010). For example, in a study
of police force size in large cities from 1980 to 2000, Kent and Jacobs (2005) found
that increases in the percentage of Hispanics were associated with increases in police
per capita, similar to but smaller than the effect of percent Black. Since they also
controlled for city characteristics such as Black percentage, unemployment, and
crime, the effect of Hispanic composition presumably reflected a response to the
perceived threat of a growing Hispanic population. Similar effects of percent Latino
have been found for crime control outcomes such as police size (Stults & Baumer,
2007), police expenditures (Jackson, 1989), police brutality (Holmes, 2000), and
police deployment (Kane. 2003).
Furthering the examination of ethnic threat in relation to social control, some
research has examined both racial and Hispanic threat, but allowing for the
­possibility that the form and function of Hispanic threat may differ from those of
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
161
racial threat. For example, Chiricos, McEntire, and Gertz (2001) found that survey
respondents in Florida perceived a greater risk of victimization when they saw that
Hispanics or Blacks lived nearby, and the effect was especially large for the perception of nearby Hispanics. Subgroup analyses showed that these effects held up for
White respondents, but only when they lived in South Florida, where they are outnumbered by Blacks and Hispanics, and for Hispanic respondents only when they
lived outside of South Florida where they are outnumbered by Whites and Blacks.
A study of fear of crime in Miami finds similar results, where tract‐level percent
Hispanic, but not percent Black, was positively related to fear of crime among White
respondents (Eitle & Taylor, 2008). Moreover, Kent and Jacobs (2005) found support
for the hypothesis that the effect of percent Hispanic would be nonlinear because the
Hispanic population in most cities in the United States was still relatively small by
2000, so it would have to reach a higher threshold size before beginning to pose a
threat to majority Whites. As further evidence that Hispanic threat may operate differently than Black threat, other studies find that the effect of percent Hispanic on
various forms of social control is only significant in Southern or Southwestern states
(Holmes, 2000; Jackson, 1986, 1989; Smith & Holmes, 2003).
Finally, there has been an increase in recent years of research focusing solely on
Hispanic threat. For example, using a nationally representative survey of attitudes
toward Hispanics, Stewart, Martinez, Baumer, and Gertz (2015) find that county‐
level Latino group size and population growth are positively associated with Whites’
punitiveness toward Latinos, and these effects are at least partially mediated by
­perceptions of criminal and economic threat from Latinos. Further, their analysis of
moderation suggests that the effects of perceived criminal and economic threat are
greater in areas with more Latino growth. Similar findings are reported for effects of
these characteristics on support for judges’ use of ethnicity in punishment decisions
(Johnson, Stewart, Pickett, & Gertz, 2011) and for the effect of perceived threat from
undocumented immigrants on punitive attitudes (Chiricos, Stupi, Stults, & Gertz,
2014). Likewise, in a study of general punitiveness, Welch, Payne, Chiricos, and
Gertz (2011) find that state‐level measures of Latino concentration are positively
associated with punitive attitudes.
Racial and Ethnic Typification of Crime
Early theorizing and research from the threat perspective argued that the presence
of a large or growing minority group would lead to perceptions of economic or
political threat from the majority group. More recently, scholars have increasingly
examined the extent to which minority presence and growth yield perceptions of
criminal threat. The demonstrated link between racial composition and crime control may imply that those who live in areas with a larger concentration of minorities
tend to be more fearful of crime, and indeed, past research supports this suggestion
(Covington & Taylor, 1991; Liska, Sanchirico, & Reed, 1988; Stults & Baumer, 2007).
162
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
However, as noted by Chiricos et al. (2001), past research on this macro‐level link
does not directly identify the individual‐level processes that underlie it, arguing that
“the racial composition of a place can only be consequential for social control if
human actors situated in those social circumstances are aware of the racial composition, concerned about it and respond in ways that mobilize control initiatives” (p. 323).
In one of the earliest articles to examine this micro process, Chiricos, Hogan, and
Gertz (1997) argue that crime in American popular and political culture has become
increasingly associated with Black men, which they refer to as the racial typification
of crime. Using survey data asking about perceptions of neighborhood racial composition and fear of crime, they find that White residents who perceive themselves
to be in the racial minority of their neighborhood tend to have elevated levels of fear
of crime, and this effect is mediated by perceived risk of victimization. Subsequent
studies have found support by directly measuring the extent to which individuals
associate crime with Blacks, and the extent to which that racial typification of crime
is associated with punitive attitudes (Chiricos, Welch, & Gertz, 2004; King &
Wheelock, 2007; Unnever & Cullen, 2012). Similar results have been found for racial
typification of juvenile delinquency (Pickett & Chiricos, 2012), typification of
Hispanics as criminals (Stewart et al., 2015; Welch et al., 2011), criminal typification
of illegal immigrants (Stupi, Chiricos, & Gertz, 2016), and the conditioning effect of
racial typification on the effect of perceived changes in racial composition on
­perceptions of victimization risk (Pickett, Chiricos, Golden, & Gertz, 2012).
Future Directions
It should be clear from the preceding review of theory and research that the threat
perspective has received considerable attention from criminologists over the past
several decades. Though the research findings are not always supportive, and more
for some outcomes than others, a large number of studies have found that the
presence or growth of a minority group is significantly associated with a wide variety
of punitive, coercive, and crime control outcomes. Despite this large volume of
research, as well as many extensions to the perspective, there are several ways in
which the threat perspective can be moved forward.
While many studies have used cross‐national data to examine the influence of
perceived out‐group threat on levels of prejudice (see Zick, Pettigrew, & Wagner,
2008, for a review), very few have extended this analysis to examine criminal justice
outcomes. Similar to the early tests of racial threat in the United States, the few existing cross‐national studies have mostly examined whether macro‐level racial composition is associated with a macro‐level crime control measure—namely, imprisonment
rates—with supportive results (Jacobs, & Kleban, 2003; Ruddell, 2005; Ruddell &
Urbina, 2004). A more recent study, again mirroring the development of threat
research in the United States, extends this approach by examining individual‐level
attitudes as an outcome, and by incorporating perceived threat as an intervening
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
163
mechanism. Specifically, Ousey and Unnever (2012) use data for 27 European
nations to show that national‐level racial diversity is positively related to negative
out‐group attitudes, which in turn are associated with greater punitiveness among
individuals.
This is a promising avenue for future research for several reasons. First, since the
vast majority of criminological research has been conducted on units and individuals within the United States, it is unclear whether the propositions that are
­presented and supported are unique to American culture and its criminal justice
system, or whether these are broader social forces that transcend national and
cultural boundaries. As Zick et al. (2008) explain, though the United States endured
a long period of slavery that is unparalleled in European countries, Europe has a
much longer history of colonization that could enhance the effect of minority and
immigrant growth on perceived threat and criminal justice policies. Moreover, each
European country has “its own peculiar history of interethnic relations shaped by
past experiences with issues such as colonization, slavery, wars, the Holocaust,
immigration, and civil rights movements,” all of which provide a varied set of social
contexts across which the threat hypothesis can be tested. Lastly, in contrast with the
United States, many European countries do not consider themselves to be immigrant destinations, yet increases in immigration in recent decades have led to rapid
changes in the racial and ethnic composition of many European cities and nations
(Gorodzeisky & Semyonov, 2016; Zick et al., 2008). This combination of factors
presents a potentially fruitful context within which to test and expand the scope of
the threat perspective.
In addition to expanding the scope of the threat perspective to include the perceived threat of Hispanics and immigrants, researchers have begun to examine other
groups from the threat perspective. Though the Asian population in the United
States has not reached the same size as that of Hispanics, the rate of growth in the
Asian population has actually outpaced that of Hispanics since about 2000 (Pew
Research Center, 2015), and in 2013 China replaced Mexico as the top origin country
for immigrants to the United States (Jensen, 2015). Despite dramatic growth in the
Asian population, and in stark contrast to the expectations of the threat hypothesis
and the many supportive findings for Blacks and Hispanics, the limited research
directly examining outcomes for Asians relative to other groups finds that Asians
tend to be sentenced very similarly to Whites (Johnson & Betsinger, 2009). Moreover,
only one existing study has examined whether the relative size of the Asian
population is associated with increases in crime control, and it shows that percent
Asian actually has a negative effect on police size, though it appears to become
positive at the highest levels of percent Asian (Sever, 2001).
It may not be surprising that threat researchers have paid so little attention to
Asians given that, on average, they occupy a socioeconomic status more similar to
Whites than Blacks or Hispanics. However, much like the term “Hispanic,” the term
“Asian” encompasses a diverse array of ethnic groups, and some of those groups do
not possess the same socioeconomic characteristics that are typically attributed to
164
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
the “model minority.” For example, there is evidence that darker‐skinned Asian
groups (e.g., Asian Indian) or less prevalent groups (e.g., Thai and Indonesian) may
experience more discrimination, and particularly in cities and metropolitan areas
with high concentrations (Gee, Ro, Shariff‐Marco, & Chae, 2009). Thus, Asian
groups in the United States, as well as other groups such as Arabs and Muslims, may
present an opportunity to further expand the scope of the threat perspective, or may
serve as a counterpoint against which we may sharpen the conceptual and theoretical clarity of the perspective. Indeed, a small but growing set of studies suggest that
findings for other groups, such as Muslims or gays and lesbians, may further
strengthen or challenge the validity of the threat perspective (Disha, Cavendish, &
King, 2011; King, 2008).
In developing his theory of minority group relations, Blalock (1967) argued that a
large or growing minority population would yield higher levels of discrimination
primarily due to increases in perceptions of economic or political threat among the
majority group. This clearly suggests a process of mediation, wherein macro‐level
minority size or growth is positively associated with perceptions of threat, which in
turn are associated with higher levels of discrimination, and in the criminological
context, higher levels of crime control. Depending on the outcome of interest, this
may also suggest a multilevel process, where macro‐level racial context influences
individual‐level perceptions of threat, which in turn influence individual‐level outcomes such as punitive attitudes. As detailed above, a vast literature has established
a link between macro‐level measures of racial context and macro‐level measures of
crime control, as well as an effect of macro‐level racial context on levels of punitiveness among individuals. However, only a handful of studies have examined the
intervening mechanisms through which these processes occur, either at the macro‐
level or in a multilevel framework.
Two studies have examined intervening processes entirely at the macro level.
Stults and Baumer (2007) provide support for the expectations of mediation from
the threat perspective, finding that fear of crime and perceived threat among Whites
account for more than one‐third of the effect of percent Black on police size.
However, while Ousey and Lee (2008) also find support for mediation in their study
of Black–White disparities in arrest, the direction of the effects is often opposite to
the expectations of the threat hypothesis. Three additional studies have explicitly
examined intervening effects, but using multilevel modeling to examine punitiveness among individuals. All three find support for expectations, showing that the
effect of macro‐level racial‐ethnic context on individual‐level punitiveness is mediated by either perceptions of threat (King & Wheelock, 2007; Stewart et al., 2015) or
individual levels of out‐group intolerance (Ousey & Unnever, 2012). The supportive
findings in all but one of these studies greatly enhance the validity of the threat perspective by confirming the pathways through which the presence of a large minority
group is expected to affect individual attitudes and levels of crime control. However,
this is only a handful of studies examining just two different outcomes, which
­constitutes a small fraction of the body of research from the threat perspective.
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
165
In order to move the perspective forward, and further clarify and explicate its
­propositions, future researchers should continue to examine these intervening
mechanisms, both in a macro‐level and multilevel framework, as well as attempt to
identify and understand under what conditions, and for which outcomes, the results
are consistent with expectations.
Finally, a goal of future research from the threat perspective should be to continue
identifying the conditions under which objective characteristics of places are
expected to translate into perceived threat, and in turn, under what conditions perceived threat is expected to translate into outcomes related to social control. A small
number of studies have examined whether the effect of racial composition on Black
arrest rates is conditioned by characteristics of police agencies (Eitle & Monahan,
2009) or the political system of a city (Stucky, 2011), with partially supportive results.
Likewise, a handful of studies have attempted to identify the characteristics of
­individuals that may enhance the relationship between threat‐related variables and
punitiveness (Chiricos et al., 2004; Stupi et al., 2016). Though the results of these few
conditional analyses are mixed, this is an important avenue of research for extending the threat perspective. Attempts to identify the specific individual and contextual conditions under which perceived threat is expected to influence crime control
may help clarify the existing results, particularly for outcomes where the findings
are inconsistent, as well as enhance the theoretical validity and utility of the threat
perspective.
References
Baumer, E. P., Messner, S. F., & Rosenfeld, R. (2003). Explaining spatial variation in support
for capital punishment: A multilevel analysis. American Journal of Sociology, 108(4),
844–875.
Behrens, A., Uggen, C., & Manza, J. (2003). Ballot manipulation and the menace of Negro
domination: Racial threat and felon disenfranchisement in the United States, 1850–2002.
American Journal of Sociology, 109(3), 559–605.
Bierstedt, R. (1950). An analysis of social power. American Sociological Review, 15(6),
730–738.
Blalock, H. M. (1967). Toward a theory of minority‐group relations. New York, NY: Wiley.
Blauner, R. (1969). Internal colonialism and ghetto revolt. Social problems, 16(4), 393–408.
Blauner, R. (1972). Racial oppression in America. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Blumer, H. (1958). Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review,
1(1), 3–7.
Bobo, L., & Hutchings, V. L. (1996). Perceptions of racial group competition: Extending
Blumer’s theory of group position to a multiracial social context. American Sociological
Review, 61(6), 951–972.
Bontrager, S., Bales, W., & Chiricos, T. (2005). Race, ethnicity, threat and the labeling of
­convicted felons. Criminology, 43(3), 589–622.
Bridges, G. S., & Crutchfield, R. D. (1988). Law, social standing and racial disparities in
imprisonment. Social Forces, 66(3), 699–724.
166
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
Bridges, G. S., Crutchfield, R. D., & Simpson, E. E. (1987). Crime, social structure and
criminal punishment: White and nonwhite rates of imprisonment. Social Problems,
34(4), 345–361.
Britt, C. L. (2000). Social context and racial disparities in punishment decisions. Justice
Quarterly, 17(4), 707–732.
Brown, M. K. (1988). Working the street: Police discretion and the dilemmas of reform.
New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Caravelis, C., Chiricos, T., & Bales, W. (2011). Static and dynamic indicators of minority threat
in sentencing outcomes: A multi‐level analysis. Journal of Quantitative Criminology,
27(4), 405–425.
Carmichael, J. T., & Kent, S. L. (2014). The persistent significance of racial and economic
inequality on the size of municipal police forces in the United States, 1980–2010. Social
Problems, 61(2), 259–282.
Carroll, L., & Jackson, P. I. (1982). Minority composition, inequality and the growth of
municipal police forces, 1960–71. Sociological Focus, 15(4), 327–346.
Chambliss, W. J. (1975). Toward a political economy of crime. Theory and Society, 2(2),
149–170.
Chamlin, M. B. (1989). A macro social analysis of change in police force size, 1972–1982.
Sociological Quarterly, 30(4), 615–624.
Chamlin, M. B. (1990). Determinants of police expenditures in Chicago, 1904–1958.
Sociological Quarterly, 31(3), 485–494.
Chamlin, M. B., & Liska, A. E. (1992). Social structure and crime control revisited: The
declining significance of intergroup threat In A. E. Liska (Ed.), Social threat and social
control (pp. 103–112). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Chiricos, T., Hogan, M., & Gertz, M. (1997). Racial composition of neighborhood and fear of
crime. Criminology, 35(1), 107–132.
Chiricos, T., McEntire, R., & Gertz, M. (2001). Perceived racial and ethnic composition of
neighborhood and perceived risk of crime. Social Problems, 48(3), 322–340.
Chiricos, T., Stupi, E. K., Stults, B. J., & Gertz, M. (2014). Undocumented immigrant threat
and support for social controls. Social Problems, 61(4), 673–692.
Chiricos, T., Welch, K., & Gertz, M. (2004). Racial typification of crime and support for
punitive measures. Criminology, 42(2), 358–390.
Corzine, J., Creech, J., & Corzine, L. (1983). Black concentration and lynchings in the South:
Testing Blalock’s power‐threat hypothesis. Social Forces, 61(3), 774–796.
Covington, J., & Taylor, R. B. (1991). Fear of crime in urban residential neighborhoods.
Sociological Quarterly, 32(2), 231–249.
Crawford, C., Chiricos, T., & Kleck, G. (1998). Race, racial threat, and sentencing of habitual
offenders. Criminology, 36(3), 481–512.
Dahrendorf, R. (1959). Class and class conflict in industrial society. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
D’Alessio, S. J., Eitle, D., & Stolzenberg, L. (2005). The impact of serious crime, racial
threat, and economic inequality on private police size. Social Science Research,
34(2), 267–282.
Disha, I., Cavendish, J. C., & King, R. D. (2011). Historical events and spaces of hate:
Hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims in post‐9/11 America. Social Problems,
58(1), 21–46.
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
167
Eitle, D., D’Alessio, S. J., & Stolzenberg, L. (2002). Racial threat and social control: A test of the
political, economic, and threat of Black crime hypotheses. Social Forces, 81(2), 557–576.
Eitle, D., D’Alessio, S. J., & Stolzenberg, L. (2014). The effect of organizational and environmental factors on police misconduct. Police Quarterly, 17(2), 103–126.
Eitle, D., & Monahan, S. (2009). Revisiting the racial threat thesis: The role of police organizational characteristics in predicting race‐specific drug arrest rates. Justice Quarterly,
26(3), 528–561.
Eitle, D., & Taylor, J. (2008). Are Hispanics the new threat? Minority group threat and fear of
crime in Miami‐Dade County. Social Science Research, 37(4), 1102–1115.
Feldmeyer, B., & Ulmer, J. T. (2011). Racial/ethnic threat and federal sentencing. Journal of
Research in Crime and Delinquency, 48(2), 238–270.
Frey, W. H. (1979). Central city White flight: Racial and nonracial causes. American
Sociological Review, 44(3), 425–448.
Gee, G. C., Ro, A., Shariff‐Marco, S., & Chae, D. (2009). Racial discrimination and health
among Asian Americans: Evidence, assessment, and directions for future research.
Epidemiologic reviews, 31(1), 130–151.
Gorodzeisky, A., & Semyonov, M. (2016). Not only competitive threat but also racial prejudice: Sources of anti‐immigrant attitudes in European societies. International Journal of
Public Opinion Research, 28(3), 331–354.
Green, D. P., Strolovitch, D. Z., & Wong, J. S. (1998). Defended neighborhoods, integration,
and racially motivated crime. American Journal of Sociology, 104(2), 372–403.
Greenberg, D. F., Kessler, R. C., & Loftin, C. (1985). Social inequality and crime control.
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 76(3), 684–704.
Greenberg, D. F., & West, V. (2001). State prison populations and their growth, 1971–1991.
Criminology, 39(3), 615–654.
Hawkins, D. F., & Hardy, K. A. (1989). Black–White imprisonment rates: A state‐by‐state
analysis. Social Justice, 16(4), 75–94.
Holmes, M. D. (2000). Minority threat and police brutality: Determinants of civil rights
criminal complaints in US municipalities. Criminology, 38(2), 343–368.
Jackson, P. I. (1986). k visibility, city size, and social control. Sociological Quarterly, 27(2),
185–203.
Jackson, P. I. (1989). Minority group threat, crime, and policing: Social context and social
­control. New York, NY: Praeger.
Jackson, P. I., & Carroll, L. (1981). Race and the war on crime: The sociopolitical determinants of municipal police expenditures in 90 non‐Southern US cities. American
Sociological Review, 46(3), 290–305.
Jacobs, D. (1979). Inequality and police strength: Conflict theory and coercive control in
metropolitan areas. American Sociological Review, 44(6), 913–925.
Jacobs, D., & Britt, D. (1979). Inequality and police use of deadly force: An empirical
assessment of a conflict hypothesis. Social Problems, 26(4), 403–412.
Jacobs, D., & Carmichael, J. T. (2001). The politics of punishment across time and space:
A pooled time‐series analysis of imprisonment rates. Social Forces, 80(1), 61–89.
Jacobs, D., & Carmichael, J. T. (2002). The political sociology of the death penalty: A pooled
time‐series analysis. American Sociological Review, 67(1), 109–131.
Jacobs, D., & Carmichael, J. T. (2004). Ideology, social threat, and the death sentence: Capital
sentences across time and space. Social Forces, 83(1), 249–278.
168
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
Jacobs, D., Carmichael, J. T., & Kent, S.L. (2005). Vigilantism, current racial threat, and death
sentences. American Sociological Review, 70(4), 656–677.
Jacobs, D., & Helms, R. E. (1996). Toward a political model of incarceration: A time‐series
examination of multiple explanations for prison admission rates. American Journal of
Sociology, 102(2), 323–357.
Jacobs, D., & Helms, R. (1999). Collective outbursts, politics, and punitive resources: Toward
a political sociology of spending on social control. Social Forces, 77(4), 1497–1523.
Jacobs, D., & Kleban, R. (2003). Political institutions, minorities, and punishment: A pooled
cross‐national analysis of imprisonment rates. Social Forces, 82(2), 725–755.
Jacobs, D., & O’Brien, R. M. (1998). The determinants of deadly force: A structural analysis
of police violence. American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 837–862.
Jacobs, D., Qian, Z., Carmichael, J. T., & Kent, S. L. (2007). Who survives on Death Row? An
individual and contextual analysis. American Sociological Review, 72(4), 610–632.
Jacobs, D., & Tope, D. (2007). The politics of resentment in the post–civil rights era: Minority
threat, homicide, and ideological voting in Congress. American Journal of Sociology,
112(5), 1458–1494.
Jacobs, D., & Wood, K. (1999). Interracial conflict and interracial homicide: Do political and
economic rivalries explain white killings of Blacks or Black killings of Whites? American
Journal of Sociology, 105(1), 157–190.
Jensen, E. (2015). China replaces Mexico as the top sending country for immigrants to the
United States. Census Blogs. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/
research‐matters/2015/05/china‐replaces‐mexico‐as‐the‐top‐sending‐country‐for‐
immigrants‐to‐the‐united‐states.html
Johnson, B. D. (2005). Contextual disparities in guidelines departures: Courtroom social
contexts, guidelines compliance, and extralegal disparities in criminal sentencing.
Criminology, 43(3), 761–796.
Johnson, B. D., & Betsinger, S. (2009). Punishing the “model minority”: Asian‐American
criminal sentencing outcomes in federal district courts. Criminology, 47(4),
1045–1090.
Johnson, B. D., Stewart, E. A., Pickett, J., & Gertz, M. (2011). Ethnic threat and social control:
Examining public support for judicial use of ethnicity in punishment. Criminology,
49(2), 401–441.
Kane, R. J. (2003). Social control in the metropolis: A community‐level examination of the
minority group‐threat hypothesis. Justice Quarterly, 20(2), 265–295.
Keen, B., & Jacobs, D. (2009). Racial threat, partisan politics, and racial disparities in prison
admissions: A panel analysis. Criminology, 47(1), 209–238.
Kent, S. L., & Carmichael, J. T. (2014). Racial residential segregation and social control:
A panel study of the variation in police strength across US cities, 1980–2010. American
Journal of Criminal Justice, 39(2), 228–249.
Kent, S. L., & Jacobs, D. (2005). Minority threat and police strength from 1980 to 2000:
A fixed‐effects analysis of nonlinear and interactive effects in large US cities.
Criminology, 43(3), 731–760.
King, R. D. (2007). The context of minority group threat: Race, institutions, and complying
with hate crime law. Law & Society Review, 41(1), 189–224.
King, R. D. (2008). Conservatism, institutionalism, and the social control of intergroup
conflict. American Journal of Sociology, 113(5), 1351–1393.
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
169
King R. D., Messner, S. F., & Baller, R. D. (2009). Contemporary hate crimes, law enforcement, and the legacy of racial violence. American Sociological Review, 74(2), 291–315.
King, R. D., & Wheelock, D. (2007). Group threat and social control: Race, perceptions of
minorities and the desire to punish. Social Forces, 85(3), 1255–1280.
Kirk, D. S., & Matsuda, M. (2011). Legal cynicism, collective efficacy, and the ecology of
arrest. Criminology, 49(2), 443–472.
Klinger, D., Rosenfeld, R., Isom, D., & Deckard, M. (2016). Race, crime, and the micro‐
ecology of deadly force. Criminology & Public Policy, 15(1), 193–222.
Liska, A. E. (1992). Conclusion. In A. E. Liska (Ed.), Social threat and social control.
Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Liska, A. E., & Chamlin, M. B. (1984). Social structure and crime control among macrosocial
units. American Journal of Sociology, 90(2), 383–395.
Liska, A. E., Chamlin, M. B., & Reed, M. D. (1985). Testing the economic production and
conflict models of crime control. Social Forces, 64(1), 119–138.
Liska, A. E., Lawrence, J. J., & Benson, M. (1981). Perspectives on the legal order: The capacity
for social control. American Journal of Sociology, 87(2), 413–426.
Liska, A. E., Sanchirico, A., & Reed, M. D. (1988). Fear of crime and constrained behavior
specifying and estimating a reciprocal effects model. Social Forces, 66(3), 827–837.
Liska, A. E., & Yu, J. (1992). Specifying and testing the threat hypothesis: Police use of
deadly force. In A. E. Liska (Ed.), Social threat and social control (pp. 53–68). Albany, NY:
SUNY Press.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1948). Communist Manifesto. Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press.
Migration Policy Institute. (2018). Legal immigration to the United States, 1820–present.
Retrieved from https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data‐hub/charts/Annual‐
Number‐of‐US‐Legal‐Permanent‐Residents
Novak, K. J., & Chamlin, M. B. (2008). Racial threat, suspicion, and police behavior: The
impact of race and place in traffic enforcement. Crime & Delinquency, 58(2), 275–300.
Ousey, G. C., & Lee, M. R. (2008). Racial disparity in formal social control: An investigation
of alternative explanations of arrest rate inequality. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 45(3), 322–355.
Ousey, G. C., & Unnever, J. D. (2012). Racial–ethnic threat, out‐group intolerance, and
support for punishing criminals: A cross‐national study. Criminology, 50(3), 565–603.
Parker, K. F., Stults, B. J., & Rice, S. K. (2005). Racial threat, concentrated disadvantage and
social control: Considering the macro‐level sources of variation in arrests. Criminology,
43(4), 1111–1134.
Payne, A. A., & Welch, K. (2010). Modeling the effects of racial threat on punitive and restorative school discipline practices. Criminology, 48(4), 1019–1062.
Petrocelli, M., Piquero, A. R., & Smith, M. R. (2003). Conflict theory and racial profiling: An
empirical analysis of police traffic stop data. Journal of Criminal Justice, 31(1), 1–11.
Pew Research Center. (2015). Modern immigration wave brings 59 million to US, driving
population growth and change through 2065: Views of immigration’s impact on US society
mixed. Washington, DC: Author.
Pickett, J. T., & Chiricos, T. (2012). Controlling other people’s children: Racialized views of
delinquency and Whites’ punitive attitudes toward juvenile offenders. Criminology,
50(3), 673–710.
170
Brian J. Stults and Nic Swagar
Pickett, J. T., Chiricos, T., Golden, K. M., & Gertz, M. (2012). Reconsidering the relationship
between perceived neighborhood racial composition and Whites’ perceptions of victimization risk: Do racial stereotypes matter? Criminology, 50(1), 145–186.
Quinney, R. (1980). Class, state, and crime. New York, NY: Longman.
Reed, J. S. (1972). Percent Black and lynching: A test of Blalock’s theory. Social Forces, 50(3),
356–360.
Roh, S., & Robinson, M. (2009). A geographic approach to racial profiling: The microanalysis
and macroanalysis of racial disparity in traffic stops. Police Quarterly, 12(2), 137–169.
Ruddell, R. (2005). Social disruption, state priorities, and minority threat: A cross‐national
study of imprisonment. Punishment & Society, 7(1), 7–28.
Ruddell, R., & Urbina, M. G. (2004). Minority threat and punishment: A cross‐national
­analysis. Justice Quarterly, 21(4), 903–931.
Sever, B. (2001). The relationship between minority populations and police force strength:
Expanding our knowledge. Police Quarterly, 4(1), 28–68.
Smith, B. W., & Holmes, M. D. (2003). Community accountability, minority threat, and
police brutality: An examination of civil rights criminal complaints. Criminology, 41(4),
1035–1064.
Sorensen, J. R., Marquart, J. W., & Brock, D. E. (1993). Factors related to killings of felons by
police officers: A test of the community violence and conflict hypotheses. Justice
Quarterly, 10(3), 417–440.
Soss, J., Langbein, L., & Metelko, A. R. (2003). Why do White Americans support the death
penalty? Journal of Politics, 65(2), 397–421.
Spitzer, S. (1975). Toward a Marxian theory of deviance. Social problems, 22(5), 638–651.
Stepler, R., & Brown, A. (2016). Statistical portrait of Hispanics in the United States.
Washington, DC: Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project.
Stewart, E. A., Martinez, R., Jr., Baumer, E. P., & Gertz, M. (2015). The social context of
Latino threat and punitive Latino sentiment. Social Problems, 62(1), 68–92.
Stolzenberg, L., D’Alessio, S. J., & Eitle, D. (2004). A multilevel test of racial threat theory.
Criminology, 42(3), 673–698.
Stucky, T. D. (2005). Local politics and police strength. Justice Quarterly, 22(2), 139–169.
Stucky, T. D. (2011). The conditional effects of race and politics on social control: Black
violent crime arrests in large cities, 1970 to 1990. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 49(1), 3–30.
Stults, B. J., & Baumer, E. P. (2007). Racial context and police force size: Evaluating the
empirical validity of the minority threat perspective. American Journal of Sociology,
113(2), 507–546.
Stupi, E. K., Chiricos, T., & Gertz, M. (2016). Perceived criminal threat from undocumented
immigrants: Antecedents and consequences for policy preferences. Justice Quarterly,
33(2), 239–266.
Tauber, K. E., & Tauber, A. F. (1975). Negroes in cities. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Tittle, C. R., & Curran, D. A. (1988). Contingencies for dispositional disparities in juvenile
justice. Social Forces, 67(1), 23–58.
Tolnay, S. E., & Beck, E. M. (1992). Toward a threat model of Southern Black lynchings. In
A. E. Liska, (Ed.), Social threat and social control (pp. 33–52). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Turk, A. T. (1966). Conflict and criminality. American Sociological Review, 31(3), 338–352.
Ulmer, J. T., & Johnson, B. (2004). Sentencing in context: A multilevel analysis. Criminology,
42(1), 137–178.
Racial and Ethnic Threat: Theory, Research, and New Directions
171
Unnever, J. D., & Cullen, F. T. (2012). White perceptions of whether African Americans and
Hispanics are prone to violence and support for the death penalty. Journal of Research in
Crime and Delinquency, 49(4), 519–544.
Wang, X. (2012). Undocumented immigrants as perceived criminal threat: A test of the
minority threat perspective. Criminology, 50(3), 743–776.
Wang, X., & Mears, D. P. (2010). Examining the direct and interactive effects of changes in
racial and ethnic threat on sentencing decisions. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 47(4), 522–557.
Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. New York, NY:
Bedminster Press.
Welch, K., & Payne, A. A. (2010). Racial threat and punitive school discipline. Social Problems,
57(1), 25–48.
Welch, K., Payne, A. A., Chiricos, T., & Gertz, M. (2011). The typification of Hispanics as
criminals and support for punitive crime control policies. Social Science Research, 40(3),
822–840.
Western, B. (2006). Punishment and inequality in America. New York, NY: Russell Sage
Foundation.
Withrow, B. L. (2004). Race‐based policing: A descriptive analysis of the Wichita stop study.
Police Practice and Research, 5(3), 223–240.
Yates, J. (1997). Racial incarceration disparity among states. Social Science Quarterly, 78(4),
1001–1010.
Zick, A., Pettigrew, T. F., & Wagner, U. (2008). Ethnic prejudice and discrimination in Europe.
Journal of Social Issues, 64(2), 233–251.
8
The Rise of Mass Deportation
in the United States
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack,
and Ricardo Martínez‐Schuldt
By the end of fiscal year 2016, the Obama administration had formally removed
(i.e., deported) more than 3.4 million noncitizens from the United States—exceeding
the 2.2 million deported during G. W. Bush’s term, as well as the nearly 870,000
­during the Clinton administration (US Department of Homeland Security, 2016a,
2016b). In fact, the Obama administration deported more noncitizens than any
other presidential administration and was “on pace to deport more people than the
sum of all 19 presidents who governed the United States from 1892–2000” (Rogers,
2016). As a result, many immigrant rights groups criticized the Obama administration
and often referred to the President as the “Deporter‐in‐Chief ” (Dickson, 2014, para. 1).
Other scholars argue that these criticisms are misguided for several reasons. First,
when considered within the broader historical context of total repatriations
(i.e., “removals” and “returns”), fewer noncitizens have been repatriated from the
country in recent years relative to the 1990s and 2000s (Rosenblum & Meissner,
2014; US Department of Homeland Security, 2016b). Second, many of the policies
that led to mass deportation preceded the Obama administration (Golash‐Boza,
2015; Rosenblum & Meissner, 2014), including the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform
and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) and the 1996 Anti‐Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), among others. Finally, the Obama
administration exercised prosecutorial discretion, as outlined in the 2011 Morton
memos and the 2014 Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), which limited the
deportation of noncitizens “outside established priority categories” (Rosenblum &
Meissner, 2014).
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
174
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
President Obama also implemented two high profile immigration‐related executive orders: the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and 2014
Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA).
DACA provides deportation relief to unauthorized immigrants who were under the
age of 31 when the executive order was signed, were brought to the United States
before the age of 16, have continuously remained in the country since 2007, earned
a high school degree or equivalent, and do not have a criminal record (US Citizenship
and Immigration Services, 2016). Alternatively, DAPA would have provided deportation relief for eligible parents of US citizens and lawful permanent residents, but
this executive order was ultimately enjoined in 2015 by the Federal District Court
for the Southern District of Texas (Shear & Preston, 2015).
We recognize that the Obama administration’s role in contributing to mass
­deportation is much more complex and nuanced than suggested by the moniker of
“Deporter‐in‐Chief.” But the fact that more migrants have been formally removed
(i.e., deported) in the past decade than ever before is not trivial or simply a matter of
semantics. Rather, deportation carries a host of notable legal and social risks for
migrants and their families, many of which result in serious unintended social consequences, including subsequent criminalization, family separation and dissolution,
and psychological problems. Furthermore, deportations are likely to increase during
Trump’s presidency. On January 25, 2017, after a successful campaign fueled by anti‐
immigrant rhetoric and xenophobic discourse, President Trump signed two executive orders that will increase immigration enforcement and place a notable emphasis
on expanding the deportation apparatus. For instance, the Enhancing Public Safety
in the Interior of the United States executive order terminated the 2014 PEP, restored
the Secure Communities initiative, and called for an additional 10,000 Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agents (US Department of Homeland Security, 2017a).
In a similar vein, the executive order entitled Border Security and Immigration
Enforcement Improvements reinstituted and expanded the 287(g) program, which
allows local law enforcement agents in certain states to enforce immigration law as
originally outlined in the section of the 1996 IIRIRA for which the program was
named (US Department of Homeland Security, 2017b). The “Border Security …”
executive order also expanded the use of expedited removals in the border region,
increased Border Patrol staffing by 5,000 agents, mandated the detention of immigrants apprehended for unlawful entry, and prioritized criminal prosecutions for
immigration offenses committed at the border (US Department of Homeland
Security, 2017b). Although DACA was still in effect at the time of our writing, it is
possible that the Trump administration will not authorize DACA renewals, which
must take place every two years. In other words, those who have found temporary
relief from deportation under DACA may no longer be protected. Given these
changes, Trump is positioned to become the new “Deporter‐in‐Chief.”
Despite deportation being a major component of US immigration enforcement,
the social implications of deportation have been relatively underexamined by
quantitative sociologists. We begin this chapter by describing the historical trends in
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
175
total repatriations from the United States. We detail how fluctuations in these trends
are the result of important policy changes in the 1990s and 2000s that led to the
devolution of immigration enforcement from the federal to the local level. In
addition, we note that these changes created the sociolegal conditions that gave rise
to the current mass deportation regime and increased the intersections of
­immigration and criminal law, leading to the “criminalization of immigration law”
(Stumpf, 2006; see also Coleman, 2007; De Genova & Peutz, 2010; Golash‐Boza,
2015). We then provide a brief overview of the deportation literature and argue that
there is a relative dearth of empirical studies examining the material consequences
and realities of the diverse processes that lead to deportation. We also outline the
ways in which border enforcement has moved away from a strategy rooted in general deterrence (i.e., the “prevention‐through‐deterrence” strategy) to one based on
specific deterrence and actuarial justice (i.e., the Consequence Delivery System),
within which immigrant detention and deportation have played integral roles.
Finally, drawing on a unique data source of recently repatriated Mexican migrants,
the Migrant Border Crossing Study (MBCS), we illustrate that the individuals who
bear the brunt of criminalization and deportation possess strong social ties to
the United States. We conclude by cautioning against mass deportation and the
continued criminalization of unauthorized migration, as the long‐term social consequences of these approaches to immigration control are not yet fully understood
by social scientists.
Linking Immigration Policy to Repatriation
There are several ways that noncitizens can be sent back to their countries of origin.
But generally speaking, these modes of removal tend to consist primarily of what
the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) describes as a “return” or a
“formal removal” (i.e., deportation). According to DHS, a return (i.e., “voluntary
return” or “voluntary departure”) is “the confirmed movement of an inadmissible
or deportable alien out of the United States not based on an order of removal”
(US Department of Homeland Security, 2016b, Table 39, n2), whereas a removal
(i.e., deportation) is defined as “the compulsory and confirmed movement of an
inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States based on an order of
removal” (US Department of Homeland Security, 2016b, Table 39, n1). One important distinction between “returns” and “formal removals” is that being removed
carries serious “consequences for deportees, including lengthy bars on legal
­readmission and potential criminal charges and prison time for those who return
illegally” (Rosenblum & McCabe, 2014, p. 4). In other words, the 3.4 million noncitizens who were “formally removed” from the United States during the Obama
administration are at greater risk of subsequent criminalization if they attempt to
return to the country without authorization when compared to the nearly 3 million
who were “returned” during the same period.
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
176
1,800,000
1,600,000
1,400,000
Returns
Apprehensions
Removals
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
600,000
400,000
200,000
19
6
19 0
6
19 2
6
19 4
6
19 6
68
19
7
19 0
7
19 2
7
19 4
7
19 6
7
19 8
8
19 0
8
19 2
8
19 4
8
19 6
8
19 8
9
19 0
9
19 2
9
19 4
9
19 6
9
20 8
0
20 0
02
20
0
20 4
06
20
0
20 8
1
20 0
1
20 2
1
20 4
16
0
Figure 8.1 Returns, Formal Removals, and Southwestern Apprehensions by US Authorities,
FY 1960–2016. Source: US Department of Homeland Security (2016a, 2016b).
When placed in the broader historical context of repatriations from the United
States, there are actually fewer total repatriations today than in prior decades
(Rosenblum & Meissner, 2014; US Department of Homeland Security, 2016b). This
is reflected in Figure 8.1, which illustrates “returns,” “removals,” and southwestern
Border Patrol apprehensions between fiscal year 1960 and 2016.
As depicted in Figure 8.1, “returns” exceeded “removals” between 1960 and 2011.
Historically, “returns” have also made up a much larger proportion of total repatriations relative to “removals.” But this began to change in the late 1990s and early
2000s. The 1996 IIRIRA, which restructured US immigration laws, expanded the list
of deportable offenses, and established protocols for federal and local government
cooperation in immigration law enforcement, and the 1996 AEDPA, which securitized international migration policy and increased categories of excludible aliens,
served as important catalysts for this shift in immigration enforcement (Rosenblum &
McCabe, 2014). The “1996 laws,” as they are often described by immigration
scholars, also “eliminated judicial review of some deportation orders, required
mandatory detention for some noncitizens,” expanded the definition of an aggravated
felony, and mandated deportation if an immigrant was convicted of such an
offense (Golash‐Boza, 2015, p. 105). The effects of the 1996 laws are illustrated in
the slow but steady increase in “removals” and the precipitous drop in “returns”
in the late 1990s and 2000s. We must note, however, there was a slight decline in
removals between 2014 and 2016 after a peak in 2013. This decrease was due to
the use of prosecutorial discretion as outlined in the 2014 PEP (Rosenblum, 2015).
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
177
An estimated 87 percent of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants residing in the
United States fell outside of the 2014 enforcement priorities (Rosenblum, 2015),
shielding many people from deportation. But this encouraging turn in deportation
policy was short‐lived. The Trump administration terminated the 2014 PEP during
its first month in office, which means that removals will likely increase again in the
coming years.
In 2011, and for the first time on record, the number of “removals” exceeded
“returns”—a trend that has continued in subsequent years. Historically most unauthorized Mexican immigrants apprehended while crossing the US–Mexico border
agreed to a “voluntary return” and were repatriated to Mexico; however, apprehensions have mirrored removals since 2011, suggesting that a greater proportion of
border‐crossers are being deported today than in the past. This notable shift in the
relationships between “returns,” “removals,” and border apprehensions across time
can be explained by several key structural and political transformations. First,
unauthorized migration from Mexico has slowed considerably since the late
2000s. Scholars largely attribute this to the lasting effects of the 2008 Great
Recession, increased border enforcement efforts, an increase in permanent
settlement rather than seasonal migration among unauthorized migrants, and
demographic transformations in Mexico, including decreased fertility rates (Passel,
Cohn, Krogstad, & Gonzalez‐Barrera, 2014).
Second, interior immigration enforcement efforts, which were facilitated by the
1996 laws and the “war on terror,” increased formal removals from the interior United
States. The implementation of the 1996 laws was predicated upon the identification
and removal of deportable “criminal aliens” from the country’s interior. However, 58
percent of formal removals between 2008 and 2015 (data for 2016 were not yet available) were of noncriminals (US Department of Homeland Security, 2016b). Because
of this we call into question the state’s use of the term “criminal alien” and echo a
previous study asserting that the term has amounted to a sleight of hand used to redefine what it means to be an undocumented immigrant residing in the United States
(Ewing, Martínez, & Rumbaut, 2015). The trope of the “criminal alien” often conjures
up images of serious or violent offenders. But most “criminal aliens” removed from
the United States do not fit this profile. For instance, over 30 percent of all criminal
removals carried out in 2013 consisted of people “convicted exclusively of immigration offenses” (Rosenblum & McCabe, 2014, p. 14), while only 11 percent were of
people convicted of index crimes (i.e., aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder,
­robbery, arson, burglary, larceny‐theft, or motor vehicle theft).
Finally, zero‐tolerance policies adopted near the border have effectively increased
formal removals and decreased voluntary returns granted to Mexican border‐crossers
over the past decade (Rosenblum & Meissner, 2014). This last point is illustrated in
Figure 8.1 by the inverse relationship between returns and southwestern apprehensions beginning in fiscal year 2011. In other words, unauthorized Mexican immigrants
apprehended within 100 kilometers of the US–Mexico border in recent years are more
likely to be formally removed than voluntarily returned relative to previous years.
178
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
In sum, we contend that increased interior immigration enforcement and the
recent zero‐tolerance policy changes near the border have set a historical precedent
for increased deportations relative to voluntary returns. We contend that this is
problematic because such policies continue to contribute to the criminalization of
immigrants and family dissolution, both of which will only intensify during the
Trump administration.
In the following section we further describe impact that the 1996 laws and the
“war on terror” have had on the criminalization and deportation of hundreds of
thousands of noncitizens from the United States. We follow by providing an
­overview of the Consequence Delivery System, which has contributed to a zero‐
tolerance approach to immigration enforcement near the border, including
­deportation. We then provide a brief review of the extant deportation literature
and suggest there has been a relative absence of surveys of deportees focusing on
the material consequences of deportation. We attempt to address this gap by
­highlighting the characteristics and experiences of formally removed Mexican
migrants—a group that made up roughly 71 percent of all removals between 2008
and 2015—by drawing on data collected through the second wave of the Migrant
Border Crossing Study.
Deportation and Criminalization of Immigration
Deportation as a subfield of immigration studies has developed quickly over the past
decade. Important works by De Genova (2002), De Genova and Puetz (2010), and
others (Heyman, Núñez, & Talavera, 2009; Núñez & Heyman, 2007) have developed
the concept of deportability, which is generally treated as one’s potential for removal.
This has produced important insights about how removal works as a form of social
control, limiting people’s mobility, as well as access to spaces of social reproduction
and economic activity. However, only a limited number of studies have focused on
the actual mechanisms of removal and the disjunction between official state policies
and how these policies are implemented on the ground. In order to accomplish this,
additional research with migrants post‐deportation is necessary. Scholars have
begun to explore the social consequences of deportation; however, the majority of
this work focuses on issues of stigma and the difficulty of reintegration into countries of origin (Boehm, 2011, 2016; Brotherton & Barrios, 2009, 2011; Golash‐Boza,
2015, 2014; Hiemstra, 2012). These authors have found that the stigma produced by
removal, as well as the separation from family, leads to a number of problems for
reintegration. Due to this stigma, deportees may struggle to find work and feel
rejected by a country many no longer know. However, when discussing the mechanisms for removal and their unique position within the social and legal framework,
the border has largely been neglected despite representing a particularly important
component of immigration enforcement. There are opportunities within the current
deportation literature to highlight the importance of the border as a multiplier force
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
179
of criminalization processes, describe the specific policies and practices of removal,
and call attention to the consequences that these processes have for deportees
and their families.
There has also been an increased focus on the impacts that the 1996 laws and the
“war on terror” have had on the lives of noncitizens and their US citizen family
members. These policies led to an increased intersection between immigration law
and criminal law, added to the list of deportable offenses, expanded the definition of
aggravated felonies, limited judicial review in immigration cases, and allowed for
the use of secret evidence in certain cases (Coleman, 2007; Golash‐Boza, 2015;
Stumpf, 2006; Welch, 2003). Together, these pieces of legislation have resulted in the
current mass deportation regime. Specific policy changes related to deportable
offenses and aggravated felonies have been applied retroactively, meaning that some
immigrants were deported for crimes for which they were previously adjudicated,
including instances where individuals pled guilty to certain offenses in exchange for
probation rather than risk serving jail time, and even in cases where no formal sentence was given (Coleman, 2007; Welch, 2007). This led to the landmark Supreme
Court decision (Padilla v. Kentucky) that now requires criminal defense attorneys to
inform their clients of the immigration consequences of their convictions or plea
deals (Kanstroom, 2011). Deportation’s unique position as an administrative
­process allows the federal government to skirt the traditional protections afforded to
defendants in criminal court, including the disclosure of evidence as well as the right
to legal counsel. In the context of immigration law, deportation is not considered a
punishment; therefore, people do not have the right to an attorney unless they are
being tried for criminal immigration violations (Kanstroom, 2007). Furthermore,
when it comes to immigration matters, the burden of proof is also on the individual
and not the state. Immigration courts have been largely ignored from a public policy
perspective, with average wait times for the completion of cases stretching over 560
days as of 2016 (TRAC Immigration, 2016), and little debate has been had about
increasing funding for the Bureau of Immigration Appeals. Academics, too, have
failed to study these important sites of contestation, with some notable exceptions
related to asylum and refugee cases (Ramji‐Nogales, Schoenholtz, & Schrag, 2011),
which have demonstrated drastic variations in the decisions taken by immigration
judges for similar cases.
In a recent book Macías‐Rojas (2016) contends that the 1996 laws specifically, and
the Criminal Alien Program more broadly, were enacted to “relieve prison overcrowding” in a post–civil rights era of mass incarceration “by deporting noncitizens
from jails and prisons” (p. 9). These policies facilitated this process by increasing
interior immigration enforcement and deportation by devolving immigration
enforcement from the federal level to the local level. The Secure Communities and
287(g) programs, which were part of the larger Criminal Alien Program during our
study period, relied on local law enforcement officials to identify and detain unauthorized migrants for removal by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In short, these programs consisted of an effort between local law enforcement
180
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
agencies, correctional facilities, jails, or prisons, and ICE to identify and remove all
“deportable aliens” residing in the United States who come into contact with the
criminal justice system (for a detailed discussion of Secure Communities, see
Kubrin, 2014). Scholars and immigrant rights activists have levied serious
criticisms against interior immigration enforcement—including the Criminal
­
Alien Program, Secure Communities, and 287(g). For example, some have contended that these programs undermine community policing efforts and strain
community–police relations in immigrant communities by focusing on relatively
minor offenders rather than serious, violent offenders (Kubrin, 2014; Martinez &
Iwama, 2014). Others have argued that interior immigration enforcement has
­separated US citizen children from their noncitizen parents through increased
deportation (Slack, Martínez, Whiteford, & Peiffer, 2015). Due to mounting political
pressure, the Obama administration eventually folded the 287(g) program into
Secure Communities, and by the summer of 2015, had completely replaced Secure
Communities with the 2014 Priority Enforcement Program. However, Trump’s 2017
executive order terminated the 2014 PEP, reauthorized Secure Communities, and
reinstituted and expanded the 287(g) program.
Other scholars have also begun to critically examine the “immigration industrial
complex” (Golash‐Boza, 2009, 2015) in order to identify the vested economic and
political interests that detention and deportation have served for large corporations
and policymakers. The heavy reliance on immigrant detention and formal removals
has resulted in a growing group of people with criminal records for simply having
crossed the border without authorization, something that in the past had largely
been treated as a civil, administrative violation. This shift has coincided with the
proliferation of private immigration detention facilities throughout the Southwest
operated by entities such as the CoreCivic (formerly the Corrections Corporation of
America) and the GEO Group (Golash‐Boza, 2009, 2015; Martínez & Slack, 2013).
Finally, others have recently called attention to the moral and social implications
of the private prison lobby (Alexander, 2012; Gilmore, 2006) by questioning the role
of noncitizens in the future of incarceration in the United States as crime rates continue to decline and decarceration processes begin to unfold, albeit slowly (Dowling &
Inda, 2013; Loyd, Mitchelson, & Burridge, 2013). However, it is difficult to ascertain
the full impact that the rise of private prisons and security companies has on the
increased criminalization of migrants, as noncitizens remain an extremely small
proportion of all individuals incarcerated in the United States. What is certain, however, is that the mechanisms most responsible for sending noncitizens to federal
prison deserve greater attention.
Despite these growing literatures, little work has focused exclusively on the ways
in which policies carried out near the US–Mexico border have played a key role in
the criminalization process, namely through the Consequence Delivery System
(CDS), which focuses on delivery of increasingly harsh penalties for repeat border
crossings (US Congress, House of Representatives, 2011). The CDS has led to a
dramatic shift in border enforcement, which in turn has changed the demographic
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
181
profile of so‐called “criminal aliens,” oftentimes making it increasingly difficult to
determine who has been charged and convicted of a non‐immigration criminal
offense, and who is simply being charged for a criminal immigration violation that
was seldom previously enforced. In the next sections we discuss the CDS and how
this new strategy has further escalated the criminalization and mass deportation of
noncitizens from the United States.
The Consequence Delivery System
During the 1990s and 2000s, the United States adopted the “prevention through
deterrence” strategy, which relied largely on militarizing the US–Mexico border
(Andreas, 1998, 2000; Cornelius, 2001; Dunn, 1996, 2009; Massey, Durand, &
Malone, 2003). The aim of the prevention‐through‐deterrence strategy was to deter
would‐be border crossers and funnel unauthorized migration into remote areas of
the border where US authorities would have a tactical advantage in apprehending
undeterred migrants (Cornelius, 2001; Rubio‐Goldsmith, McCormick, Martínez, &
Duarte, 2006). Until recently, apprehended Mexican migrants would have typically
agreed to a “voluntary return” to a Mexican border town. This approach resulted in a
“voluntary departure complex” (Heyman, 1995) in which unauthorized Mexican
migrants simply kept attempting to cross the border until they successfully avoided
detection. Overall, the prevention‐through‐deterrence strategy largely failed to deter
unauthorized border crossers (Dávila, Pagán, & Soydemir, 2002), but drastically
increased the number of migrant deaths in certain regions of the US–Mexico border
(Cornelius, 2001; Eschbach, Hagan, Rodriguez, Hernandez‐Leon, & Bailey, 1999;
Martínez, Reineke, Rubio‐Goldsmith, & Parks, 2014; Rubio‐Goldsmith et al., 2006).
In 2011, the same year that “removals” exceeded “returns” for the first time on
record, US Customs and Border Protection adopted the Consequence Delivery
System. Unlike the prevention‐through‐deterrence strategy, which was largely
­predicated on the logic of general deterrence, CDS is aimed at reducing the probability of subsequent unauthorized reentry and is therefore largely rooted in specific
deterrence. The CDS is a suite of enforcement programs “that guide management
and agents through a process designed to uniquely evaluate each subject and identify the ideal consequences to deliver to impede and deter further illegal activity”
(US Congress, House of Representatives, 2011). These programs include Operation
Streamline, which is a mass trial system for people apprehended at the border, the
Alien Transfer and Exit Program, which moves people laterally from one sector
to another, the Mexican Interior Repatriation Program, which repatriates people to
Mexico City instead of the traditional deportation sites along the US–Mexico border,
and the Operation Against Smugglers Initiative on Safety and Security. In the coming sections, we focus exclusively on Operation Streamline, as this program has been
responsible for systematically criminalizing and incarcerating tens of thousands of
unauthorized immigrants since its inception.
182
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
The focus on individual consequences for actions follows a long current of
­ eoliberal trends for the management of behaviors deemed deviant in society
n
(Zilberg, 2011). However, this approach marks a significant departure from the
1990s prevention‐through‐deterrence strategy that relied almost exclusively on
physical infrastructure, equipment, staffing, and the natural hazards of the desert to
deter potential border crossers. By enacting an escalating level of punishment on the
individual for each act of subsequent unlawful reentry, the full weight of the punitive
state is brought down upon immigration offenders. Ultimately, this approach is tailored specifically to punish individuals based on their propensity to remigrate,
rather than promoting general deterrence as was initially intended under the prevention‐through‐deterrence strategy.
One of the primary CDS programs is Operation Streamline, which is a “zero
­tolerance” trial en masse that processes 40–80 apprehended border‐crossers on a
daily basis, ultimately convicting them of either “unlawful entry” (8 USC § 1325),
which is a misdemeanor, or “unlawful reentry” (8 USC § 1326), which is a felony.
This program—which was carried out in all US Border Patrol sectors except San
Diego, El Centro, and Big Bend during our study period—led to higher federal conviction and incarceration rates of noncitizens for immigration‐related offenses
(Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2016; Light, Lopez, & Gonzalez‐Barrera, 2014). In 1992,
less than 5 percent of all federal convictions were for immigration crimes (Light
et al., 2014). By 2015 federal immigration offenses accounted for 29 percent of all
federal convictions, second only to drug convictions at 32 percent (US Sentencing
Commission, 2016). And although several sectors have recently discontinued
Operation Streamline due to a precipitous drop in unauthorized immigration, these
sectors continue to convict border crossers of unlawful entry and unlawful reentry
on an individual basis in a more traditional legal setting through “fast‐track” proceedings (US Department of Homeland Security, 2015). Fast‐track sentencing
allows federal prosecutors to “offer a below‐Guidelines sentence in exchange for a
defendant’s prompt guilty plea and waiver of certain pretrial and post‐conviction
rights” (Gorman, 2010, p. 479). Fast‐track sentencing may reduce the length of
­sentences associated with federal immigration crimes, but it also ensures that d
­ istrict
courts process more cases and secure more guilty pleas.
Operation Streamline has been widely questioned and condemned by advocates
and nongovernmental organizations, but has received relatively little attention from
social scientists (for exceptions see Amuedo‐Dorantes & Pozo, 2014; Lydgate, 2010;
Martínez & Slack, 2013; Migration and Refugee Services [MRS]/United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB], & Center for Migration Studies [CMS],
2015). Operation Streamline has been criticized for violating migrants’ ­constitutional
right to due process and for diverting federal resources away from the prosecution
of more serious crimes such as human and drug smuggling (Lydgate, 2010). Others
have called attention to the ways in which the program serves the economic interests
of private corporations that have secured federal contracts to house immigrants
in detention facilities (Martínez & Slack, 2013; MRS/USCCB, & CMS, 2015).
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
183
Critical scholars and immigrant rights groups have also pointed to the possible
unintended negative social consequences of processing largely economic migrants
as criminals through Operation Streamline and incarcerating them alongside more
serious criminal offenders (Martínez & Slack, 2013). Government official have also
questioned the program’s effectiveness. A recent report by the US Department of
Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General criticized Operation Streamline
for not collecting sufficient data to be able to track the long‐term deterrent effect of
the program. In other words, information has not been adequately collected to be
able to measure the impacts of the program on people’s likelihood to remigrate. In a
similar vein, the costs of the program have not been disaggregated from other
enforcement measures, making it impossible to determine the cost‐benefit ratio of
the program. Moreover, the program does not offer agents guidance in terms of how
to ensure that asylum seekers are treated in accordance with international treaty
obligations (US Department of Homeland Security, 2015). Despite these broad critiques, there have been few empirical studies describing the profiles of people who
have actually been prosecuted through Operation Streamline and detailing the way
in which they are affected or impacted.
Deportations from the United States have clearly increased over the past 10
years. The mass deportation regime has been set in motion by several important
policy changes, namely the devolution of immigration enforcement from the federal to local level, the increased criminalization of immigration, and more recently,
the increased use of zero‐tolerance programs near the border such as Operation
Streamline. Nevertheless, there has been limited empirical scholarship exploring
the impact of the shift in these enforcement procedures on unauthorized Mexican
immigrants (Amuedo‐Dorantes & Pozo, 2014), and even less scholarship that has
actually conducted surveys with people who were processed through programs
such as Secure Communities or Operation Streamline. Who exactly is being processed through these programs? To what extent are they socially connected to the
United States? Do they intend to return to the United States post‐deportation? In
what follows, we address these questions by drawing on the second wave of the
Migrant Border Crossing Study to examine the characteristics of individuals who
were caught through interior immigration enforcement efforts (e.g., Secure
Communities), as well as those who were processed through Operation Streamline.
Currently there is very little information about the actual process dictating why
certain people are selected for these immigration enforcement programs.
Addressing these questions will give scholars and policymakers a better understanding of the mechanisms of criminalization and help us understand who is
being disproportionately affected. We assert that these programs largely impact
people with strong social ties to the United States, particularly those with US citizen
children as well as those who consider their home to be located in the United States.
However, before doing so, we provide a demographic profile of the typical MBCS
respondent and describe their most recent migration, apprehension, and
­deportation/repatriation experience.
184
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
The Migrant Border Crossing Study
Mexicans represent roughly 70 percent of all immigrants deported from the United
States each year (US Department of Homeland Security, 2016b). We examine the
characteristics of unauthorized Mexican migrants deported as a consequence of
interior immigration enforcement efforts (e.g., Secure Communities) and zero‐­
tolerance policies near the border (e.g., Operation Streamline) as well as those who
were likely granted a “voluntary return” by drawing on data gathered through the
second wave of the Migrant Border Crossing Study (N = 1,109). Unlike other surveys of recently deported migrants, the MBCS is able to specifically identify migrants
who were processed through one of these programs. The MBCS is an unprecedented
cross‐sectional survey of Mexican migrants who attempted an unauthorized border
crossing and were apprehended by any US authority or who succeeded in traversing
the border but were eventually caught via interior enforcement efforts and ultimately returned to Mexico. Interviews were completed with migrants in person at
ports of entry and in migrant shelters immediately following respondents’ most
recent repatriation experience. We selected shelters that work directly with the
Mexican government (although none were government owned), because Mexican
authorities directly transport migrants to these shelters from ports of entry upon
repatriation, thus providing the most representative sample. The MBCS limits its
sample frame to individuals 18 years of age or older, who had not previously been
interviewed for the study, who crossed the US–Mexico border without authorization post‐September 11, 2001, and who had been deported to Mexico within one
month of the interview (Slack, Martínez, Whiteford, & Peiffer, 2013). Potential study
participants were randomly selected using a spatial sampling technique, screened
for eligibility, and invited to participate if they met the eligibility requirements.
These criteria were established to allow for reasonable comparison between cases
within a specific timeframe, most notably during an era of increased border and
immigration enforcement. Interviews lasted around 45 minutes and were completed
in Spanish by graduate students and professional interviewers. The response rate for
the survey was approximately 94 percent.
As illustrated in Figure 8.2, the surveys were completed in Tijuana and Mexicali,
Baja California; Nogales, Sonora; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; Nuevo Laredo,
Tamaulipas and Mexico City between 2010 and 2012, with the overwhelming
majority (90 percent) of interviews being completed in 2011. All respondents
­surveyed in Mexico City had participated in the Mexican Interior Repatriation
Program, which provides flights to Mexico City among an eligible subsample of
people apprehended in the Tucson sector during the summer. Of all migrants
­repatriated to Mexico in 2011, 66 percent were returned to one of these six cities
(Slack et al., 2013). And although surveys were only carried out in five of the nine
Border Patrol sectors along the southern border, all sectors are represented in the
survey in terms of where recently deported migrants had attempted their most
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
185
N
Yuma
El
Centro
San
Diego
Tijuana
Mexicali
Tucson
Nogales
El Paso
Marfa
Ciudad
Juárez
Legend
Del Rio
Nuevo Laredo
Mexican border cities
Laredo
Rio Grande
Valley
Border Patrol sectors
on the US–Mexico border
Figure 8.2 Map of Mexican Border Cities and Border Patrol Sectors. Source: Rolando Diaz
Caravantes, El Colegio de Sonora, Mexico.
recent border‐crossing attempt. The MBCS is therefore generalizable to repatriated
Mexican migrants to the six study cities during the study period.
Results
Demographic Profile of Repatriated Mexican Migrants
Table 8.1 provides an overview of the demographic profile of MBCS respondents.
The typical respondent can be described as a male (90 percent), between the ages of
18 and 34 (61 percent), from West‐Central or Southern Mexico (61 percent), with
about eight years of formal educational attainment, whose household earned about
$350 dollars in monthly income before migrating to the United States. Just less than
half lived in households with three‐to‐four other individuals, excluding the respondent. Forty‐two percent noted that they were the sole economic provider for their
household. Consistent with the extant migration literature, about 72 percent
­indicated they had left Mexico the last time they were living there due to
economic reasons.
186
Table 8.1
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
Selected Demographic Characteristics of MBCS Sample
Characteristic
Gender
Male
Female
Age
18–24 years
25–34years
35–44years
45+ years
Region of origin in Mexico
North
West‐Central (“traditional”sending‐region)
Central
South
Language use (in addition to Spanish)
Indigenous Language Speaker
English Language Proficient
Educational attainment
Household income
Household size (not including respondent)
0 people
1–2 people
3–4 people
5–7 people
8+ people
Sole economic provider of household?
Reason for leaving Mexico
Economic
Social
Other
Social ties to the United States
Lived in US?
Years lived in United States
Family members with citizenship?
US citizen child?
US citizen spouse?
Home in US?
Percent/Mean
90%
10%
22%
39%
30%
9%
20%
35%
19%
26%
8%
11%
8.1 years
$346
6%
13%
48%
24%
9%
42%
72%
10%
17%
75%
8.8 years
49%
41%
17%
30%
Source: Migrant Border Crossing Study, second wave (weighted).
Note: Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.
MBCS respondents, like many repatriated Mexican migrants, possess strong
social ties to the United States. Seventy‐five percent had lived in the United States at
some point in their life for an average of nine years. Nearly half indicated that they
had at least one US citizen family member. Among MBCS respondents with US
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
187
citizen family members, 41 percent stated they had a child with citizenship and
17 percent a spouse with citizenship. When asked if they considered their current
home to be located in the United States or Mexico, 30 percent reported that their
home was in the United States, with this share increasing to 40 percent among those
with prior lived US experience.
Border‐Crossing Experience
Table 8.2 describes MBCS respondents’ border‐crossing experiences. In terms of
lifetime crossing attempts, only 16 percent of respondents were first‐time border
crossers, while 59 percent had attempted to cross the border two to five times, 11
percent six to nine times, and 15 percent ten times or more. As noted in prior
research, migrants’ cumulative lifetime crossing attempts generally exceed the
number of times they have been apprehended, which suggests people continue to try
to cross until they successfully reach their desired destination in the United States.
When asked when they most recently crossed the border, 85 percent indicated
they had done so sometime between 2009 and 2012, 11 percent between 2005 and
2008, and 4 percent between 2001 and 2004. In other words, the overwhelming
majority of MBCS respondents had crossed the border in an era of increased border
and immigration enforcement as well as after the 2008 Great Recession. Among our
sample, 32 percent indicated that their most recent crossing attempt had taken place
in the US Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, 24 percent in the Laredo Sector, 17 percent
in the San Diego Sector, and 11 percent in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. Most
(73 percent) relied on a coyote (human smuggler) to cross the border, agreeing to
pay on average $2,313 dollars for their services. Typically, respondents walked for
about two days before either being apprehended by US authorities or picked up by a
raitero (driver) and proceeding to the next stage of their journey. In terms of the
geographic variation in migrants’ desired US destinations, 49 percent indicated
they were trying to reach a destination in the West (e.g., California, Arizona),while
38 percent were on their way to a destination in the South (e.g., Texas, Florida).
Thirty‐nine percent reported reaching their desired destination, while 61 percent
were apprehended by US authorities before arriving.
Apprehension and Repatriation Experience
Give the selection criteria used in the second wave of the MBCS, all respondents had
attempted an unauthorized border crossing along the US–Mexico border, were
apprehended by US authorities, and ultimately repatriated to Mexico. In other
words, each respondent had at least one experience being apprehended and physically removed from the country, either through a formal removal (e.g., deportation)
or voluntary return. As noted in Table 8.3, 24 percent of the respondents had been
188
Table 8.2
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
Migration Experience among MBCS Sample
Variable
Number of lifetime crossing attempts
First‐time crosser
2–5 times
6–9 times
10+ times
Number of lifetime apprehensions
Once
2–5 times
6–9 times
10+ times
Year of most recent crossing
2001–2004
2005–2008
2009–2012
Sector of most recent crossing
San Diego
El Centro
Yuma
Tucson
El Paso
Big Bend
Del Rio
Laredo
Rio Grande Valley
Mode of crossing
Coyote
Family or Friends (but no coyote)
Alone
Coyote fee (among coyote users)
Days spent crossing
Region of desired US destination
West
Midwest
Northeast
South
Succeeded in reaching desired destination?
Percent/Mean
16%
59%
11%
15%
25%
58%
9%
8%
4%
11%
85%
17%
9%
0%
32%
3%
0%
2%
24%
11%
73%
17%
10%
$2,313
2.2 days
49%
9%
4%
38%
39%
Source: Migrant Border Crossing Study, second wave (weighted).
Note: Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.
processed through Operation Streamline, which includes a formal removal and
carries additional criminal consequences for “subsequent reentry owing to the fact
of the removal” (US Department of Homeland Security, 2016b, Table 39). In other
words, immigrants who have been processed through Operation Streamline face
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
Table 8.3
189
Recent Apprehension and Repatriation Experience among MBCS Sample
Variable
Enforcement program
Operation Streamline
Interior Enforcement (e.g., Secure Communities)
Mistreatment by US authorities
Verbal abuse
Physical abuse
Sent to detention after apprehension?
Length of detention
4–30 days
31–60 days
61–90 days
91+ days
Did you sign documents prior to repatriation?
Did someone explain to you what you were signing?
Did you feel that your were forced to sign the documents?
What documents did you signed?
Deportation
Voluntary Return
Expedited Removal
Don’t Know
Sector of repatriation
DF (Mexican Interior Repatriation Program)
San Diego
El Centro
Yuma
Tucson
El Paso
Big Bend
Del Rio
Laredo
McAllen
Lateral repatriation
Possessions taken and not returned prior to repatiration?1
Repatriated between 10 PM and 5 AM?
Were you assaulted, robbed, or kidnapped after being repatriated
Percent/Mean
24%
25%
20%
12%
39%
45%
13%
18%
24%
96%
72%
33%
38%
33%
1%
28%
2%
17%
24%
2%
17%
3%
0%
0%
34%
1%
13%
27%
20%
7%
1
Does not include food or water.
Source: Migrant Border Crossing Study, second wave (weighted).
further criminalization and likely incarceration if they attempt to reenter the United
States without authorization and are caught. About a quarter (25 percent) reported
they had been apprehended by local law enforcement officials and subsequently
turned over to immigration authorities through an interior immigration
190
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
­enforcement program (most likely Secure Communities). Consistent with prior
research and reports by immigrant rights group, we found systemic problems
with migrants being mistreated by US authorities while in custody. For example,
20 percent reported having experienced verbal abuse (e.g., racist, homophobic,
­sexist remarks or sexual harassment), while 12 percent experienced some form of
physical abuse (e.g., excessive use of force or physical blows).
We were also interested in differentiating between short‐term detention (up to
three days) and long‐term detention (four days or longer) (Table 8.3). If a migrant is
apprehended by US Border Patrol and granted a “voluntary return,” processing time
can regularly take up to 72 hours. Nearly 40 percent indicated they were detained by
immigration officials for more than three days, most likely in an immigration
detention facility, federal prison, or local jail. Among those who were held in
long‐term detention, 45 percent were held for 4–30 days, 13 percent for 31–60 days,
18 percent for 61–90 days, and 24 percent for 91 days or longer.
The increased criminalization of immigration law and the myriad of agencies and
institutions involved in immigration enforcement have led to a complex system that
is often difficult for migrants to understand. For instance, when asked if they signed
any documents while in US custody, 96 percent of respondents noted they had, with
only 72 percent noting that someone explained to them what they were signing, and
33 percent expressing that they felt forced to sign the documents. When asked what
documents they signed, 38 percent indicted they had signed a deportation, 33 percent
a voluntary return, and 1 percent an expedited removal. Nearly one in three stated
that they did not know what they signed. Nevertheless, there was clear confusion on
the part of migrants in terms of what exactly they were signing. For example, 27 percent
of people processed through Operation Streamline, which results in a formal
removal, thought they had signed a voluntary return, while 24 percent did not know
what they had signed. This is problematic not only because removals carry harsher
penalties for subsequent reentry when compared to voluntary returns, but also
because people processed through Operation Streamline are convicted of either
unlawful entry (8 USC § 1325), which is a misdemeanor, or unlawful reentry (8 USC
§ 1326), which is a felony. Although all immigrants processed through Operation
Streamline have the right to legal counsel, these inconsistencies seriously call into
question the quality of the legal representation they receive.
In terms of the geographic variation, 34 percent of respondents stated they were
returned to a Mexican border town corresponding to the Laredo Sector of the Border
Patrol on the US side, 24 percent were repatriated to the El Centro Sector, and
17 percent to the San Diego Sector. Among recent border‐crossers (i.e., those who
didn’t make it to their desired destinations), 13 percent noted they were deported to
a sector other than the one through which they had crossed, which suggests they
were processed through the Alien Exit and Transfer Program.
We also found notable issues pertaining to the handling of migrants’ personal
belongings during apprehension, processing, detention, and repatriation. Twenty‐
seven percent of respondents noted that they had their possessions taken and not
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
191
returned prior to being repatriated to Mexico, including identifying documents and
money. For example, among those who were carrying some form of Mexican
identification when they were apprehended, approximately 66 percent of respondents, 19 percent noted that they had their documents taken and not returned.
Nevertheless, this is much more prevalent among people who are processed through
Operation Streamline, caught through Secure Communities, or sent to long‐term
detention. For instance, 30 percent of people processed through Operation
Streamline had their identifying documents taken and not returned compared to
15 percent of those not processed through the program (p < 0.001). In a similar vein,
27 percent of people caught as a consequence of Secure Communities had their documents taken and not returned compared to 16 percent of people not caught through
immigration enforcement efforts (p < 0.05), while 26 percent of people sent to long‐
term detention hade their documents taken and not returned relative to 14 percent
of people not detained. Clearly, being repatriated to an unfamiliar Mexican border
town without one’s possessions—notably identification—places people in a precarious position. Without identification, repatriated migrants are unable to secure
formal employment and receive money transfers or utilize other services. Migrants
also risk being harassed by local law enforcement officials if they are unable to prove
their identities. This is especially true for people who are repatriated to Mexico in
the middle of the night, which among our sample consists of around one in five
migrants. Migrants also face the possibility of victimization post‐deportation. For
example, about 7 percent of our respondents noted they were assaulted, robbed, or
kidnapped after being returned to Mexico.
Demographic Profile and Future Crossing Intentions of Migrants Processed
Through Operation Streamline and Secure Communities
Table 8.4 offers greater insight into the demographic characteristics of migrants
­processed through Operation Streamline as well as those caught through interior
immigration enforcement efforts (i.e., Secure Communities), both of which are
likely to result in a formal removal. Nevertheless, we would like to offer an important caveat before proceeding to a discussion of our results in this section. Because
the MBCS is a cross‐sectional survey of unauthorized Mexican migrants post‐­
repatriation, the results should be treated as a snapshot of a specific point in time
during a migrant’s journey. In other words, our surveys capture recent migration
and deportation events. The majority of questions on the MBCS survey pertain to
migrants’ most recent border‐crossing, apprehension, and repatriation experience.
We established these parameters to allow for reasonable comparisons between cases
in a similar time and geographic space.
However, it is possible that the migration process for any one individual may be
much more complex than what we were able to capture in a cross‐sectional survey
instrument. In other words, we may not be able to fully capture the circular nature
Table 8.4
Demographic Profile and Future Crossing Intentions of Migrants Processed through Operation Streamline and Secure Communities
Characteristic
Male
Age
Educational attainment
Household income
Sole economic provider
Region of origin
North
West‐Central (“traditional” sending‐region)
Central
South
First‐time border crosser
Lifetime crossing attempts
Lifetime apprehensions
Lived in US?
Years lived in United States
Family members with citizenship?
US Citizen child?
US Citizen spouse?
Home in US?
Full
sample
Operation
Streamline1
90%
32.1 years
8.1 years
$346
42%
95%
30.8 years
8.1 years
$352
44%
20%
35%
19%
26%
16%
5.1
3.9
75%
8.8 years
49%
41%
17%
30%
25%
33%
16%
26%
11%
5.3
4.1
78%
6.7 years
37%
31%
11%
25%
“Not
Streamlined”
Secure
Communities
“Not Secure
Communities”
89%***
32.5 years**
8.1 years
$345
41%
95%
33.3 years
8.4 years
$306
39%
89%***
31.6 years*
8.0 years+
$361*
43%
18%
36%
20%
26%
17%+
5.0
3.9
74%
9.5 years***
53%***
43%*
18%+
32%+
20%
41%
18%
20%
14%
5.5
4.1
99%
8.2 years
43%
56%
20%
47%
20%
33%+
19%
28%*
16%
4.9
3.9
67%***
9.0 years
51%+
36%**
16%
25%***
Do you plan on crossing again within the next week?
Yes
No
Don’t Know
Do you think you will cross again sometime in the
future
Yes
No
Don’t know
30%
55%
15%
e?
15%
76%
9%
34%***
49%***
17%**
23%
60%
17%
32%*
54%
14%
55%
23%
22%
47%
26%
27%
57%*
22%
21%
56%
17%
27%
54%
25%*
21%+
Includes immigrants who crossed through sectors not practicing Operation Streamline. This varies slightly from results reported by Slack et al. (2015), as the
authors exclued immigrants who crossed through sectors not practicing the enforcment program from their analysis.
+p < 0.10, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.00.
Source: Migrant Border Crossing Study, second wave (weighted).
1
194
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
of unauthorized migration in the current era of mass deportation. For instance, a
person living and working in the United States could have been apprehended
through interior immigration enforcement efforts, repatriated to Mexico, and then
attempted to return to the United States, only to be caught and processed through
Operation Streamline, and once again deported. Unfortunately, we are unable to
capture this dynamic process in full; rather, we chose to focus on migrants’ most
recent crossing, apprehension, detention, and repatriation experience. Nevertheless,
we believe that the MBCS is able to offer much‐needed insight into the demographic
profiles and experiences of unauthorized Mexican immigrants caught in different
stages of the complex unauthorized migration process, especially those who have
been tried through Operation Streamline and or caught as a consequence of interior
immigration enforcement efforts.
The general discourse surrounding Operation Streamline is that it targets recent
border‐crossers in an attempt to stem subsequent unlawful reentry (US Congress,
House of Representatives, 2011). Nevertheless, relatively little is known about the
demographic profiles of the migrants who are processed through this immigration
enforcement program. On the other hand, because immigrants caught as a result of
interior immigration enforcement programs such as Secure Communities managed
to avoid detection near the border and succeed in arriving to their desired US
­destination, it is possible that they had been living in the interior United States for a
relatively longer period of time and therefore possess higher levels of social connectedness to the country relative to those caught along the border.
Surprisingly, with a few exceptions, we found there are relatively few differences
in the demographic profiles of migrants processed through Operation Streamline
and those who were not. Among our sample, migrants who were processed through
the program were more likely to be male, slightly younger, and slightly less likely to
be first‐time border‐crossers (p < 0.10). Nevertheless, we found no significant differences in terms of educational attainment, monthly household income, being the sole
economic provider for one’s household, region of origin, lifetime unauthorized
border‐crossing attempts, and having ever lived in the United States. Perhaps most
important, we find no statistically significant difference in cumulative lifetime
apprehensions between migrants processed through Operation Streamline and those
who were not. These findings suggest that migrants are chosen by US authorities to
participate in the program based on a fairly random set of circumstances rather than
based on recidivism rates. However, among people who had lived in the United
States, those who were processed through Operation Streamline had 6.7 years of
cumulative lived experienced relative to 9.5 years among those not processed
through the program (p < 0.000). There also appear to be slight differences in levels
of social connectedness between those processed through the program and those
who were not. For instance, 37 percent people processed through Operation
Streamline had US citizen family members compared to 53 percent of people who
were not tried through the program (p < 0.000). This pattern also seems to hold in
terms of having a child or spouse with US citizenship and one’s home in the
United States.
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
195
Despite the subtle differences between people who were processed through
Operation Streamline and those who were not, we emphasize that the typical
migrant processed through the program and ultimately formally removed from the
United States does in fact demonstrate relatively high levels of social connectedness
to the country. Seventy‐eight percent had previously lived in the United States and
had accumulated nearly seven years of lived experienced. Furthermore, 37 percent
had at least one US citizen family member, and one in four considered their home to
be located in the United States, not Mexico. In other words, it is probable that people
who are currently being processed through Operation Streamline had in fact been
living in working in the United States at some point, were picked up through interior
immigration enforcement efforts, repatriated, and then went on to attempt to reenter
the United States, only to be picked up again and prosecuted through Operation
Streamline. This helps to further illustrate the ways in which interior immigration
enforcement (i.e., 1996 laws) and zero‐tolerance policies near the border work in
tandem to contribute to the further systematic criminalization of immigrants.
On the other hand, we find more pronounced differences between immigrants
caught through interior enforcement programs and those caught near the border.
Immigrants caught in the interior United States were more likely to be male, slightly
older, and from West‐Central Mexico, which suggests they come from communities
with a longer history of migration to the United States. By definition, people caught
in the interior were also more likely to have lived in the United States, although there
were no significant differences in cumulative years lived in the United States between
the two groups. However, among those with US citizen family members, 56 percent
of immigrants caught in the interior had US citizen children, compared to 36 percent
of those caught through other means (p < 0.010). Finally, nearly half (47 percent) of
immigrants caught through interior immigration enforcement programs considered
their home to be located in the United States compared to 25 percent of those not
caught in the interior (p < 0.000). Interior enforcement is clearly disrupting the lives
of people who have set down roots and established families in this country.
Table 8.4 also provides a breakdown of migrants’ future crossing intentions for the
full sample and the subsamples of those caught through Operation Streamline and
interior immigration enforcement efforts. Despite being repatriated to Mexico,
many migrants demonstrated a strong resolve to return to the United States. As
noted in Table 8.4, when asked if they planned on crossing the border again within
the next week, 30 percent of MBCS respondents replied “yes,” 55 percent replied
“no,” and 15 percent said “don’t know.” When asked more broadly if they thought
they would cross again sometime in the future, over half responded “yes,” 23 percent
said “no,” and 22 percent stated that they were uncertain.
While people processed through Operation Streamline or Secure Communities
reported lower rates of intending to return to the United States within the next week,
nearly half (47 percent) of those processed through Operation Streamline and
56 percent of those picked up through interior immigration enforcement efforts
indicated that it was possible they would cross again in the future despite the
likelihood of escalated penalties and criminalization. These results indicate that
196
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
immigration enforcement measures are not entirely effective in terms of acting as a
form of specific deterrence or in decreasing migrants’ desire to return to the United
States, especially among those who have the strongest social ties to the country. But
again, we cannot emphasize enough that subsequent reentry into the United States
after a formal removal carries serious legal consequences that will only contribute
further to migrants’ criminalization and the mass incarceration of immigrants in
federal prisons and private detention facilities. Moreover, this criminalization process disproportionately disadvantages immigrants with notable social equity in the
United States, including those with US children and spouses and a strong resolve to
return “home.” And while the 2014 Priority Enforcement Program did shield some
immigrants from deportation in recent years, this program was terminated by the
Trump administration in January 2017. Not only do we anticipate that deportations
will increase in the coming years, but we expect that a significant proportion of
deportees will possess notable social ties to the United States and therefore a strong
desire to return to their loved ones in the country.
Summary of Key Findings
Formal removals (i.e., deportations) from the United States have increased substantially since the passage of the 1996 laws as well as the implementation of the 2011
Consequence Delivery System. Over 3 million immigrants were formally removed
during the Obama administration alone. Removals are likely to increase in the coming years, as signaled by the immigration‐related executive orders signed by
President Trump. Mexican nationals represented the majority of noncitizens
removed from the United States over the past decade. Yet relatively little is known
about the demographic profiles and experiences of this subpopulation during the
apprehension and repatriation process.
Data from the Migrant Border Crossing Study find that unauthorized Mexican
immigrants deported as a result of Operation Streamline or interior immigration
enforcement (e.g., Secure Communities) demonstrate high levels of social connectedness to the United States, including ties to immediate family members who are US
citizens, notable lived experience in the country, and a subjective understanding that
one’s home is located in the United States and not Mexico. There do not appear to be
significant differences in intentions to clandestinely return to the United States for
migrants caught through interior enforcement (e.g., Secure Communities) compared to those who are not—over half of both subgroups express a desire to cross the
border again sometime in the future. An even greater percentage of migrants with
US citizen spouses and a similar percentage of migrants with US citizen children
report that they intend to cross the border and return to the United States despite
being processed through interior enforcement. This suggests that people with
notable social ties to the United States possess a strong resolve to return despite
being formally removed. There does seem to be a slight deterrent effect in terms of
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
197
future crossing intentions as a result of being processed through Operation
Streamline, but not all deportees are deterred—almost half of all respondents prosecuted through the program indicated that they planned on crossing in the future.
However, if apprehended, people who have been formally removed from the country
face serious legal risks, including subsequent criminalization and incarceration.
There also appear to be systematic problems stemming from the wide array of
agencies and institutions tasked with immigration enforcement, including the inadequate communication of important information regarding the apprehension.
Nearly one‐third of our respondents felt they were pressured to sign paperwork
while in US custody, and there appeared to be wide‐scale confusion regarding the
documents that people had signed. As noted, over half of respondents prosecuted
through Operation Streamline either thought they had signed a “voluntary return”
or did not understand what they had signed. Unfortunately for these migrants, the
result of being processed through Operation Streamline is a formal removal, which
carries much more serious legal repercussions than a voluntary return. It is clear that
many immigrants may not be fully aware of the long‐term consequences of an
Operation Streamline prosecution.
We also found that unauthorized Mexican immigrants are often repatriated to
Mexico without their identifying documents. Without identification, deportees are
unable to secure employment or other much‐needed services such as money
­transfers from family members in the United States. This further contributes to the
vulnerability of immigrants who are repatriated to unfamiliar border towns, often in
the middle of the night.
Conclusion
The unique data presented in this chapter elucidate possible long‐term impacts
of deportation stemming from increased immigration enforcement along the
US–Mexico border and in the interior United States. Our research shows that deportees tend to have high levels of social connections to the United States, including
family members with US citizenship and established homes. Our research clearly
demonstrates that anti‐immigrant legislation and mass deportation not only impact
unauthorized immigrants, but carry potential negative consequences for their US
citizen family members as well. Because of issues of family separation, repatriated
Mexican migrants with established homes in the United States largely intend to
return despite the possible negative implications, including subsequent criminalization and further incarceration (Slack et al., 2015).
We urge researchers to take a closer look at the mechanisms of criminalization,
rather than focus more on the metatheoretical analyses of the broader processes of
criminalization. This will help develop a better understanding of how the criminalization of immigration is occurring, whom it is affecting, and what the long‐term
social consequences of these processes will be in the years to come. This will require
198
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
moving past theoretical debates surrounding deportability and employing a post‐
deportation methodology to reconstruct the punitive actions of the state (see
Coleman & Steusse, 2015). Moreover, it is important not to forget the importance of
the physical border in immigration and deportation studies. Narratives about the
expanding, interiorized border help us understand how immigration policing has
grown in prominence throughout the interior of the country, but this theoretical
orientation should not allow the importance of the physical boundary between the
United States and Mexico to be neglected. Operation Streamline is one of the most
significant contemporary drivers of the criminalization of immigration and is
almost solely responsible for the dramatic increase in federal criminal immigration
prosecutions over the past decade. Operation Streamline has filled immigration
detention facilities and federal prisons with offenders whose only crime was largely
treated as an administrative violation merely a decade ago.
References
Alexander, M. (2012). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New
York, NY: New Press.
Amuedo‐Dorantes, C., & Pozo, S. (2014). On the intended and unintended consequences of
enhanced US border and interior immigration enforcement: Evidence from Mexican
deportees. Demography, 51(6), 2255–2279.
Andreas, P. (1998). The US immigration control offensive: Constructing an image of order
on the southwest border. In M. M. Suárez‐Orozco (Ed.), Crossings: Mexican immigration
in interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 341–356). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Andreas, P. (2000). Border games: Policing the US–Mexico divide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Boehm, D. A. (2011). US–Mexico mixed migration in an age of deportation: An inquiry into
the transnational circulation of violence. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 30(1), 1–21.
Boehm, D. A. (2016). Returned: Going and coming in an age of deportation. Oakland, CA:
University of California Press.
Brotherton, D. C., & Barrios, L. (2009). Displacement and stigma: The social‐psychological
crisis of the deportee. Crime, Media, Culture, 5(1), 29–55.
Brotherton, D. C., & Barrios, L. (2011). Banished to the homeland: Dominican deportees and
their stories of exile. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Coleman, M. (2007). Immigration geopolitics beyond the Mexico–US border. Antipode,
39(1), 54–76.
Coleman, M., & Stuesse, A. (2015). The disappearing state and the quasi‐event of immigration control. Antipode, 48(3), 524–543.
Cornelius, W. A. (2001). Death at the border: Efficacy and unintended consequences of US
immigration control policy. Population and Development Review, 27(4), 661–685.
Dávila, A., Pagán, J. A., & Soydemir, G. (2002). The short‐term and long‐term deterrence
effects of INS border and interior enforcement on undocumented immigration. Journal
of Economic Behavior & Organization, 49(4), 459–472.
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
199
De Genova, N. (2002). Migrant “illegality” and deportability in everyday life. Annual Review
of Anthropology, 31, 419–447.
De Genova, N. & Peutz, N. (Eds.). (2010). The deportation regime: Sovereignty, space, and the
freedom of movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Dickson, C. (2014). Is Obama really the deporter‐in‐chief? Yes and no. Daily Beast.
Retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/30/is‐obama‐really‐
the‐deporter‐in‐chief‐yes‐and‐no.html
Dowling, J., & Inda, J. X. (Eds.). (2013). Governing immigration through crime. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Dunn, T. J. (1996). Militarization of the United States–Mexico border, 1978–1992. Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press.
Dunn, T. J. (2009). Blockading the border and human rights: The El Paso operation that remade
immigration enforcement. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Eschbach, K., Hagan, J., Rodriguez, N., Hernandez‐Leon, R., & Bailey, S. (1999). Death at the
border. International Migration Review, 33(2), 430–454.
Ewing, W. A., Martínez, D. E., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2015). The criminalization of immigration
in the United States. Washington, DC: American Immigration Council.
Federal Bureau of Prisons. (2016). Inmate citizenship. Retrieved from https://www.bop.gov/
about/statistics/statistics_inmate_citizenship.jsp
Gilmore, R. W. (2006). Golden gulag: Prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing
California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Golash‐Boza, T. (2009). The immigration industrial complex: Why we enforce immigration
policies destined to fail. Sociology Compass, 3(2), 295–309.
Golash‐Boza, T. (2014). Forced transnationalism: Transnational coping strategies and
­gendered stigma among Jamaican deportees. Global Networks, 14(1), 63–79.
Golash‐Boza, T. (2015). Deported: Immigrant policing, disposable labor and global capitalism.
New York, NY: New York University Press.
Gorman, T. E. (2010). Fast‐track sentencing disparity: Rereading Congressional intent to
resolve the circuit split. University of Chicago Law Review, 77(1), 479–519.
Heyman, J. (1995). Putting power in the anthropology of bureaucracy: The Immigration and
Naturalization Service at the Mexico–United States border. Current Anthropology, 36(2),
261–287.
Heyman, J. M., Núñez, G. G., & Talavera, V. (2009). Healthcare access and barriers for
­unauthorized immigrants in El Paso County, Texas. Family & Community Health,
32(1), 4–21.
Hiemstra, N. (2012). Geopolitical reverberations of US migrant detention and deportation:
The view from Ecuador. Geopolitics, 17(2), 293–311.
Kanstroom, D. (2007). Deportation nation: Outsiders in American history. Boston, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Kanstroom, D. (2011). The right to deportation counsel in Padilla v. Kentucky: The challenging construction of the Fifth‐and‐a‐half Amendment. UCLA Law Review, 58,
1461–1514.
Kubrin, C. E. (2014). Secure or insecure communities? Criminology & Public Policy, 13(2),
323–338.
Light, M. T., Lopez M. H., & Gonzalez‐Barrera, A. (2014, March). The rise of federal immigration crimes. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center Hispanic Trends Project.
200
Daniel E. Martínez, Jeremy Slack, and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt
Loyd, J. M., Mitchelson, M., & Burridge, A. (2013). Beyond walls and cages. Atlanta, GA:
University of Georgia Press.
Lydgate, J. (2010, January). Assembly‐line justice: A review of Operation Streamline (Policy
Brief). Warren Institute, Berkeley Law School, University of California.
Macías‐Rojas, P. (2016). From deportation to prison: The politics of immigration enforcement
in post‐civil rights America. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Martínez, D. E., Reineke, R., Rubio‐Goldsmith, R., & Parks, B. O. (2014). Structural violence
and migrant deaths in Southern Arizona: Data from the Pima County Office of the Medical
Examiner, 1990–2013. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 2(4), 257–286.
Martínez, D., & Slack, J. (2013). What part of “illegal” don’t you understand? The social
­consequences of criminalizing unauthorized Mexican migrants in the United States.
Social & Legal Studies, 22(4), 535–551.
Martinez, R., Jr., & Iwama, J. (2014). The reality of the Secure Communities Program.
Criminology & Public Policy, 13(2), 339–344.
Massey, D., Durand, J., & Malone, N. (2003). Beyond smoke and mirrors: Mexican immigration in an era of economic integration. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Migration and Refugee Services/United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Center
for Migration Studies. (2015). Unlocking human dignity: A plan to transform the US
immigrant detention system. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 3(2), 159–204.
Núñez, G., & Heyman, J. (2007). Entrapment processes and immigrant communities in a
time of heightened border vigilance. Human Organization, 66(4), 354–365.
Passel, J. S., Cohn, D., Krogstad, J. M., & Gonzalez‐Barrera, A. (2014). As growth stalls, unauthorized immigrant population becomes more settled. Washington, DC: Pew Research
Center Hispanic Trends Project
Ramji‐Nogales, J., Schoenholtz, A. I., & Schrag, P. G. (2011). Refugee roulette: Disparities in
asylum adjudication and proposals for reform. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Rogers, T. (2016). Obama deported more immigrants than any other president: Now he’s
running up the score. Fusion. Retrieved from http://fusion.net/story/252637/obama‐has‐
deported‐more‐immigrants‐than‐any‐other‐president‐now‐hes‐running‐up‐the‐score/
Rosenblum, M. R. (2015). Understanding the potential impact of executive action on immigration enforcement. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Rosenblum, M. R., & McCabe, K. (2014). Deportation and discretion: Reviewing the record
and options for change. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Rosenblum, M. R., & Meissner, D. (2014). The deportation dilemma: Reconciling tough and
humane enforcement. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Rubio‐Goldsmith, R., McCormick, M., Martínez, D., & Duarte, I. (2006). The “funnel effect”
and recovered bodies of unauthorized migrants processed by the Pima County Office of
the Medical Examiner, 1990–2005. Report for the Binational Migration Institute.
Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona.
Shear, M. D., & Preston, J. (2015). Dealt setback, Obama puts off immigration plan. New York
Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/us/obama‐immigration‐
policy‐halted‐by‐federal‐judge‐in‐texas.html?_r=0
Slack, J., Martínez, D. E., Whiteford, S., & Peiffer, E. (2013). In the shadow of the wall: Family
separation, immigration enforcement and security. Center for Latin American Studies,
University of Arizona.
Slack, J., Martínez, D. E., Whiteford, S., & Peiffer, E. (2015). In harm’s way: Family separation,
immigration enforcement programs and security on the US–Mexico border. Journal on
Migration and Human Security, 3(2), 109–128.
The Rise of Mass Deportation in the United States
201
Stumpf, J. P. (2006). The crimmigration crisis: Immigrants, crime, and sovereign power.
American University Law Review, 56(2), 367–419.
TRAC Immigration. (2016). Immigration court processing time by outcome. Transactional
Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Retrieved from http://trac.syr.
edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/court_proctime_outcome.php
US Citizenship and Immigration Services. (2016). Consideration of Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Retrieved from https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/
consideration‐deferred‐action‐childhood‐arrivals‐daca
US Congress, House of Representatives. (2011, October 4). Testimony of Michael J. Fisher,
Chief, US Border Patrol, US Customs and Border Protection, before the House Committee
on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security: “Does
administrative amnesty harm our efforts to gain and maintain operational control of the
border?” 112th Congress, 1st session. Release from the US Department of Homeland
Security.
US Department of Homeland Security. (2015). Streamline: Measuring its effect on illegal
border crossing. Washington, DC: Office of Inspector General.
US Department of Homeland Security. (2016a, December 30). DHS releases end of the year
fiscal year 2016 statistics (Press release). Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/
news/2016/12/30/dhs‐releases‐end‐year‐fiscal‐year‐2016‐statistics
US Department of Homeland Security. (2016b). 2015 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.
Office of Immigration Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/immigration‐
statistics/yearbook/2015
US Department of Homeland Security. (2017a). Fact sheet: Enhancing public safety in the
interior of the United States (Press release). Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/
news/2017/02/21/fact‐sheet‐enhancing‐public‐safety‐interior‐united‐states
US Department of Homeland Security. (2017b). Fact sheet: Executive order: Border security
and immigration enforcement improvements (Press release). Retrieved from https://
www.dhs.gov/news/2017/02/21/fact‐sheet‐executive‐order‐border‐security‐and‐
immigration‐enforcement‐improvements
US Sentencing Commission. (2016). Overview of federal criminal cases: Fiscal year 2015.
Washington, DC: Author.
Welch, M. (2003). Ironies of social control and the criminalization of immigrants. Crime,
Law and Social Change, 39(4), 319–337.
Welch, M. (2007). Immigration lockdown before and after 9/11: Ethnic constructions and
their consequences. In M. Bonsworth & J. Flavin (Eds.), Race, gender, and punishment:
From colonialism to the war on terror. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Zilberg, E. (2011). Space of detention: The Making of a transnational gang crisis between Los
Angeles and San Salvador. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Part II
Theoretical Approaches to the Study
of Race, Ethnicity, Crime,
and Criminal Justice
Introduction
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
The focus in the second part of this volume is on theoretical perspectives in the
study of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice. This part examines traditional theoretical
perspectives and race research (Chapter 9), contemporary theoretical perspectives
used in race, ethnicity, crime, and justice research (Chapter 10), the racial threat perspective (Chapter 11), the racialized experience of self‐presentation (Chapter 12)
and feminist and queer criminological perspectives (Chapter 13). A common theme
that emerges from these chapters is the importance of intersectional approaches to
the study of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice. These chapters also highlight important areas where it is possible to advance theoretical approaches to race and
ethnicity.
The discussion begins with Chapter 9, “Racisms and Crime: Racialized Elaborations
of General Theories of Offending” by Stacy de Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer
Lutz. This chapter provides an overview of traditional theoretical perspectives used
to study race and crime. The authors provide a discussion of how researchers and
theorists have approached race when using classical theories such as social disorganization, social control, differential association, and general strain theory. In the
conclusion, the authors highlight the need for intersectional perspectives as well as
the need for research on racism, race, and crime in rural contexts.
In Chapter 10, “What Was Old Is New Again: An Examination of Contemporary
Theoretical Approaches Used in Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice Research,” Scott
Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis provide an overview of theoretical perspectives
used in contemporary research on race, ethnicity, crime, and justice. They expand
on previous discussion in an effort to highlight considerations beyond race, including
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
206
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
concerns with ethnic, nationality‐based, and immigration status variations in criminality and justice system contact and treatment. In their overview, the authors focus
on how traditional theoretical perspectives continue to be applied to explain racial
and ethnic variations in criminality, while highlighting the incremental progress
made in research incorporating social disorganization theory and also providing a
discussion of the challenges in advancing this work. They highlight the reemergence
of biological, biosocial, and biopsychosocial perspectives as a concern and possible
setback to research on race, ethnicity, and crime. Here a discussion is included of
recent research promoting racist perspectives based in eugenics and epigenetics.
The focus then shifts to Marxist and critical criminology perspectives and the
promise inherent in these approaches for explaining ethno‐racial disparities in
criminality, victimization, legal codification, and justice system treatment. In this
dialogue, they highlight the importance of intersectional perspectives for advancing
criminological research related to race, ethnicity, nationality, and immigration
status. This chapter culminates with a call to shift from an ethnocentric White male
perspective to race‐centric and ethnic‐centric perspectives that provide all‐encompassing views and acknowledge the diversity of lived experiences based on intersections of identity.
Malcolm D. Holmes in Chapter 11, “Racial Threat and Police Coercion,” provides
a theoretical examination and elaboration of the racial threat perspective. Holmes
expands on the knowledge of conflict theories provided in the previous chapter,
while defining and discussing racial threat as an area of criminological inquiry. In
this chapter, there is a focus on how the structural characteristics of local communities can influence perceived criminal threat among the dominant or majority
groups and police officers. It is important to note that racial threat perspectives can
easily be expanded to include ethnic or immigrant threat concerns. This chapter
ends by examining the influence of perceived racial threat on police behaviors and
actions, with a focus on coercive police behaviors.
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck, in Chapter 12, “‘Fractured
Reflections’ in Cooley’s Looking Glass: Nonrecognition of Self‐Presentation as
Racialized Experience,” examine how self and identity can become racialized in
interactions. They examine interactions through an Interaction Order lens in an
effort to better understand racialized sensemaking processes in interactions. A large
part of this relates to whether others will accept the presentation of self that an
individual projects and how the individual’s race can influence the acceptance of
self‐presentations by others. This introduces an important theoretical perspective to
the volume.
The final chapter in this part, “Examining the Intersections of Gender and Sexual
Orientation within the Discipline: A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology” by
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King, provides an overview of feminist and queer criminological perspectives as they intersect with race and ethnicity
concerns. This chapter focuses on the intersections of gender and sexual orientation
with race and ethnicity in an effort to advance perspectives that can overcome
Introduction to Part II
207
t­raditional androcentric and homophobic challenges. This chapter introduces the
queer criminology perspective to the volume, and, again, there is an intersectionality focus in this chapter.
Part II is designed to provide the reader an overview of the variety of theoretical
approaches that are used in the study of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice. These
chapters provide five perspectives on how theory is shaping race, ethnicity, crime,
and justice research. As research in this area continues to evolve, these chapters
should provide a reference point for researchers to make progress in theoretical
development and refinement.
9
Racisms and Crime: Racialized
Elaborations of General Theories
of Offending
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
Traditional theories of crime and delinquency are most often posited as general
­theories that apply equally to members of majority and minority groups in society.
As such, theoretical explanations for the race gap in offending—for instance,
­elevated risks of street crimes and delinquency among racial minorities relative to
Whites—frequently adopt a racial invariance perspective, positing that the causes
of crime are similar across race groups but that minority individuals and groups are
more exposed to the social factors that produce offending (Peterson & Krivo, 2005;
Sampson & Bean, 2006; Sampson & Wilson, 1995; Velez, 2006). Differential
exposure to criminogenic factors across race is linked, in turn, to various forms of
race discrimination that shape the opportunities and constraints groups and individuals navigate in their daily lives.
Structural‐level perspectives underscore the relevance of systemic and institutional racism in creating communities of concentration characterized by high rates
of poverty, joblessness, and family disruption (Peterson & Krivo, 2010; Sampson &
Wilson, 1995). These structural factors, in turn, influence community dynamics—
including social interactions, social controls, and subcultural adaptations—in ways
that prove relevant for understanding elevated rates of crime in areas with high concentrations of racial minorities (Peterson & Krivo, 2010; Sampson, 2012). Individual‐
level perspectives similarly emphasize that systemic and institutional racism inform
the race gap in offending by influencing opportunities and constraints that shape
residency, employment, family structure, and social interactions (De Coster, Heimer,
& Wittrock, 2006; Matsueda & Heimer, 1987; McNulty & Bellair, 2003a; Sampson,
Morenoff, & Raudenbush, 2005). In addition, recent individual‐level perspectives
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
210
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
highlight the significance of everyday, interpersonal race discrimination as a source
of offending among racial minorities (Burt & Simons, 2015; De Coster & Thompson,
2017; Martin et al., 2011; Unnever, 2014).
In this chapter, we provide an overview of structural and individual‐level
­perspectives on race and crime with particular attention to the ways in which ­various
forms of racism embedded in public policies, social institutions, and everyday
­interactions influence the race gap in street offending by shaping the communities
and experiences of people differentially situated in racial hierarchies. Although
racialized policies and practices importantly shape the experiences and behaviors of
all racial and ethnic minorities, there are similarities and differences across groups
in how discrimination influences the opportunities, constraints, and everyday interactions relevant to offending. Due to space limitations, we focus our attention on
how traditional theories of offending have been elaborated to inform understanding
of elevated offending among African Americans in particular.
The chapter proceeds as follows: We begin with a discussion of social disorganization theory, which provides the framework within which contemporary structural‐level perspectives have emerged to explain elevated crime rates in primarily
African American versus primarily White neighborhoods. In our overview of
­contemporary perspectives, we pay particular attention to theoretical arguments
that encourage consideration of the role structural racism plays in limiting access to
communities of economic and social advantage and in shaping community processes
relevant to the geographic distribution of street crimes. We then segue to individual‐
level explanations of race differences in offending, with a focus on how general
theories of crime—social control, differential association, and general strain
­
­theories—have been elaborated to consider the consequences of structural and
interpersonal racism for the opportunities, relationships, and interactions that
inform individual offending.
Race Discrimination and Structural‐Level Perspectives
on Street Offending
Structural‐level explanations for the race gap in offending draw predominantly on
Shaw and McKay’s (1942) social disorganization theory, which emphasizes the
importance of the social and economic attributes of communities for understanding
the distribution of crime across geographic areas. According to social disorganization theory, the race gap in offending can be explained by characteristics of the communities in which minorities are concentrated, rather than by the social or personal
attributes of minority individuals and groups. The theory maintains that structural
features of communities—rates of residential turnover, family disruption, poverty,
and racial and ethnic heterogeneity—shape the capacity of local institutions and
social networks to organize efforts to define community values, achieve community
goals, and solve local problems (Bursik, 1988; Kornhauser, 1978; Sampson & Groves,
Racialized Elaborations of General Theories of Offending
211
1989). Communities can be placed on a continuum of social (dis)organization that
aligns with the crime rates of local areas. In highly disorganized communities, for
instance, crime rates are high because local residents are unlikely to collectively
supervise neighborhood adolescents, intervene formally or informally to prevent
crime, or talk with neighbors about community problems and solutions. Elevated
crime rates in the structurally and economically marginalized communities in
which high concentrations of African Americans reside are explained ultimately by
the fact that these communities lack the level of social organization essential for
informally controlling community crime and disorder.
Although social disorganization theory provides a starting point for understanding elevated rates of offending in minority communities, Peterson and Krivo
(2010) make a compelling case for embedding the theory within a racialized
­perspective that explicitly accounts for the myriad ways in which racialized policies
and practices shape community structure, community processes, and ultimately
community crime rates. Consistent with their call, recent work highlights that the
race gap in offending is informed by structural forms of racism—institutional and
systemic—that have concentrated African Americans in disadvantaged communities in close proximity to other disadvantaged communities (Peterson & Krivo,
2010). In particular, researchers emphasize that discriminatory policies and practices across major institutions—including discrimination in the labor market,
housing discrimination, racialized patterns of neighborhood disinvestment and
reinvestment, the placement of public housing, and racialized criminal justice
­policies—have both disrupted established minority communities and constrained
the residential choices of minority families (Clear, 2007; Crutchfield, 2014; Massey
& Denton, 1993; McNulty & Holloway, 2000; Peterson & Krivo, 2010; Wilson, 2009).
Among the pernicious consequences of structural racism, therefore, is the acute
residential segregation of Black individuals and families in communities characterized by high rates of poverty, joblessness, low‐wage jobs, residential turnover, and
female‐headed families, on the one hand, and by low rates of professional jobs,
professional workers, and college‐educated occupants, on the other (Peterson &
Krivo, 2010; Sampson, 2012; Sampson & Wilson, 1995). Sampson (1987) highlights
the degree of concentrated disadvantage in African American communities, stating:
“The ‘worst’ urban neighborhoods in which Whites reside are considerably better
off than those of the average Black community” (p. 354; see also Sampson & Bean,
2006; Sampson & Wilson, 1995). On the flip side of this observation, Peterson and
Krivo (2010) note: “The most advantaged African American areas are no better off
than the typical white neighborhood” (p. 55).
The economic and social disadvantages characteristic of predominantly African
American communities are strong predictors of neighborhood crime and violence
(see Pratt & Cullen, 2005), and research demonstrates that racialized structural disadvantage plays a significant part in explaining differential rates of offending across
Black and White communities (Krivo & Peterson, 1996; McNulty, 2001; McNulty &
Holloway, 2000; Peterson & Krivo, 2010; Sampson, 2012; Shihadeh & Shrum, 2004).
212
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
Discussions of the processes through which racialized structural disadvantage influences elevated crime rates in African American neighborhoods go beyond Shaw and
McKay’s (1942) emphasis on informal social control to include a variety of interactional, institutional, and cultural mechanisms. We focus on four dominant mechanisms linking racialized structural disadvantage to crime rates: social isolation,
subcultural adaptations, legal cynicism, and collective efficacy.
Sampson and Wilson (1995) purport that the ecological concentration of African
Americans in marginalized areas produces social isolation, which Wilson (1987)
defines as, “The lack of contact or of sustained interactions with individuals and
institutions that represent mainstream society” (p. 60). That is, African Americans
residing in areas of concentrated disadvantage lack access to the conventional institutions, conventional role models, and mainstream socialization that enable people
to realize economic and identity goals through educational attainment, employment,
and other legitimate means (Crutchfield, 2014; Peterson & Krivo, 2010; Peterson,
Krivo, & Browning, 2006; Sampson & Wilson, 1995).
Social isolation is central to Hagan’s (1997) crime and capitalization perspective,
which proposes that globalization and deindustrialization fundamentally altered
African American inner‐city neighborhoods through a process of capital disinvestment that removed opportunities for legitimate work and isolated minority
­residents from conventional institutions and role models (see also Wilson, 1987,
1996, 2009). Hagan maintains that subcultural adaptations arose in socially isolated
communities through a process of recapitalization aimed at providing opportunities for community residents to meet thwarted financial and identity goals. These
adaptations included the establishment of underground economies and criminal
networks meant to fill the voids left by unemployment and social isolation (see also
Wilson, 1996). Indeed, urban ethnographies consistently demonstrate that involvement in the underground economy and in criminal networks allows residents in
marginalized minority communities to meet short‐term financial needs and establish identity goals related to dignity, respect, masculinity, and adult status
(Anderson, 1999; Contreras, 2013; Jones, 2009; Katz, 1988; Rios, 2011; Sullivan,
1989; Venkatesh, 1997).
At the same time that capital disinvestment was creating the conditions ripe for
recapitalization and crime in communities of racialized structural disadvantage,
racialized investments in policing and incarceration were ironically exacerbating
already existing problems and creating additional conditions conducive to crime in
minority communities (Alexander, 2010; Clear, 2007; Drucker, 2013; see De Coster
& Zito, 2016, for an overview). Researchers highlight several criminal justice policies that targeted African Americans in marginalized communities, including
aggressive stop and frisk policies, the war on drugs, and three‐strike laws (Beckett,
Nyrop, & Pfingst, 2006; Fagan & Zimring, 2000; Geller & Fagan, 2010; Peterson &
Krivo, 2010; Piquero, West, Fagan, & Holland, 2006). These policies resulted in
heightened police presence in communities of racialized structural disadvantage
and in the incarceration of large swaths of these communities.
Racialized Elaborations of General Theories of Offending
213
Concentrated incarceration produces a continuous influx and outflow of
community members cycling in and out of jails and prisons, ultimately undermining the already weak institutions and social networks charged with socializing,
controlling, and meeting the needs of community residents (Clear, 2007; Clear &
Frost, 2014; Drakulich, Crutchfield, Matsueda, & Rose, 2012). Furthermore,
­heightened police presence in minority communities results in frequent encounters
between community residents and the police that serve to undermine community
perceptions of police legitimacy (Goffman, 2014; Rios, 2011; Tyler & Fagan, 2008),
particularly when such encounters are deemed unjust or disproportionate (Brunson,
2007; Kirk & Papachristos, 2011; Papachristos, Meares, & Fagan, 2012; Sampson &
Bartusch, 1998; Tyler, Fagan, & Geller, 2014). Unfortunately, studies show that
encounters with police in disadvantaged communities often are unjust and disproportionate in that police use of force and police misconduct are more common in
these areas than in areas of economic and social advantage (Kane, 2005; Terrill &
Reisig, 2003).
Despite the oversurveillance of community residents that comes with heightened
police presence, residents in communities of racialized structural disadvantage
maintain that they cannot rely on the law to protect them when they are victimized
(Anderson, 1999; Jones, 2009; Rios, 2011). Rios (2011) refers to this as the overpolicing/underpolicing paradox, noting that ineffective police protection combined with
the oversurveillance of community residents erodes trust in law enforcement. Such
erosion of trust is at the heart of recent discussions of legal cynicism as a characteristic
of communities that links racialized structural disadvantage to crime.
Kirk and Papachristos (2011) define legal cynicism as, “A cultural orientation in
which the law and the agents of its enforcement, such as the police and courts, are
viewed as illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill equipped to ensure public safety”
(p. 1191; see also Kirk & Matsuda, 2011). The realization that police cannot be relied
upon for protection and justice leads to community adaptations that prove conducive to crime (Kirk & Matsuda, 2011, Kirk & Papachristos, 2011). For instance,
Anderson’s (1999) urban ethnography links legal cynicism to the emergence of a
street code in which the use of violence is deemed appropriate or even obligatory for
community residents to protect themselves, their families and friends, and their
routinely challenged reputations that serve as safeguards from victimization (Jacobs
& Wright, 2006; Jones, 2009; Laidler & Hunt, 2001; Miller, 2008; Mullins, Wright, &
Jacobs, 2004; Ness, 2010; Wilkinson, 2001).
In addition, residents in communities in which legal cynicism is a dominating
cultural frame are unlikely to report crimes to the police or to cooperate with police
in solving and preventing crimes (Baumer, 2002; Slocum, Taylor, Brick, & Esbensen,
2010; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan, 2008; Venkatesh, 2008). This undermines the potency of formal social control in communities. Kirk and Matsuda
(2011) show that informal social control is also attenuated by legal cynicism.
Specifically, legal cynicism undermines collective efficacy, described by Sampson
(2012) as the belief that neighbors can and should work collectively to achieve
214
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
common goals (see also Morenoff, Sampson, & Raudenbush, 2001; Sampson, 2002;
Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999; Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). Even if
residents have social ties in their community that they could mobilize in efforts to
prevent and control crime, their lack of faith in the legal system dampens the
­actualization of their social ties because community residents believe that collective
efforts will not make any difference or, even worse, could result in retaliation or
­retribution (Crutchfield & Weeks, 2015).
Overall, structural explanations for elevated rates of offending in African
American communities relative to White communities extend social disorganization theory to offer that deeply ingrained structural racism limits the residential
choices of Black individuals and families, ultimately concentrating them in communities of economic and social isolation that have been the disproportionate targets of
overpolicing and mass incarceration. Community adaptations to racialized structural disadvantage and targeted criminal justice interventions produce elevated
crime rates as minority communities grow cynical of both the legal system and their
capacity for collective action aimed at the prevention and control of crime.
Subcultural adaptations conducive to crime emerge ultimately in an attempt to meet
the immediate economic, identity, and security needs of community residents that
would otherwise be met through education, employment, the criminal justice
system, and informal networks that are readily mobilized to achieve community goals.
Race Discrimination and Individual‐Level Perspectives
on Street Offending
Like structural‐level theories, individual‐level perspectives on the race gap in
offending focus on differential exposure to risk (motivation) and protective (­ control)
factors highlighted as relevant for offending in traditional theories of crime. In
providing an overview of some of these perspectives, we focus on those that root
traditional perspectives within a racialized framework to deliberate the influence
of race discrimination—structural and interpersonal—on the opportunities,
­constraints, and interactions relevant to offending. We begin our overview with
studies that link individual offending to structural racism because the general
emphasis on restricted access to advantaged neighborhoods in these studies aligns
with structural‐level perspectives already discussed.
Individual‐level perspectives that focus on structural racism maintain that understanding why Black individuals engage in more street crime and violence than White
individuals requires an interrogation of the structural and cultural characteristics of
the communities in which people navigate daily life. Drawing on themes from structural perspectives on race and crime, researchers have shown that residing in a
community of racialized structural disadvantage promotes individual offending and
helps explain why Black individuals are more likely to offend than their White
­counterparts (De Coster et al., 2006; Elliott et al., 1996; McNulty & Bellair, 2003a,
Racialized Elaborations of General Theories of Offending
215
2003b; Sampson et al., 2005). Explications of the social‐psychological dynamics
through which differential exposure to racialized structural disadvantage shapes the
race gap in offending have focused on social processes articulated in general theories of offending, including social control and differential association theories.
Social control theory proposes that individuals who are bonded to society through
strong attachments and commitments to conventional people, institutions, and
future goals have stakes in conformity that render them unlikely to offend for fear of
jeopardizing their social bonds (Hirschi, 1969). In communities characterized by
economic and social isolation, the development and maintenance of social bonds is
substantially more difficult than in communities of advantage where people have
access to conventional role models, conventional institutions, and mainstream
socialization that fosters opportunities for legitimate success in education and work
(Sampson & Wilson, 1995).
Communities of concentrated disadvantage, for instance, offer limited access to
the conventional institution of work. In particular, these communities provide few
opportunities for residents to secure employment in quality jobs that provide decent
pay, good work conditions, and promotion prospects (Crutchfield, 2014; Crutchfield,
Matsueda, & Drakulich, 2006; Crutchfield & Pitchford, 1997; Wilson, 1987, 1996).
The jobs community residents fill are most often intermittent and in the secondary
labor market, and thereby are unlikely to foster bonds to employment and coworkers
that serve as stakes in conformity. Racialized criminal justice policies that resulted
in the incarceration of large numbers of African Americans from disadvantaged
communities further exacerbate challenges to securing long‐term employment
among residents of minority communities because prison terms disrupt the
accumulation of human and social capital essential for fostering employment
(Comfort, 2008; Edin, 2000), and employers directly discriminate against those who
have served time by using criminal justice entanglements as negative signals about
the work ethics and trustworthiness of jobseekers (Pager, 2003, 2007; Pettit &
Western, 2004). In fact, Pager (2003, 2007) concludes that the combined effects of
race discrimination and discrimination on the basis of a criminal record effectively
disqualify Black men with criminal records from employment.
Local labor market conditions, concentrated incarceration, and affiliated
individual‐level difficulties in securing long‐term employment reach beyond the
realm of work to influence family structure, family bonds, and the fortunes not only
of adults but also of children and adolescents in communities of racialized disadvantage (Anderson, 1999; Bellair, Roscigno, & McNulty, 2003; Wakefield & Uggen,
2010; Wakefield & Wildeman, 2013; Wilson, 1996). Wilson (1987, 1996) emphasizes
that the labor market conditions of marginalized minority communities breed
family instability and impede family formation because men who are unable to
secure well‐paying jobs that enable them to fulfill the family breadwinning role are
resistant to marrying (see also Anderson, 1999). Criminal justice experiences add
additional challenges to the formation and preservation of two‐parent families
because incarceration breaks up intact families and leads women to retreat from
216
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
marriage because they view formerly incarcerated men as unfavorable marriage
partners (Comfort, 2008; Edin, 2000; Edin & Nelson, 2013; Western & Wildeman,
2009). Thus, the targets of systemic and institutional racism are at increased risk of
offending because they often lack conventional bonds to marriage, which serve as
stakes in conformity (Laub & Sampson, 2001; Sampson & Laub, 1993).
Moreover, the resultant high rate of female‐headed households in disadvantaged
communities is a racialized risk for offending among African American adolescents
who commonly grow up in households with only one parent (Matsueda & Heimer,
1987; Wright & Younts, 2009). In particular, researchers emphasize that the demands
of parenting are more taxing for economically disadvantaged single mothers, who
have less time, energy, and economic resources to devote to parenting than two
­parents in more advantaged circumstances have. As a result, children who are raised
by single mothers in disadvantaged communities are less likely than other children
to be controlled through the use of parental supervision and the fostering of
parent–child relational bonds that function as stakes in conformity (see Hirschi,
1969; Matsueda and Heimer 1987; McNulty & Bellair, 2003b).
Along with undermining family structure and family control processes, racialized
structural disadvantage and racialized incarceration practices weaken adolescents’
protective bonds to education and conventional futures (Anderson, 1999; Foster &
Hagan, 2007, 2015; Hagan & Foster, 2012). This is not entirely unexpected, given
that youth in disadvantaged settings have limited exposure in their families and
communities to role models who have achieved economic success conventionally,
which informs their perceptions of local labor market opportunities and the (un)
likelihood that education will reap future rewards for them (Anderson, 1999;
McNulty & Bellair, 2003b; Wilson, 1996). In addition, the parental incarceration
that many disadvantaged minority youth experience can lead their teachers to view
them as having poor education prospects and inferior educational competence, thus
undercutting student commitment as a consequence of reduced investments in
them and their futures (Clear, 2007; Dallaire, Ciccone, & Wilson, 2010; Hagan &
Foster, 2012).
Overall, the development and maintenance of conventional bonds to family
(marriage partners or parents), education, and employment are systematically
­patterned by community racialized disadvantage and concentrated incarceration.
Given that these bonds prevent offending by providing individuals with commitment and attachment costs, researchers posit that the race gap in offending can be
explained by considering how structural racism undermines the protective processes
articulated in social control theory. Individual‐level studies of race and adolescent
offending in communities of concentrated disadvantage, however, show that weak
social bonds are less relevant for understanding the link between concentrated
community disadvantage and offending than are variables derived from differential
association theory (De Coster et al., 2006; McNulty & Bellair, 2003a, 2003b).
Differential association theory contends that people learn behaviors and definitions of appropriate behaviors in interactions with others (Sutherland, 1947). Before
Racialized Elaborations of General Theories of Offending
217
engaging in crime, people must learn techniques, justifications, and motives for
doing so. Drawing on structural‐level perspectives on race and crime, individual‐
level perspectives maintain that people who reside in areas of racialized structural
disadvantage are disproportionately exposed to violence and to a street code that
prescribes the use of violence in a variety of situations (De Coster et al., 2006; Elliott
et al., 1996; McNulty & Bellair, 2003a, 2003b; Stewart, Schreck, & Simons, 2006).
Anderson (1999) emphasizes that the street code is produced by the structural problems of the inner city, noting that concentrated disadvantage and social isolation
from conventional institutions create an environment in which violence is a central
component of life (see also Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003).
Elements of the street environment—including experiencing violence in the form
of victimization and witnessing the violence and victimization of others—teach
community residents justifications for using violence to resolve problems and protect
themselves. For instance, Anderson (1999) finds that young people in the inner city
often witness older people resolving disputes with aggression and violence. These
disputes teach youth that “might makes right,” ultimately promoting definitions
favorable to violence and their own use of violence in future situations. An additional
element of street environment is the embeddedness of community youth in friendships that promote violence, which differential association theory conceptualizes as
associations with deviant or criminal peers (see De Coster et al., 2006).
Studies of race, communities, and individual offending that include differential
association variables—exposure to violence, witnessing violence, delinquent peer
associations, and definitions favorable to violence—show that these variables fully
explain the link between racialized structural disadvantage and offending. A general
conclusion, therefore, is that differences in offending across Black and White
­individuals are shaped by the structural racism that isolates African Americans in
disadvantaged communities where they are exposed to a criminogenic street code
that promotes crime and violence by shaping relationships, interactions, and learned
definitions of behavior.
Overall, explications of the social‐psychological processes through which racialized structural disadvantage influences the race gap in offending have elaborated
traditional social control and differential association theories to consider the
­profound influence structural racism has on individuals through shaping their
social relationships, institutional engagements, and everyday interactions. However,
there is a component of everyday interactions missing in these accounts that some
scholars propose is fundamental for understanding the association between race
and offending. In particular, Unnever, Cullen, Mathers, McClure, and Allison (2009)
describe the neglect of everyday, interpersonal race discrimination as a source of
offending in individual‐level studies of crime to be a “remarkable omission” and a
“criminological blind spot” (pp. 378, 396; Unnever & Gabbidon, 2011).
Studies that address this blind spot consider how interpersonal discrimination—
overt and covert behaviors, comments, or signals that demean a person’s racial identity (e.g., ascriptions of criminality or intellectual inferiority) or invalidate the
218
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
thoughts and experienced realities of minorities (e.g., denial that race matters)—
informs offending behaviors (see Essed, 1991; Feagin, 1991; Pierce, Carew, Pierce‐
Gonzales, & Wills, 1977; Wing Sue et al., 2007, for discussions of interpersonal
discrimination). In considerations of the link between interpersonal discrimination
and offending, researchers most often conceptualize discrimination experiences
as stressors and embed them within the context of general strain theory
(e.g., De Coster & Thompson, 2017; Simons et al., 2006; Stewart et al., 2006).
Agnew’s (1992, 2006) general strain theory maintains that stresses lead to negative
emotions—including anger, frustration, humiliation, fear, and anxiety—that individuals attempt to alleviate through delinquency or crime. Among the stresses
most likely to produce negative emotional and behavioral responses are those that
are perceived to be unjust, undeserved, harmful, and ongoing (Agnew, 2001).
Interpersonal discrimination, which singles out and targets individuals for mistreatment solely on account of race, fits the description of the types of stresses most likely
to induce negative emotions and offending (Agnew, 2006; Simons, Chen, Stewart, &
Brody, 2003). Consistent with strain theory, research documents sequential links
between interpersonal race discrimination, negative emotions, and offending among
African American adolescents (Martin et al., 2011; Moon, Hays, & Blurton, 2009;
Simons et al., 2006; Stewart et al., 2006; Unnever et al., 2009). Moreover, race differentials in offending across White and Black adolescents are fully accounted for by
differential exposure to interpersonal discrimination in a recent study that explicitly
addresses the race gap in offending (De Coster & Thompson, 2017).
Some strain studies of interpersonal discrimination integrate arguments from
subcultural and differential association theories (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960; Sutherland,
1947) to propose that delinquent peer associations and learned justifications for
delinquency operate alongside negative emotions to link interpersonal discrimination
and offending. The argument is that experiences of interpersonal race discrimination
can lead adolescents to join oppositional peer groups, where they use their
discrimination experiences to justify crime and delinquency as acceptable within
social systems they deem illegitimate for allowing or promoting injustice (De Coster
& Thompson, 2017; Burt, Simons, & Gibbons, 2012; Simons et al., 2003). This, of
course, aligns with discussions of legal cynicism as a community characteristic in
structural‐level perspectives on race and offending (Kirk & Matsuda, 2011; Kirk &
Papachristos, 2011).
Discussions of factors that protect or buffer individuals from offending when
confronted with interpersonal discrimination echo social control theory’s emphasis
on parental bonds but go beyond traditional perspectives to consider protective
factors that are race‐specific, including positive racial identity and family racial
socialization that focuses on the instillation of racial pride and preparedness for
racial bias (Burt & Simons, 2015; Burt et al., 2012). Weak support for the mediating
capacity of family control deficits—low parental supervision and weak parent–child
relational bonds—in studies linking racialized structural disadvantage to individual
offending may well be explained by considering that adaptive family socialization
Racialized Elaborations of General Theories of Offending
219
practices in minority communities are a countervailing family mechanism that
reduces African American offending in disadvantaged communities even when traditional family social control is weak.
In sum, explanations for differences in street offending across White and Black
individuals have integrated broad discussions of structural and interpersonal
discrimination with traditional theories of offending to underscore that place
­matters not only for understanding rates of offending across Black and White
­communities but also for understanding offending differentials across individuals
differentially situated in hierarchies of race. Explanations for why racialized structural disadvantage matters for individual offending have drawn on social control
and differential association theories to consider weakened labor market and family
bonds, a street context that teaches attitudes favorable to violence, and associations
with crime‐involved peers as mechanisms that link communities to individual street
offending and to race differentials in offending. General strain perspectives supplement these explanations by demonstrating that interpersonal race discrimination is
also a risk factor for African American offending that can help explain the race gap
in offending, though Black families and individuals have developed adaptive
resources—racial socialization and positive racial identities—that effectively interrupt the translation of interpersonal race discrimination into offending behaviors.
Conclusions
Elaborations of general theories of offending—including social disorganization,
social control, differential association, and general strain theories—demonstrate the
relevance of these theories for understanding elevated rates of street offending
among African Americans relative to Whites. In particular, racialized elaborations
of general theories underscore that racism at the structural, institutional, and interpersonal levels profoundly shapes the opportunities, constraints, and processes that
traditional theories highlight as relevant for understanding variability in crime
across Black and White communities and individuals. In concluding our overview
of racialized elaborations of the general theories of offending, we offer some prescriptions for future theoretical and empirical work aimed at further unpacking the
race gap in street offending observed across and within communities.
First, further understanding the race gap in street offending requires consideration
of how multiple racisms feed into one another, colluding to shape the material conditions, social environments, and interpersonal dynamics relevant for understanding
crime rates and individual criminal behavior. Although criminology has come a
long way in integrating racialized perspectives into traditional theories that were
developed without explicit consideration of how race shapes opportunities and
interactions, more work is required to integrate the racialized perspectives developed at various levels of analysis and across theoretical camps of social control,
differential association, and strain. A more complete portrait of racism and crime
220
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
will draw attention to the myriad ways in which structural discrimination—in the
labor market, residential segregation, educational policy, and the politics of criminal
justice—colludes with interpersonal discrimination within these same institutional
settings to both increase criminal offending and reproduce structural inequalities.
Second, additional research is needed to consider the complex ways in which
gender intersects with race and place to influence violence and offending.
Intersectionalities perspectives in criminology reveal that structures and cultures of
gender, race, and place weave together to create a complex tapestry of opportunities,
constraints, and motivations that shape crime and violence across groups and individuals differentially situated in race and gender hierarchies (see De Coster &
Heimer, 2006, 2017, for overviews). More fully understanding links between racism
and offending requires consideration of, for instance, why Black males engage in
more street offending than Black females, whose offending rates more closely
approximate those of White males than White females (Goodkind, Wallace, Shook,
Bachman, & O’Malley, 2009).
A third area ripe for further consideration is racisms and crime in rural contexts.
Most studies of race and crime suffer from an urban bias, rooted in social disorganization theory’s focus on cities and their social problems. However, structural inequalities and race discrimination are no less relevant for the lives of the 57.7 percent of
African Americans who reside outside urban centers, including the 14.2 percent who
live in rural or small‐town areas, as well as the many Latino/a, Native American, and
other ethnic minority groups who live in rural communities (2010 Census). Living
conditions of rural and small‐town racial minority communities—found throughout
the southern “Black Belt,” on reservations, and in border towns—are marked by substandard housing, social and geographic isolation, and concentrated poverty
(Lichter, Parisi, & Taquino, 2012), the same factors associated with crime in urban
neighborhoods. However, evidence from Pew Research polling suggests that Black
rural residents report less race discrimination in a variety of institutional settings
relative to their urban counterparts (Patten, 2013). Thus, a comprehensive understanding of the race gap in offending across geographic space may necessitate
attention to variations in institutional and interpersonal experiences of racism
across urban, suburban, and rural areas.
References
Agnew, R. (1992). Foundation for a general strain theory of crime and delinquency.
Criminology, 30(1), 47–87.
Agnew, R. (2001). Building on the foundation of general strain theory: Specifying the types
of strain most likely to lead to crime and delinquency. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 38(4), 319–361.
Agnew, R. (2006). Pressured into crime. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury.
Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New
York, NY: New Press.
Racialized Elaborations of General Theories of Offending
221
Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city.
New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Baumer, E. (2002). Neighborhood disadvantage and police notification by victims of v­ iolence.
Criminology, 40(3), 579–616.
Beckett, K., Nyrop, K., & Pfingst, L. (2006). Race, drugs, and policing: Understanding disparities in drug delivery arrests. Criminology, 44(1), 105–137.
Bellair, P. E., Roscigno, V. J., & McNulty, T. L. (2003). Linking local labor market opportunity
to violent adolescent delinquency. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency,
40(1), 6–33.
Brunson, R. K. (2007). “Police don’t like Black people”: African‐American young men’s accumulated police experiences. Criminology & Public Policy, 6(1), 71–101.
Bursik, R. J. (1988). Social disorganization and theories of crime and delinquency: Problems
and prospects. Criminology, 26(4), 519–552.
Burt, C. H., & Simons, R. L. (2015). Interpersonal racial discrimination, ethnic‐racial socialization, and offending: Risk and resilience among African American females. Justice
Quarterly, 32(3), 532–570.
Burt, C. H., Simons, R. L. & Gibbons, F. X. (2012). Racial discrimination, ethnic‐racial socialization, and crime: A micro‐sociological model of risk and resilience. American
Sociological Review, 77(4), 648–77.
Clear, T. R. (2007). Imprisoning communities: How mass incarceration makes disadvantaged
neighborhoods worse. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Clear, T. R., & Frost, N. A. (2014). The punishment imperative: The rise and failure of mass
incarceration in America. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Cloward, R. A., & Ohlin, L. E. (1960). Delinquency and opportunity. New York, NY: Free Press.
Comfort, M. (2008). Doing time together: Love and family in the shadow of the prison. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Contreras, R. (2013). The stickup kids: Race, drugs, violence, and the American dream.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Crutchfield, R. D. (2014). Get a job: Labor markets, economic opportunity, and crime.
New York, NY: New York University Press.
Crutchfield, R. D., Matsueda, R. L., & Drakulich, K. (2006). Race, labor markets, and neighborhood violence. In R. Peterson, L. J. Krivo, & J. J. Hagan (Eds.), The many colors of
crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity and crime in America (pp. 199–220). New York, NY:
New York University Press.
Crutchfield, R. D., & Pitchford, S. R. (1997). Work and crime: The effects of labor stratification. Social Forces, 76(1), 93–118.
Crutchfield, R. D., & Weeks, G. A. (2015). The effects of mass incarceration on communities
of color. Issues in Science and Technology, 32(1), 109–119.
Dallaire, D., Ciccone, A., & Wilson, L. (2010). Teachers’ experiences with and expectations
of ­children with incarcerated parents. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology,
31(4), 281–9
De Coster, S., Heimer, K., & Wittrock, S. M. (2006). Neighborhood disadvantage, social
capital, street context, and youth violence. Sociological Quarterly, 47(1), 723–753.
De Coster, S., & Heimer, K. (2006). Crime at the intersection: Gender, race, and violent
offending. In R. Peterson, L. J. Krivo, & J. J. Hagan (Eds.), The many colors of crime:
Inequalities of race, ethnicity and crime in America (pp. 138–156). New York, NY:
New York University Press.
222
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
De Coster, S., & Heimer, K. (2017). Choice within constraint: An explanation of crime at the
intersections. Theoretical Criminology, 2(1), 11–22.
De Coster, S., & Thompson, M. S. (2017). Race and general strain theory: Microaggressions
as mundane extreme environmental stresses. Justice Quarterly, 34(5), 903–930. doi:10.1
080/07418825.2016.1236204
De Coster, S., & Zito, R. C. (2016). The social landscape of intractable offending among
African American males in marginalized contexts. In B. Teasdale & M. Bradley (Eds.),
Preventing crime and violence (pp. 113–122). New York, NY: Springer.
Drakulich, K. M., Crutchfield, R. D., Matsueda, R. L., & Rose, K. (2012). Instability, informal
control, and criminogenic situations: Community effects of returning prisoners. Crime,
Law and Social Change, 57(5), 493–519.
Drucker, E. (2013). A plague of prisons: The epidemiology of mass incarceration in America.
New York, NY: New Press.
Edin, K. (2000). Few good men: Why low‐income single mothers don’t get married. American
Prospect, 11(4), 26–31.
Edin K., & Nelson, T. J. (2013). Doing the best I can: Fatherhood in the inner city. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Elliott, D. S., Wilson, W. J., Huizinga, D., Sampson, R. J., Elliott, A., & Rankin, B. (1996). The
effects of neighborhood disadvantage on adolescent development. Journal of Research in
Crime and Delinquency, 33(4), 389–426.
Essed, P. (1991). Understanding everyday racism: An interdisciplinary theory. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage.
Fagan, J., & Zimring, F. E. (Eds.). (2000). The changing borders of juvenile justice: Transfers
of adolescents to the criminal court. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Feagin, J. R. (1991). The continuing significance of race: Antiblack discrimination in public
places. American Sociological Review, 56(1), 101–116.
Foster, H., & Hagan, J. (2007). Incarceration and intergenerational social exclusion. Social
Problems, 54(4), 399–433.
Foster, H., & Hagan, J. (2015). Punishment regimes and the multilevel effects of parental
incarceration: Intergenerational, intersectional, and interinstitutional models of social
inequality and systemic exclusion. Annual Review of Sociology, 41(1), 135–158.
Geller, A. B., & Fagan, J. (2010). Pot as pretext: Marijuana, race and the new disorder in New
York City street policing. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 7(4), 591–633.
Goffman, A. (2014). On the run: Fugitive life in an American city. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Goodkind, S., Wallace, J. M., Shook, J. J., Bachman, J., & O’Malley, P. (2009). Are girls really
becoming more delinquent? Testing the gender convergence hypothesis by race and ethnicity, 1976–2005. Children and Youth Services Review, 31(8), 885–895.
Hagan, J. (1997). Crime and capitalization: Toward a developmental theory of street crime in
America. In T. P. Thornberry (Ed.), Developmental theories of crime and delinquency (pp.
287–308). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Hagan, J., & Foster, H. (2012). Intergenerational educational effects of mass imprisonment in
America. Sociology of Education, 85(3), 259–286.
Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Jacobs, B. A., & Wright, R. (2006). Street justice: Retaliation in the criminal underworld. New
York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Racialized Elaborations of General Theories of Offending
223
Jones, N. (2009). Between good and ghetto: African American girls and inner‐city violence.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Kane, R. J. (2005). Compromised police legitimacy as a predictor of violent crime in structurally disadvantaged communities. Criminology, 43(2), 469–498.
Katz, J. (1988). Seductions of crime: Moral and sensual attractions in doing evil. New York, NY:
Basic Books.
Kirk, D. S., & Matsuda, M. (2011). Legal cynicism, collective efficacy, and the ecology of
arrest. Criminology, 49(2), 443–472.
Kirk, D. S., & Papachristos, A. V. (2011). Cultural mechanisms and the persistence of neighborhood violence. American Journal of Sociology, 116(4), 1190–1233.
Kornhauser, R. R. (1978). Social sources of delinquency: An appraisal of analytic models.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Krivo, L. J., & Peterson, R. D. (1996). Extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods and urban
crime. Social Forces, 75(2), 619–648.
Kubrin, C. E., & Weitzer, R. (2003). Retaliatory homicide: Concentrated disadvantage and
neighborhood culture. Social Problems, 50(2), 157–180.
Laidler, K. J., & Hunt, G. (2001). Accomplishing femininity among the girls in the gang.
British Journal of Criminology, 41(4), 656–678.
Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2001). Understanding desistance from crime. In M. Tonry
(Ed.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 28, pp. 1–69). Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Lichter, D. T., Parisi, D., & Taquino, M. C. (2012). The geography of exclusion: Race, segregation, and concentrated poverty. Social Problems, 59(3), 364–388.
Martin, M. J., McCarthy, B., Conger, R. D., Gibbons, F. X., Simons, R. L., Cutrona, C. E., &
Brody, G. H. (2011). The enduring significance of racism: Discrimination and
delinquency among Black American youth. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(3),
662–676.
Massey, D. S., & Denton, N. A. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the
underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Matsueda, R. L., & Heimer, K. (1987). Race, family structure, and delinquency: A test of
differential association and social control theories. American Sociological Review, 52(6),
826–840.
McNulty, T. L. (2001). Assessing the race–violence relationship at the macro level: The
assumption of racial invariance and the problem of restricted distributions. Criminology,
39(2), 301–324.
McNulty, T. L., & Bellair, P. E. (2003a). Explaining racial and ethnic differences in adolescent
violence: Structural disadvantage, family well‐being, and social capital. Justice Quarterly,
20(1), 1–31.
McNulty, T. L., & Bellair, P. E. (2003b). Explaining racial and ethnic differences in serious
adolescent violent behavior. Criminology, 41(3), 709–744.
McNulty, Thomas L., & Holloway, S. R. (2000). Race, crime, and public housing in Atlanta:
Testing a conditional effect hypothesis. Social Forces, 79(2), 707–729.
Miller, J. (2008). Getting played: African American girls, urban inequality, and gendered violence. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Moon, B., Hays, K., & Blurton, D. (2009). General strain theory, key strains, and deviance.
Journal of Criminal Justice, 37(1), 98–106.
224
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
Morenoff, J. D., Sampson, R. J., & Raudenbush, S. W. (2001). Neighborhood inequality, collective
efficacy, and the spatial dynamics of urban violence. Criminology, 39(3), 517–558.
Mullins, C. W., Wright, R., & Jacobs, B. A. (2004). Gender, streetlife and criminal retaliation.
Criminology, 42(4), 911–940.
Ness, C. D. (2010). Why girls fight: Female youth violence in the inner city. New York, NY:
New York University Press.
Pager, D. (2003). The mark of a criminal record. American Journal of Sociology, 108(5),
937–975.
Pager, D. (2007). The use of field experiments for studies of employment discrimination:
Contributions, critiques, and directions for the future. Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, 609(1), 104–133.
Papachristos, A. V., Meares, T. L., & Fagan, J. (2012). Why do criminals obey the law? The
influence of legitimacy and social networks on active gun offenders. Journal of Criminal
Law and Criminology, 102(2), 397–440.
Patten, E. (2013, August 28). The Black–White and urban–rural divides in perceptions of
racial fairness. FactTank. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact‐tank/2013/08/
28/the‐black‐white‐and‐urban‐rural‐divides‐in‐perceptions‐of‐racial‐fairness/
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2005). Macrostructural analyses of race, ethnicity, and violent
crime: Recent lessons and new directions for research. Annual Review of Sociology,
31(1), 331–356.
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2010). Divergent social worlds: Neighborhood crime and the
racial‐spatial divide. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Peterson, R. D., Krivo, L. J., & Browning, C. R. (2006). Segregation and racial/ethnic inequality
in crime: New directions. In F. Cullen, J. Wright, & K. Blevins (Eds.), Taking stock: The
status of criminological theory (pp. 169–190). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Pettit, B., & Western, B. (2004). Mass Imprisonment and the life course: Race and class
inequality in US incarceration. American Sociological Review, 69(2), 151–169.
Pierce, C. M., Carew, J. V., Pierce‐Gonzalez, D., & Wills, D. (1977). An experiment in racism:
TV commercials. Education and Urban Society, 10(1), 61–87.
Piquero, A. R., West, V., Fagan, J., & Holland, J. (2006). Neighborhood, race, and the economic
consequences of incarceration in New York City, 1985–1996. In R. Peterson, L. J. Krivo,
& J. J. Hagan (Eds.), The many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity and crime in
America (pp. 256–276). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Pratt, T. C., & Cullen, F. T. (2005). Assessing macro‐level predictors and theories of crime:
A meta‐analysis. Crime and Justice, 32(1), 373–450.
Rios, V. M. (2011). Punished: Policing the lives of Black and Latino boys. New York, NY:
New York University Press.
Sampson, R. J. (1987). Urban Black violence: The effect of male joblessness and family
­disruption. American Journal of Sociology, 93(2), 348–382.
Sampson, R. J. (2002). Transcending tradition: New directions in community research,
Chicago style. Criminology, 40(2), 213–230.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Sampson, R. J., & Bartusch, D. J. (1998). Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) tolerance of
­deviance: The neighborhood context of racial differences. Law and Society Review,
32(4), 777–804.
Racialized Elaborations of General Theories of Offending
225
Sampson, R. J., & Bean, L. (2006). Cultural mechanisms and killing fields: A revised theory
of community‐level racial inequality. In R. Peterson, L. J. Krivo, & J. J. Hagan (Eds.), The
many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity and crime in America (pp. 8–36). New
York, NY: New York University Press.
Sampson, R. J., & Groves, W. B. (1989). Community structure and crime: Testing social‐disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology, 94(4), 774–802.
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1993). Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points through
life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Earls, F. (1999). Beyond social capital: Spatial dynamics of
collective efficacy for children. American Sociological Review, 64(5), 633–660.
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Raudenbush, S. (2005). Social anatomy of racial and ethnic
disparities in violence. American Journal of Public Health, 95(2), 224–232.
Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A
multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277(5328), 918–924.
Sampson, R. J., & Wilson, W. J. (1995). Toward a theory of race, crime, and urban inequality.
In J. Hagan and R. D. Peterson (Eds.), Crime and inequality (pp. 37–56). Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Shaw, C. R., & McKay, H. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Shihadeh, E. S., & Shrum, W. (2004). Serious crime in urban neighborhoods: Is there a race
effect? Sociological Spectrum, 24(4), 507–533.
Simons, R. L., Chen, Y.‐F., Stewart, E. A., & Brody, G. (2003). Incidents of discrimination and
risk for delinquency: A longitudinal test of strain theory with an African American
sample. Justice Quarterly, 20(4), 501–528.
Simons, R. L., Simons, L. G., Burt, C. H., Drummund, H., Stewart, E., Brody, G. H., …
Cutrona, C. (2006). Supportive parenting moderates the effect of discrimination upon
anger, hostile view of relationships, and violence among African American boys. Journal
of Health and Social Behavior, 47(4), 373–389.
Slocum, L. A., Taylor, T. J., Brick, B. T., & Esbensen, F.‐A. (2010). Neighborhood Structural
characteristics, individual‐level attitudes, and youths’ crime reporting intentions.
Criminology, 48(4), 1063–100.
Stewart, E. A., Schreck, C. J., & Simons, R. L. (2006). “I ain’t gonna let no one disrespect me”:
Does the code of the street reduce or increase violent victimization among African
American adolescents? Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 43(4), 427–458.
Sullivan, M. L. (1989). “Getting paid”: Youth crime and work in the inner city. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Sunshine, J, & Tyler, T. R. (2003). The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping
public support for policing. Law & Society Review, 37(3), 555–89.
Sutherland, E. H. (1947). Principles of criminology (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott.
Terrill, W., & Reisig, M. D. (2003). Neighborhood context and police use of force. Journal of
Research in Crime and Delinquency, 40(3), 291–321.
Tyler, T. R., and Fagan, J. (2008). Why do people cooperate with the police? Ohio Journal of
Criminal Law, 6(1), 231–275.
Tyler, T. R., Fagan, J., & Geller, A. (2014). Street stops and police legitimacy: Teachable
moments in young urban men’s legal socialization. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies,
11(4), 751–785.
226
Stacy De Coster, Rena C. Zito, and Jennifer Lutz
Unnever, J. D. (2014). A theory of African American offending: A test of core propositions.
Race and Justice, 4, 98–123.
Unnever, J. D., Cullen, F. T., Mathers, S. A., McClure, T. E., & Allison, M. C. (2009). Racial
discrimination and Hirschi’s criminological classic: A chapter in the sociology of
knowledge. Justice Quarterly, 26(3), 377–409.
Unnever, J. D., & Gabbidon, S. L. (2011). A theory of African American offending: Race, ­racism,
and crime. New York, NY: Routledge.
Velez, M. (2006). Toward an understanding of the lower rates of homicide in Latino versus
Black neighborhoods: A look at Chicago. In R. Peterson, L. J. Krivo, & J. J. Hagan (Eds.),
The many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity and crime in America (pp. 91–
107). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Venkatesh, S. A. (1997). The social organization of street gang activity in an urban ghetto.
American Journal of Sociology, 103(1), 82–111.
Venkatesh, S. A. (2008) Gang leader for a day: A rogue sociologist takes to the streets. New
York, NY: Penguin.
Wakefield, S., & Uggen, C. (2010). Incarceration and stratification. Annual Review of
Sociology, 36(1), 387–406.
Wakefield, S., & Wildeman, C. (2013). Children of the prison boom: Mass incarceration and
the future of American inequality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Western, B., & Wildeman, C. (2009). The Black family and mass incarceration. Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 621(1), 221–42.
Wilkinson, D. L. (2001). Violent events and social identity: Specifying the relationship
­between respect and masculinity in inner‐city youth violence. In L. E. Bass (Ed.),
Sociological studies of children and youth (pp. 231–265). Stanford, CA: Elsevier Science.
Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, W. J. (1996). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York, NY:
Vintage Press.
Wilson, W. J. (2009). Toward a framework for understanding forces that contribute to or reinforce racial inequality. Race and Social Problems, 1(1), 3–11.
Wing Sue, D., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L.,
& Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life. American Psychologist,
62(4), 271–286.
Wright, B. R. Entner, & Younts, C. W. (2009). Reconsidering the relationship between race
and crime: Positive and negative predictors of crime among African American youth.
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 46(3), 327–352.
10
What Was Old Is New Again:
An Examination of Contemporary
Theoretical Approaches Used in Race,
Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice Research
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
Theoretical approaches to the study of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice drive the
academic dialogue around the race/ethnicity–crime connection. An examination of
these approaches reveals that much of the contemporary criminological research
focused on race and ethnicity continues to rely on traditional theoretical perspec­
tives. Traditional views are focused on perspectives developed and advanced pri­
marily by White male academics from privileged backgrounds, while more
contemporary theories tend to examine the race/ethnicity–crime connection
through a critical or intersectional lens (Potter, 2015). As Potter (2015) states, “This
White male racial frame also bleeds into the production of theory and research and
into the determination of who is considered a valid practitioner and producer of
academic enterprise” (p. 4). These concerns indicate that a careful examination and
critique of the dominant theoretical approaches used in contemporary criminolog­
ical research is needed.
In an attempt to move beyond the domination of the White male racial frame
when considering questions of race and ethnicity in the study of crime and justice,
this chapter provides a critical analysis of contemporary research trends. Much of
the contemporary criminology and criminal justice research continues to focus on
advancing traditional criminological theory (although some research has advanced
in new areas such as intersectionality and critical race theory in recent years). When
race is included in contemporary research, it is often included as an afterthought or
a “control variable” without a focus on why experiences are so different for individ­
uals who differ in their identities on a variety of fronts—including race and
ethnicity. Race and crime research frequently involves the reinterpretation of
­
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
228
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
t­ raditional theories in an effort to explain both racial disparities in experiences with
the justice system and crime and victimization rates. This focus on reinterpretation
of ­traditional theories could stagnate the advancement of our understanding of race/
ethnicity concerns; however, there is a growing group of activist scholars focused on
intersectionality concerns (to be defined in a later section). This contemporary work
often focuses on (or borrows from) feminist, critical, and Marxist perspectives,
making race and ethnicity a central focus of research efforts rather than an after­
thought or “control” included in an attempt to “measure” a key explanatory variable
in criminological research.
This chapter examines current theoretical approaches used to study the relation­
ship between race/ethnicity and crime/justice. The chapter begins by examining
how dominant theoretical approaches continue to rely on traditional criminological
theories, while highlighting areas where there is a need to expand research beyond
traditional crime theories in an effort to understand the intersectionality of race,
ethnicity, and crime. The discussion then turns to an overview of alternative
approaches that could serve to expand our understanding of the race/ethnicity–
crime connection. This section includes an examination of critical and Marxist the­
ories in an effort to highlight alternative approaches that might be more appropriate
than recycling traditional theories and including a race “control” variable. The focus
shifts to an analysis of the need for the development of integrated theoretical
approaches that incorporate not only race and racial formation theories, but also
theories that examine other concerns such as gender identity, socioeconomic/class
status, and nationality/ethnic identity/immigration status. This dialogue serves to
highlight the need to avoid grand theories of “race” that are interpreted to be exhaus­
tive for individual groups and subgroups while ignoring the intersecting influences
on each individual’s lived experience. This leads to an examination of the impor­
tance of intersectionality in the study of race/ethnicity, crime, and justice. The
chapter concludes by summarizing the state of contemporary research while making
recommendations to advance the field in this area. The chapter conclusion high­
lights the modern academic responsibility to develop both quantitative and
qualitative, “action‐based” research that highlights and improves the criminogenic
circumstances in which we know race and ethnicity intersect.
Dominance of Traditional Theories of Crime and Delinquency
Research examining the intersections of race, ethnicity, crime, and criminal justice
continue to focus on the application of traditional theoretical perspectives to explain
differences in rates of offending between groups. Although the Chapter 9 provided
a more detailed examination of the use and application of traditional theories of
criminology and criminal justice, we revisit these approaches here with a focus on
how they continue to be used in contemporary work. This examination of the con­
temporary literature provides the basis for later discussions of theoretical approaches
to examining race/ethnicity, crime, and criminal justice.
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
229
Although research using virtually all criminological paradigms has attempted to
address race and ethnicity concerns in recent studies, this chapter highlights two
opposing areas in an effort to highlight some of the biggest challenges facing
­contemporary criminologists. This discussion begins with an examination of social
ecological approaches to studying race, ethnicity, and crime, with a focus on the use
of social disorganization theory (Shaw & McKay, 1969). The discussion then turns
to a dramatically different approach that has seen renewed interest in recent years—
biological and biosocial theoretical approaches.
Social Ecology, Race, Ethnicity, and Crime
Social‐structural (or macro‐level) criminological theories examine social‐structural
explanations such as class and socioeconomic structures for criminal behavior.
These approaches might use nations, regions, states, counties, cities, or neighbor­
hoods as the unit of analysis and are typically used to examine group and/or societal
dynamics that can lead to higher rates of crime in one place rather than another.
Much of the contemporary theoretical work examining the intersections of race/
ethnicity, crime, and justice is based in social disorganization theory. This work has
consistently found that variations in neighborhood structural characteristics are
associated with variations in crime and delinquency (e.g., Bursik & Grasmick, 1993;
Bursik & Webb, 1982; Peterson & Krivo, 2010; Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls,
1997). Social disorganization theory is used to explain crime through organizational
and community‐based mechanisms and emerged as a part of a movement away
from individual explanations of criminality to place‐based and/or social influences
on crime rates in early twentieth‐century scholarship.
Social disorganization theory states that a variety of neighborhood structural
characteristics combine to weaken social networks and decrease the community’s
ability to control public (and private) behaviors, resulting in an increase in crime.
Essentially, when neighborhood residents do not participate in the social life and
networks that exist in their neighborhoods, this can combine with a failure to collec­
tively regulate behaviors that occur in the neighborhood—particularly adolescent
behavior—leading to an increase in crime and delinquency. Areas characterized by
concentrated disadvantage are most likely to have disrupted social networks and
decreased informal social control.
Research using social disorganization theory typically uses three sets of socio­
demographic indicators—socioeconomic status, population mobility/residential
stability, and ethnic heterogeneity/racial segregation—due to (often financial)
­
­­constraints in measuring the key social processes at work. The first set of indicators—
related to socioeconomic status—are intended to assess the ability of local residents
to invest in their neighborhood. The key connection between socioeconomic status
and neighborhood social disorganization assumes that if people can’t invest in the
local neighborhood, their property, and their family, it makes it more difficult to
demonstrate to others that behaviors are collectively regulated in the neighborhood.
230
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
The second set of indicators—addressing population mobility/residential stability—
can be used to assess the level of permanence of neighborhood residents. These indi­
cators are based on the assumption that neighborhoods with high levels of residential
turnover are less likely to form social bonds and mutual trust between neighbors and
can impede local efforts to establish or maintain informal social control. Furthermore,
if a neighborhood is largely transient, residents are less likely to focus on neighbor­
hood conditions and quality of life and are less likely to invest in the neighborhood.
The third set of indicators usually address ethnic heterogeneity, racial segregation,
and immigration patterns (depending on when the study was completed). Ethnic
heterogeneity (Shaw & McKay, 1969) was originally used to assess neighborhood
features such as shared language, culture, and lifestyles that can contribute to
collective efforts to control localized behaviors. Recent research examining the race/
ethnicity–crime relationship in a social ecology of crime context has revealed that
racial differences in crime and other social problems are largely rooted in differ­
ences in community characteristics by race (e.g. Peterson & Krivo, 2010). Much of
the contemporary social ecology research combines the percent Black or African
American measure with socioeconomic status measures to create a refined measure
of concentrated disadvantage based on the “ecometric” approach (see Sampson,
2012 for an elaboration of the “ecometric” approach). Peterson and Krivo’s (2010)
work uses a different approach and disaggregates these measures to better under­
stand the intersections of race, ethnicity, and disadvantage.
The various indicators of social disorganization just discussed are frequently used
in race, ethnicity, and crime research today. These indicators are sometimes combined
with measures of collective efficacy (e.g., Sampson et al., 1997) which are used to
assess neighborhood levels of social cohesion and trust and informal social control
(when researchers are able to measure these social processes). Here, we focus specif­
ically on constructs used to assess levels of ethnic heterogeneity and racial segrega­
tion, as they can be somewhat controversial and often their interaction with other
indicators can become problematic (as demonstrated by Peterson & Krivo, 2010).
Examining Race and Ethnicity in Social Ecology Research
While measures of ethnic heterogeneity and racial segregation were originally
intended to measure the mixture of different European immigrant groups in the
same neighborhood (leading to difficulties in developing common control mecha­
nisms due to language and/or cultural barriers, as described in Shaw & McKay,
1969), contemporary researchers are more likely to use measures such as racial seg­
regation, concentration, or isolation, or a “Latinx immigration” measure (typically
assessed through a combination of percent foreign born and percent Hispanic or
Latinx or related variables). The “ecometrics” approach advanced in Sampson (2012)
often involves merging the socioeconomic status and ethnic heterogeneity/racial
segregation/composition variables into a single concentrated disadvantage measure
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
231
(see also, e.g., Morenoff, Sampson, & Raudenbush, 2001). This approach typically
combines traditional measures of socioeconomic status (poverty, unemployment,
and use of or reliance on public assistance) with other highly correlated measures
such as the prevalence of female‐headed households, single mother households, and
percent Black or African American. This merging of race and ethnicity variables
with other measures creates challenges in understanding and interpreting the
influence of race and ethnicity variables on local neighborhood criminality.
This transition from the historical focus on ethnic heterogeneity in the early
twentieth century to a focus on racial segregation and isolation and, eventually, a
focus on twenty‐first century and late twentieth‐century Latinx immigration pat­
terns reflects shifting social dynamics over time. In the early twentieth century, the
focus on ethnic heterogeneity reflected the social change of the time. There was an
increase in immigrant groups entering the United States, and these immigrant
groups often ended up mixing in the same transitional communities (Shaw &
McKay, 1969). These groups represented a mix of nationalities or ethnicities (e.g.,
Polish, Italian, Irish, German, and so on) of primarily European heritage. This
allowed them to more easily assimilate into a “White” culture and racial grouping,
while (in some ways) preserving their ethnic heritage and identity over time.
Increased urbanization combined with Black northern migration (and migration
to cities generally) changed urban dynamics, and the concern was no longer with the
mixing of a variety of ethnic groups in local areas. This movement led to persistent
racial segregation and isolation that continues to dominate many urban landscapes
today (e.g., Massey & Denton, 1993; Sugrue, 2005). In related research, Wilson (1987)
used a structural perspective based in the social disorganization framework and
found that racial differences in both crime and other social problems are rooted in
differential community characteristics in areas dominated by people of Color com­
pared to areas dominated by Whites. The high levels of Black poverty in confined
geographic areas from the 1970s and 1980s led to social isolation and lack of access to
employment opportunities; weakened social connections, controls, and social capital;
and community deterioration. This highlights an interaction effect between ethnic
and racial composition of neighborhoods and poverty/concentrated disadvantage.
These dynamics continue to be of concern in contemporary criminological research
as racial isolation has combined with urban poverty and concentrated disadvantage
in the context of higher crime rates (e.g., Peterson & Krivo, 2010).
The persistence of racial isolation and segregation, urban poverty, and concentrated
disadvantage in local neighborhoods has created challenges for contemporary crimi­
nological research. One common approach is to merge socioeconomic measures and
race/ethnicity measures into a single index item—concentrated disadvantage. This
often obscures underlying ethno‐racial dynamics at work in local neighborhoods (but
see Peterson & Krivo, 2010). These dynamics related to the interplay of the ethno‐
racial composition of neighborhoods with socioeconomic features of local areas.
This interaction continues to be demonstrated in detail in Peterson and Krivo’s
work. They find that residential segregation is related to higher levels of violence
232
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
among Black populations, and these segregated communities often have higher levels
of concentrated disadvantage leading to higher violence rates (Peterson & Krivo,
1993). A more detailed examination of this dynamic (Peterson & Krivo, 2010) revealed
the challenges in comparing impoverished Black neighborhoods to impoverished
White neighborhoods as the disparities between the levels of disadvantage make it
near impossible to compare the two. Their examination of homicide in urban areas
revealed that even after controlling for economic conditions, there were still significant
differences in violent crime rates in White and Black neighborhoods. Cooney’s (1998)
work provides an explanation for this in stating that low‐status individuals must exist
largely without the protection of the state, as they have more limited access to law
enforcement and other public services (p. 40). This, in turn, leads individuals in these
neighborhoods to turn to alternative means to resolve interpersonal conflicts. These
challenges are exacerbated when marginalized populations don’t get desired or needed
responses from law enforcement personnel when requesting assistance (Brunson,
2007; Carr, Napolitano, & Keating, 2007). These dynamics recommend an approach
that focuses on marginalization, class status, and the potential for “othering” of seg­
ments of the population (as discussed in a later section).
The enduring effects of racial segregation, systemic and institutional racism, and
persistent discrimination on the structure of cities make it difficult to compare these
dynamics across neighborhoods. Although research has disaggregated outcome
measures (such as breaking down homicide into specific categories, such as gang
homicide, drug‐related homicide, robbery homicide, domestic violence‐related
homicide, etc.), researchers have not focused on disaggregating the independent
variables to predict these outcomes in a similar manner. It is possible to look at these
disaggregated independent variables using census data at the census tract level, and
this could make an important contribution to understanding ethno‐racial “commu­
nities and crime” dynamics.
Shifting the Focus Back to Immigration and Ethnicity in Social
Ecological Research
Research based in social disorganization theory goes beyond a focus on racial
­disparities in criminal activity and includes a focus on immigration status and
­ethnicity. This body of work has continued to develop in recent years. MacDonald
and Sampson (2012) indicate that “Political debates on US immigration policy
­frequently connect immigrants to a variety of social ills, including crime, lower
educational attainment, moral decline, and the lowering of human capital skills” (p.
7). However, their results indicate that areas with higher concentrations of immi­
grants tend to see less crime rather than more crime.
The relatively recent movement toward inclusion of Latinx‐specific ethnic
and immigration measures in social ecological research mirrors the original
intent of the ethnic heterogeneity construct in earlier research. Contemporary
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
233
immigration patterns differ from the European immigration that dominated the
early twentieth century. The influx of Cuban, Haitian, Mexican, and other immi­
grant groups has led to growth in the representation of these populations in
urban centers; however, these individuals face increased difficulty in assimi­
lating in the same manner as earlier European groups. For example, Martinez
and colleagues examined Latinx homicides, finding support for a racial invari­
ance hypothesis (e.g. Lee & Martinez, 2002; Lee, Martinez, & Rosenfeld, 2001;
Martinez, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003; Martinez & Lee, 2000). Martinez (2003)
found that the relationship between deprivation and homicide is similar across
non‐White ethno‐racial groups. Other research has found similar results with
respect to the immigration and crime relationship (Alaniz, Cartmill, & Parker,
1998; Hagan & Palloni, 1999).
Other contemporary research has found fairly consistent results on the homicide–
immigration relationship. Akins, Rumbaut, and Stansfield (2009) found that recent
immigration was not associated with homicide in Austin, Texas, when controlling for
the structural predictors of homicide. Similarly, Martinez and colleagues (e.g.,
Martinez, 2010; Martinez & Stowell, 2012; Martinez, Stowell, & Lee, 2010) found that
areas with higher numbers of immigrants have lower homicide rates. Additionally,
Martinez (2014), when studying the relationship between immigration and Latinx
homicide, found that over time homicides decrease in areas with increased immigra­
tion. This raises important questions about whether and how these populations are
potentially “assimilating” into an “American” culture (in a manner consistent with
European immigrant assimilation patterns of the early twentieth century).
Recent research examining race and ethnicity using the social disorganization frame­
work has made significant contributions to the literature; however, many questions
remain unanswered. Unpacking the intersections of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic
status, and immigration requires new research approaches (see Martinez & Hollis,
2017, for a discussion of new approaches in this area). Research needs to move beyond
the inclusion of simple “race and ethnic composition of neighborhood” variables to
better assess the intersections of race, ethnicity, immigration, and socioeconomic status.
This can be done through inclusion of variables (currently available through US census
data collection efforts) that assess Black poverty, Black unemployment, Black home­
ownership rates, and similar measures across all ethno‐racial groups. Additionally, it is
important to build on the work of Martinez (2014) to better understand how these
dynamics build and change over time in local communities.
Concerns with the Reemergence of Biological and Biosocial Theoretical
Approaches to Explain the Race/Ethnicity–Crime Relationship
While social‐structural theories, such as social disorganization theory, focus on the
social‐structural explanations for criminal behavior, micro‐level criminological the­
ories examine individual‐level explanations for criminal behavior. This counterpoint
234
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
to the preceding discussion highlights an area where criminological research must
proceed with caution. Much of this work is derived from the early biological and
psychological criminology approaches used to explain genetic or psychosomatic
predispositions to criminality. The reemergence of biological, biosocial, and biopsy­
chosocial theoretical approaches in recent years warrants a discussion of these con­
temporary theoretical approaches. This is particularly true given the recent use of
these approaches to explain ethno‐racial differences in individual criminality.
Biological, psychological, and biosocial theories, and the more recent emergence
of biopsychosocial theories, warrant discussion here due to the manner in which
they address race and ethnicity. These approaches have received increased attention
in recent years (e.g., Boutwell, Nedelec, Lewis, Barnes, & Beaver, 2015; Gato, Posick,
Williams, & Mays, 2017; Rafter, Posick, & Rocque, 2016; Rocque & Posick, 2017;
Rocque, Posick, & Felix, 2015). These theories attempt to explain crime through
individual biological characteristics, psychological traits, the intersection of
biological and social influence, and, more recently, combinations of biological,
psychological, and social influences. Some work has traveled into the “natural sci­
ences” to consider biochemical influences on criminality (see, e.g., Gato et al., 2017).
Much of the biological, biosocial, and biopsychosocial work is derived from the
original theorizing of Cesare Lombroso. More contemporary iterations might
include more advanced technological approaches to measuring influences, such as
brain scans (computerized tomography (CT) scans and functional magnetic reso­
nance imaging (fMRIs), for example), genetic testing, and other similar technical
approaches. These approaches are typically justified as an improvement over the
measurement approaches used in original biological research due to being more
“precise” forms of measurement than was possible before. Unfortunately, the con­
cerns of Jeff Goldblum’s character, Dr. Ian Malcolm, in the 1993 film Jurassic Park in
discussing the dangers of creating modern dinosaurs from recovered genetic
material are relevant here when he states: “but your scientists were so preoccupied
with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Contemporary criminologists using any of the various forms of biological research
are not proceeding with the required caution necessary for this research and are
often not working in partnership with those with a doctorate in biology, biochem­
istry, neurophysiology, or related fields. This presents a real danger for the use of
inappropriate methods, misinterpretation of research findings, and other similar
concerns. When these researchers comment on the implications of their research
findings in understanding ethno‐racial crime differences, these dangers become
that much more concerning.
Biosocial criminologists examine the convergence of biological factors and social
influences to explain criminality. Rocque et al. (2015) examined how the influence
of the urban environment through social factors (poverty, discrimination, and con­
centrated disadvantage) could lead to various stressors on the brain. These stressors,
in turn, were found to contribute to violence and aggression. This highlights the
negative effects of social features on individual biology and psychology in a manner
that is useful in finding and advancing policy positions to change levels of violence
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
235
and aggression. Exposure to poverty, discrimination, and concentrated disadvan­
tage change patterns of brain activity in such a way that individuals become more
predisposed to violence (Rocque et al., 2015). This would imply that efforts to reduce
or reverse the effects of poverty, discrimination, and concentrated disadvantage
should result in parallel reductions in violence and aggression. Partnering with
public health researchers would serve to advance this scholarship through expertise
in both epidemiology and criminology.
More recent biological and biosocial work has explicitly examined racial differ­
ences through a biosocial lens. Unfortunately, this work has not relied on appro­
priate methodologies, did not include individuals with advanced biology training,
and resulted in misuse of epigenetics research approaches. For example, Walsh and
Yun (2017) examined race, poverty, and crime by comparing Whites, Blacks, and
Asians, indicating that if many explanations used to explain racial differences bet­
ween Black and White criminality (including critical approaches) are expanded to
include Asian Americans they no longer work. This article is light on the scholarly
evidence and support. The authors cite a Rasmussen poll as empirical support for
their viewpoint without acknowledging the many limitations of polls and ignoring
that polls are not conducted in a scientific manner that would allow them to be con­
sidered as scholarly evidence. This article takes the existing race, ethnicity, and
crime literature far out of context in an effort to support its contention that racial
disparities have nothing to do with racism and that institutional racism does not
exist. Additional concerns emerge as the authors use Asian Americans as a “model
minority” while ignoring research related to criminality across a variety of racial
subgroupings.
Recent examples of biological and biosocial criminological research as discussed
here highlight the dangers of research in this area, as well as the untapped potential.
Researchers who partner with well‐trained biologists, chemists, biochemists, neuro­
physiologists, epidemiologists, and others could advance this literature in ways that
are useful for future research and practice. There is a danger inherent in biological,
biosocial, psychological, and biopsychosocial research and theory that is largely
ignored in the recent research in this area. This is eloquently summed up in
Gabbidon’s (2015) commentary on the subject:
While retrospectively it might seem innocent to praise Lombroso’s contributions, it is
equally important for scholars to remember that his work, with its pungent racism,
began the linkage of biology, race, and crime, which has persisted until modern
times—a fact that, since the publication of his earliest works over a century ago, has
resulted in misery for countless people of color. (p. 18)
Inherent in this statement is the ethical responsibility for criminological researchers
to “do no harm.”
This body of research has been used to promote practices based in eugenics in the
past, and has had devastating societal consequences. One need look no farther than
the eugenics of the Holocaust to see examples of this. A partnership between race
and justice scholars, communities and crime scholars, and epidemiologists could
236
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
provide important insights into the interplay of social features and biological and
psychological conditions that result from exposure to these social features (such as
poverty and violence), and how these combine to enhance risk factors for crime and
violence. Unfortunately, many biosocial perspectives are used to reinforce or justify
racist viewpoints and to deny the voices of scholars of Color (and is contrary to most
research on the intersections of race, ethnicity, crime, and justice). Scholars need to
proceed with caution when examining the biopsychosocial landscape to ensure that
they are using rigorous research techniques and working with those trained specifi­
cally in biological and psychological research approaches to ensure that methodo­
logical standards are high and findings are robust. The dangers inherent in failing to
do so are far too extreme to approach this type of research lightly.
A Final Note on the Use of Traditional Theoretical Explanations
in Contemporary Research
Traditional criminological theories were the prominent means of explaining crime
through the 1990s, and many of these theories continue to be reinterpreted and
applied to examinations of race/ethnicity, crime, and justice today. Hawkins (2011)
highlights some of the challenges in continuing to apply these theories, with a focus
on how the crime decline that has been in effect for some time is counter to many of
these explanations of crime differences by race and ethnicity. The increasing wealth
gap between Whites, Blacks, and Latinos would predict an increased crime rate on
the part of Blacks and Latinos based on traditional theories, for example; however,
the crime rate for these groups is not increasing in any dramatic form despite
continued economic challenges. Furthermore, the classical theories discussed here
do nothing to address ethno‐racial disparities in criminal justice system treatment
and disproportionate minority contact. Integrating these traditional theoretical
approaches with more contemporary approaches (found in radical, Marxist, critical,
feminist, intersectional, and activist criminology) could allow theoretical refine­
ment to better understand how differences in lived experiences for marginalized
populations combine with differences in treatment by the criminal justice system to
produce a variety of crime outcomes.
The reemergence of biological, biosocial, and biopsychosocial theoretical
approaches is of great concern in the study of race and crime. Indeed, a forthcoming
special issue of the Journal of Criminal Justice on race and justice was coedited by
two scholars known for their biosocial and biological approaches to criminological
research rather than by race and justice scholars (or a combination of the two). As
such, this special issue focused on advancing biological explanations of criminality
with relatively little (or in the case of the article by Walsh and Yun, cited previously,
no) empirical support for the statements made in many instances. Additionally,
some of the scholars highlighted in this special issue have advanced a dialogue
­indicating that they are marginalized and silenced by the academy. A recent op‐ed
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
237
(J. Wright & DeLisi, 2017) advances this position (and indicates that all prior crim­
inological research is wrong); however, the authors do not acknowledge the fact that
while their work is regularly published in mainstream (and highly ranked) journals
(e.g., Journal of Criminal Justice; Criminology; Crime and Delinquency; Criminal
Justice and Behavior), many scholars of Color and those researching race/ethnicity
and crime often struggle to have their work published in similar journals. Indeed,
this was the reason for the development of the journal Race and Justice.
It is concerning that this must be emphasized once again in the twenty‐first century.
However, race is primarily a social construct used to visually demarcate individuals.
This implies that the examination of racial (and ethnic/immigrant) variations in
criminality and disparities in criminal justice system treatment must rely on socio­
logical explanations. Furthermore, in the advancement of biological and biosocial
explanations of criminality, these researchers ignore the large body of evidence indi­
cating severe racial disparities in criminal justice system treatment (and resulting in
the overlabeling of people of Color as “criminals” when compared to Whites). We ask,
what is the biological explanation for police, prosecutorial, judicial, and other formal
social control discrimination against people of Color when it comes to criminal jus­
tice system contact, arrest, charging decisions, convictions, and sentencing?
Finally, although social structural approaches (such as those advanced by social
disorganization, strain, and anomie theories) have made significant progress in
examining questions related to the intersections of race, ethnicity, crime, and
criminal justice, much remains to be done. Disaggregating common predictors and
indicators used in research based on these theoretical approaches combined with
longitudinal studies of change would go far in advancing research in these areas.
Disaggregating common predictors and indicators would include using measures
that address the Black–Latino–White wealth gaps and how those gaps pattern in
local neighborhoods (through use and comparison of measures of Black poverty
and unemployment, White poverty and unemployment, and Latino poverty and
unemployment, among other disaggregated measures available in census data).
Longitudinal community studies would allow researchers to examine how change
over time in these various measures impacts the trajectory of criminal activity in
local neighborhoods. This would contribute to advancing criminological theory
through a better understanding of race/ethnicity/immigration and the interplay of
social‐structural features such as segregation, poverty, employment, concentrated
disadvantage, and other characteristics and crime. The key is that race and justice
scholars need to review the traditional theoretical approaches being used, identify
their strengths and weaknesses in explaining the race/ethnicity–crime intersection,
and determine if these continue to be our best approaches to explaining criminality.
We turn now to alternative approaches that might be merged with more tradi­
tional theoretical approaches to advance knowledge in these areas. This focus moves
away from traditional approaches such as those that are grounded in White male
theoretical paradigms and toward more critical and intersectional approaches to
studying the race/ethnicity–crime nexus.
238
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
An Overview of Alternative Approaches: Critical
and Marxist Theories
Unlike the traditional theories discussed in the previous section, Marxist and crit­
ical theories begin with the conceptualization that crime and power are inextri­
cably linked, whether the power comes from an economic mode of production or
some larger social practice or system (Akers, Sellers, & Jennings, 2016; Bernard,
Snipes, & Gerould, 2016). These theories have been, and in many ways continue to
rest in the margins of the conventional criminological theories (R. Wright, 2000).
It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that these new forms of power‐based critique
emerged—largely coinciding with the civil rights and women’s rights movements.
According to Sykes (1974), “In the late fifties and early sixties, a distinct change
began to make its appearance. Topics that had long received relatively little
attention in criminology (such as the day‐to‐day operations of the police) began
to be examined by increasing numbers of sociologists” (p. 208). Due to the growth
of general, critical theories in the 1960s, accompanied with “postmodern” growth
of counternarratives, micro‐level analyses, and conflict‐based skepticism,
fundamental challenges were presented that were often taken for granted in main­
stream theories. The result was a dramatic increase in the scholarly dialogue, anal­
ysis, and theory that thoughtfully and critically examined what was a previously
regarded as an unflawed criminal justice system. Since that time, contemporary
criminology has not engaged with theory development to the degree that was seen
in previous years (although see exceptions in the discussion of racial threat in
other chapters and the discussion of intersectional approaches later in this
chapter). This is particularly concerning given the changing nature of society in
the last two or three decades.
Coupled with the emergence of critical criminology was a focus on race, class,
and gender‐centered examinations of varying social experiences. The evolution
of feminist theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and other marginalized,
critical approaches was paramount to a more inclusive, yet distinct scholarly
examination. Understandably, the synthesis of these (generally speaking) critical
approaches (critical and Marxist theories) became a compatible connection bet­
ween the general experiences of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States
and the themes and descriptions that were produced from Marxist and critical
criminology.
Marxist Criminology
Marxist criminology is arguably the most controversial of the classic criminological
theories. This is the result of contentious debate regarding the philosophy, value,
applicability, and validity of coalescing theory and research (Akers, 1979; Chambliss,
1989; Greenberg, 1979; Inciardi, 1979; Turk, 1979). Much of this controversy is also
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
239
due, in part, to the fact that a Marxist theory of crime is constructed from a scholarly
interpretation of the more general Marxist political theory and applied to the
phenomenon of crime and delinquency. Other than upon limited occasions, Karl
Marx did not speak specifically on crime and/or punishment, and neither is the con­
temporary presentation of Marxist criminology consistent with the direct writings
of Marx. Instead, the incorporation of Marxist ideology into a working criminolog­
ical theory is associated with contemporary criminologists such as Chambliss
(Chambliss & Mankoff, 1976), Quinney (1970), and Platt (1974). A basic overview
of “Marxism” provides a framework for further discussion of the utility of the theory
in explaining ethno‐racial differences in crime.
Marxism
At the heart of a general Marxist approach is the societal “economic mode of
­production” and the socioeconomic structure and related “class struggle” of the
­citizens within that mode of production (Marx & Engels, 2002, p. 219). Marx and
Engels contend that there have been varying modes of production within the
­history of the world, each rooted in class conflict. Unmistakably, their theoretical
analysis of their current economic mode of production is a critique of the capitalist
mode of production, as well as an anticipation of the communist mode of produc­
tion. According to their critique of capitalism, there are two social/economic
groups that are in conflict with one another: the proletariat (the workers) and the
bourgeoisie (the owners). They contend that through a series of historical, economic
revolutions, the bourgeoisie have increasingly gained power over the basic aspects
of the life of the proletariat—not only holding control over the “forces of produc­
tion” and the “relations of production”, but also through the “neutral” forces of a
governmental and politically persuaded “superstructure” (Inverarity, Lauderdale,
& Feld, 1983).
Generally, Marx and Engels (2002) argued that the economic mode of produc­
tion engulfed all other forms of social life, where “the mode of production of
material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.
It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social
existence that determines their consciousness” (Marx, 1977). They further argue
that the capitalist mode of production produces “alienation” for members of the
proletariat, where they become dissociated from both the mode of production and
the society it produces. Herein lies the logical transition from a general, Marxist
theory to the application of Marxism to criminology—specifically examining how
the bourgeois elite utilizes laws and punishments to reinforce the self‐preservation
of the bourgeoisie and the social control of the proletariat. Moreover, it further
explains the transition when considering minority groups in the United States, as
they are more often the “proletariat” of the American capitalist system (Oliver &
Shapiro, 2006).
240
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
A Marxist Theory of Crime
Similar to the other subtheories of Marx, there is limited agreement on a universal
explanation of Marxist or Capitalist Criminology. Although Chambliss and Mankoff
(1976) and Platt (1974) provide meaningful contributions to the theory, the primary
theorist in this area is Richard Quinney (1970, 1974). Incorporating the basics of
Marxist theory as we have outlined them, Quinney (1974) indicates the issue of the
power of the bourgeoisie to control both the economic sphere and the larger social
sphere (including crime), by stating, “those who rule in capitalist society—with the
assistance of the state—not only accumulate capital at the expense of those who
work, but impose their ideology as well” (p. 47). As a matter for criminological
theory, this is not to wholeheartedly dismiss the power of the proletariat. Instead,
primary theorists Quinney (1974) and Chambliss (Chambliss & Mankoff, 1976),
and more recent scholars who derive their work from Marxist perspectives, are sug­
gesting that the construction of laws and punishments within the American capitalist
system are primarily “manipulated” by those in the bourgeoisie with the intent to
protect bourgeois interests, while the proletariat are the subjects of these laws and
punishments. Therefore, laws and punishments constructed by the bourgeoisie have
less to do with the protections of collective interest(s) or collective justice and more
to do with the “struggles of the ruling class to maintain its social and economic dom­
inance over the subordinate classes in society” (Garland, 2012, p. 88). Moreover, the
growth of alienation produced by existing in the “subordinate class” increases the
propensity for criminal behavior.
Historically, various minority groups in the United States have been on the
receiving end of laws and punishments that have theoretically coincided with
the enforcement and maintenance of social control that favors the bourgeoisie.
This began with the marginalization of various European immigrants prior to the
“­contemporary construction of Whiteness” through assimilation to the dominant
White frame, includes the “othering” of the Chinese in the early 1900s, the threat
perceived from a variety of Asian American populations over time (including the
confinement of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II),
and othering and segregation of Blacks, African Americans, and Native Americans.
In the contemporary United States, the marginalization of Blacks, African Americans,
Native Americans, and Latino populations continues to be a problem, and we are
starting to see similar treatment of some Arab immigrant populations. The groups
targeted by the bourgeoisie have changed somewhat over time, but marginalization
through the creation and enforcement of legal codes continues.
Although not empirically examined, there are examples of laws and punishments
that specifically protect the owners of the means of production in the United States.
Drug testing in the workplace, vagrancy enforcement—particularly outside of
­businesses—cruising laws, and anti‐teen loitering and curfew legislation (and the
accompanying punishments) are often disproportionately and specifically enforced
against the working and lower classes. In considering the overrepresentation of
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
241
Blacks/African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos in the working and
lower classes (Oliver & Shapiro, 2006), the theory suggests that they may be dispro­
portionately affected by both the experiences of alienation and laws and punish­
ments targeting their activities.
This does not suggest that minority groups that enter higher levels of economic
power do not replicate these actions; instead, it recognizes that the majority of
African Americans, Blacks, Native Americans, and Latinos still remain outside of
the “ruling class” in American society. Additionally, Marxist theorists do not directly
correlate overrepresentation of minorities in the criminal justice system to the
capitalist system. However, the potential for race‐based social control (particularly
in a historical context, such as a late nineteenth‐century construction of the “Black
Codes” in the South, or the use of “gang enforcement” and “gang enhancement”
penalties to target Latino gangs today) to protect capitalist interests is possible.
Finally, considering minority‐based effects of crime from a capitalist perspective
does not ignore the majority of lower‐class “proletariat” Whites who are subject to
the same laws and punishments—although not always the same enforcement
(Quinney, 1970).
It is important to note that, unlike most of the other theories presented in this
chapter, Marxist and capitalist theories of crime have proven difficult to examine.
Access to members of the bourgeoisie can be difficult, as can examining the processes
through which laws are created—particularly when the focus of research is the moti­
vation for the creation of various laws. Access challenges combine with the com­
plexity of the American capitalist system to present challenges to studying the
influences on and consequences of bourgeois creation of laws. Along with numerous
critiques of the Marxist theoretical approach (e.g., Hinch, 1983; O’Malley, 1987),
there have been few attempts to move this work much beyond a theoretical argument.
This remains an area of inquiry that warrants further research attention.
Critical Criminology
Critical criminology can be described as an interrogation of the criminal justice
system regarding the validity of “criminal,” “justice,” and “system.” As previously
stated, critical criminologists present scholarly criticism(s) of the most fundamental
aspects of the criminal justice system that mainstream criminologists accept as legit­
imate. An overview of the key themes of critical criminological inquiry provides the
basis for a discussion of the application of critical theory to the study of race, eth­
nicity, crime, and justice.
Sykes (1974) indicated that there were four themes that are paramount to an
understanding of critical criminology. First, he explained that “there is profound
skepticism accorded any individualistic theory of crime causation” (p. 208), con­
tending that all persons embrace some form of criminality and that the construction
of an individualistic theory is based more on the definitions than the actions. Second,
242
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
he explained that the “motives behind the actions” of the criminal justice agencies
are subject to critical interpretation. Prior to the inception of critical approaches to
crime, “agency” was (and in many ways still is) constructed as a neutral, state‐max­
imizing actor within the criminal justice system. However, micro‐level critiques of
agency practices have critically scrutinized the “criminal processing system”—par­
ticularly for “the poor and members of minority groups” (p. 208). Third, Sykes
­suggested that critical criminology questioned that “the great bulk of criminal law
was taken as expressing a widely shared set of values” (p. 209). Critical criminolo­
gists such as Quinney (1970) have presented theoretical approaches that challenge
both the fundamental uniformity of criminal law and the association of criminal law
with public harm and societal wishes. The final theme questions the accuracy of
official crime statistics and points to an unfettered willingness by mainstream crim­
inologists to produce analysis and policy suggestions from this flawed data.
Overall, the synthesis of the four themes indicates a theoretically flawed system,
built on flawed beliefs about crime and flawed agents of the criminal justice system,
that disproportionately affects the poor and minorities (as well as others). Unlike
many of the other theories (including Marxist criminological approaches), critical
theories allow for a primary focus to be placed on the manner in which an individ­
ual’s racial/ethnic status can influence their interactions with the criminal justice
system. While this theoretical approach has its share of critiques, it is an important
dialogue for moving the racial/ethnic experience and narrative in the criminal
­justice system forward.
There are two important flaws seen in critical theories that warrant further
discussion. The first flaw is specific to the theory, and the second flaw is specific to
the incorporation of race and ethnicity. An important critique of critical crimi­
nology is that the theories and subtheories produce a tremendously broad approach,
with little concord. The process of “scholarly criticism” of the criminal justice system
is so broad in postmodern contexts that solutions can range from “peacemaking” to
“abolition” of the system. The result is oftentimes confusion from mainstream crim­
inologists regarding the interconnectedness of critical theories, as well as fundamental
limitations to their scholarly empiricism. The second critique is that a theoretical
approach that accounts for the poor and minority groups—in other words, margin­
alized populations—is often interpreted as “an excuse” for the disproportion in the
experiences and outcomes in the criminal justice system. Basically, if critical crimi­
nologists are criticizing the manner in which an unjust system treats poor, margin­
alized individuals, then a mainstream criminology counter is that a just system
treats poor, marginalized individuals as the criminals that the system tells them they
are. While this is a counterproductive argument, it is nevertheless an argument that
has been discussed by mainstream criminologists.
One means of addressing the concerns outlined with respect to Marxist and criti­
cal criminological theories involves a contemporary approach that has received
attention in recent years: intersectionality. One of the best mechanisms for under­
standing experiences of marginalization requires understanding each individual’s
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
243
lived experience and how the intersections of their identities can result in different
lived experiences and encounters with the criminal justice system. Intersectional
concerns emerged from critical approaches (including critical race theories).
Intersectionality Concerns
Whether critical or functional, the canonized criminal justice theories leave
significant gaps in the contemporary examination of how race and ethnicity interact
with the criminal justice system. For the more traditional, functional theories,
researchers either continue to impose a “universal” examination of the approach to
unique racial and ethnic social constructions, or the approach is used to explain the
racial and ethnic experience as “exceptional.” Conversely, the Marxist and Critical
approaches attempt to explain collective “African American,” “Latinx,” or other
racial and ethnic experiences without regard to larger social intersectionalities. The
ensuing result has been decades of research that has confined the examination and
discourse on the relationship between racial and ethnic minorities and the criminal
justice system. Moreover, it has largely and systematically excluded the experience of
Caucasians in the criminal justice system—often a “circumstantial minority” as it
pertains to jails and prisons.
Considering the intersectionalities of race and ethnicity is paramount to improving
the overall understanding of both the practical and theoretical conventionality for
groups interacting with the criminal justice system. As suggested by Potter (2015), it
is important “to demonstrate how intersectional approaches have been used in crim­
inological research and theory, and how other criminological research based in
orthodox, colorblind, identity‐blind, and power‐blind theorizing can benefit from
an intersectional approach” (p. 37). Despite the fact that criminologists often speak
on the “African American,” “Latinx,” etc. experience in relation to the criminal
­justice system, we are simultaneously aware that these groups neither share a
­collectively equal likelihood of entering the criminal justice system, nor do they
share identical lived experiences.
Including an intersectional perspective in theoretical considerations of crime and
criminal justice allows a more nuanced understanding of both. For example, while
many traditional approaches (discussed earlier) include race as a control variable, or
group all members of each racial or ethnic group into a singular group, intersec­
tional approaches break these groups down to better understand the intersections of
experience. A single, unemployed, Black male living in poverty in a community
characterized by concentrated disadvantage will have a much different experience
with crime and criminal justice than a married Black male who is unemployed but
lives in a working‐class neighborhood and who is married to a partner with a job.
Grouping all individuals together by race and ethnicity and extrapolating research
findings to that entire group glosses over the unique lived experiences that create
within‐group variation. Understanding how various characteristics intersect to
244
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
p
­ roduce a variety of patterns (offending patterns, victimization, treatment by the
justice system, number and character of justice system contacts, etc.) will serve to
increase the ability of theoretical perspectives to explain these outcomes.
Arguably, the single greatest theme that is absent from the theoretical discourse
on race, ethnicity, and crime, yet also inextricably intersects with the discourse, is
the role of class, economics, and socioeconomics. Traditionally, the criminal justice
system—whether it be practitioners or researchers—has not done an effective job of
capturing the data, relevance, and impact of economics and socioeconomics (Forst,
1993; Reiman & Leighton, 2015), nor are many of the traditional indicators (dis­
cussed in previous sections) applicable to offending and offenders. For example,
questions that attempt to arrive at “income” or “employment” effects carry different
meanings within the context of crime and offending. Yet we remain limited in the
scope of what class and socioeconomics mean as a correlate to the criminal
­justice system.
On the other hand, literature exists that demonstrates how race, class, and socio­
economics intersect in the United States, where African Americans, Blacks, Latinos,
and Native Americans (among others) have significantly lower levels of income
(Bailey, Saperstein, & Penner, 2014; Dippel, 2014; Ryscavage, 2015), wealth (Conley,
1999; Keister, Agius Vallejo, & Borelli, 2014; Oliver & Shapiro, 2006), and employment
(Quane, Wilson, & Hwang, 2015; Wilson, 1987, 2011; Young, 2016). Additionally,
there is a rich historical account of how the criminal justice system has dispropor­
tionately affected the poor—particularly poor people of Color (Shelden, 2007).
Examples that range from the jailing and extermination of Native Americans in the
spirit of colonialization to the implementation of the Black Codes, vagrancy enforce­
ment, and convict labor in the South, the creation of Japanese internment camps,
and the race‐based enforcement of the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 are
mere samples of the historical intersectionality of race, ethnicity, class, socioeco­
nomics, and the criminal justice system. Yet, despite both the historical and contem­
porary demonstration of a race, ethnicity, class, and crime intersectionality, minimal
research is conducted and presented that examines how these factors influence one
another. An increase in this type of intersectional research will not only embrace the
understanding of how class and socioeconomic status are linked to race within the
criminal justice system, but can also help determine when potential discrimination
within the criminal justice system is race based, class based, socioeconomic status
based, or the totality of all factors.
While we contend that class and socioeconomics are paramount to examining
how these intersect with race and ethnicity in the criminal justice system, they are
not the sole intersections that are worthy of scholarly scrutiny. We are still on the eve
of understanding how the intersections of gender, LGBTQIA, age, nationality, and
other social factors and demographics influence criminal justice experiences. While
some research has been done in these areas (see, e.g., Martinez & Hollis, 2017),
much more needs to be accomplished to truly understand these intersections. We
recognize that this “postmodern,” reductive approach creates challenges in the
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
245
g­ eneralizability of criminal justice experience (Curtler, 2016); however, we also rec­
ognize the current limitations produced by the overemphasis on race, ethnicity, and
crime with little attempt to construct a more inclusive and intersectional approach
that avoids dangerous generalizations. As of 2010, the United States had a population
of 308,745,538 individuals, with 38,929,319 of those individuals classified as Black
or African American (12.6 percent) and 50,477,594 classified as Hispanic or Latino
(16.3 percent) (US Census, 2017). Research that does not carefully unpack intersec­
tionalities has been used to advance views of the “criminalblackman” and the “gang‐
member” or “rapist”/”murderer” Latino. These views continue to dominate political
discourse despite research to the contrary. An approach that incorporates these
intersectionalities (and others) will better inform outcomes, policy, and evaluation
than research that relies on generalities that do not accurately capture lived
experiences.
The Future of Theoretical Perspectives on Race, Crime,
and Justice: The Potential for Integrated Approaches
The future of theoretical perspectives on race, ethnicity, crime, and justice must
begin with a fundamental reanalysis of the variables that we have taken for granted
in the analysis of the phenomenon. More than 20 years ago, Michael Omi and
Howard Winant (1994) wrote of “racial formation,” which attempted to deconstruct
the manner in which “race” is examined, discussed and analyzed. They explained
that “racial formation” is the manner in which history, politics, and economics have
transformed, reinforced, and subsumed our paradigmatic views of race. Within
current theoretical constructs and the accompanying scholarly analysis in criminal
justice, “racial formation” seems to continually fade into the oversimplified
construction(s) of racial and ethnic categories and measurable variables. As a result,
contemporary criminologists often speak of the African American, Black, Latinx,
etc. experience in and through the criminal justice system as either a quasi‐abstract
phenomenon (e.g., Native Americans are more likely to experience ____ theory) or
simply as correlates to other variables (e.g., Latinos experience ____ in the criminal
justice system “at a higher rate than ____” or “when correlated to ____”). Specifically,
contemporary criminologists have become more concerned with the variable
construction of race than the social construction of race. In incorporating the larger
role of “racial formation” in society and how this is uniquely different for various
racial and ethnic groups, scholars are forced to reexamine the oversimplification
of attaching racial categories to theories and to other variables that reinforce
these theories.
One approach is to attempt to construct theories that are specific to the larger
social, political, and historical experiences of specific racial and ethnic groups. For
example, James Unnever and Shawn Gabbidon coauthored a text entitled A Theory
of African American Offending (2011), where the authors argued that “the general
246
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
theories of crime, such as Hirschi’s social bond, Gottfredson and Hirschi’s low self‐
control theory, and social disorganization, do not fully capture the dynamics of why
African Americans offend” (p. xvii; see Hirschi, 1969; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).
Through a more robust analysis of the African American experience, Unnever and
Gabbidon attempt to reconstruct a new theoretical paradigm of African American
offending rather than reshape the standing issues to fit the mold of an existing the­
oretical approach. Within the entirety of criminological theory, there is evidence
and opportunity for Asian American, Latinx, Native American, and White theories
of offending. Furthermore, these types of approaches would lend themselves nicely
to building an intersectional approach, and the inclusive intersectionalities of class,
gender, nationality, etc. allow for more detailed considerations of criminal justice
offending.
The future of theoretical perspectives of race, ethnicity, and the criminal justice
system must also reconsider nontraditional theories and approaches that might
better explain the criminal justice experiences of racial and ethnic minorities. For
example, there are countless canonized theories within the disciplines of sociology,
political science, economics, psychology, social work, and race and gender studies
that are often either unknown or overlooked by contemporary criminologists as a
means for expanding the analysis of criminal justice phenomena. Unfortunately, the
present‐day practice of acquiring a doctoral degree in criminal justice and/or crim­
inology is often devoid of theories that fall outside the canonized scope of the
­discipline. The frequent result is an attempt to reformulate existing variables and
secondary data to fit the traditional theories of crime without consideration of
advancing new areas of theoretical inquiry. Repeatedly, the attempt is made to
rehash the strain, self‐control, social disorganization, routine activities, differential
association, and other theories with new datasets, newly constructed variables, and
similar interpretations. This only serves to incrementally advance the field without
major breakthroughs in knowledge. In considering the racial and ethnic experience,
the limitations presented by Unnever and Gabbidon (2011) remain areas that
demand future scrutiny.
One promising example that has produced a paradigmatic shift in the under­
standing and examination of race and ethnicity has been the recent research on
the topic of “implicit bias” (Ito et al., 2015; Oswald, Mitchell, Blanton, Jaccard, &
Tetlock, 2013; Rae, Newheiser, & Olson, 2015). Implicit Association Testing (IAT)
is a psychological test that is designed to measure the comparative strength of
associations between four concepts in a two‐by‐two research design (Greenwald,
McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). The disparate speed and accuracy in response rates
between the two concepts indicate a stronger association among categories. The
classical, general design of the IAT test includes “positive words,” “negative words,”
“flowers,” and “insects.” While the four categories should have no theoretical
association with one another (they are merely pictures and words), the hypothesis
is that more positive words would be more strongly associated with flowers rather
than insects. IAT research on race and ethnicity has indicated a stronger association
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
247
between Whites and positive words (compared to negative words) and weapons
(compared to harmless objects).
The implications of this type of research present the potential for enhancing the
understanding of race and ethnicity in the criminal justice system—particularly for
reconsidering the “discrimination–disparity continuum” (Walker, Spohn, & Delone,
2017) and reexamining theories that incorporate “power,” such as Marxist crimi­
nology, critical criminology, feminist criminology, queer criminology, and post­
modern criminology. Not only do considerations of implicit associations redefine
what it means to engage in discriminatory practices, but implicit association research
also provides the opportunity for reexamining how (for example) peer influences,
power, self‐control, labeling, and other canonized criminological theories are
implicitly influenced by considerations of race, ethnicity, and other intersec­
tional factors.
This discussion highlights the importance of incorporating integrated theoretical
approaches to better understand the intersections of race, class, ethnicity, gender,
etc. and crime and criminal justice system experience. The connections between
justice system contact, othering or marginalization, and the intersections of identity
require this type of approach. Areas that should be considered in developing a
refined theoretical approach include (but are not limited to) race and racial formation
theories; traditional criminological theories (such as social disorganization); histor­
ical analyses (to focus on changes in experiences of members of different groups
over time, as well as their representation and movement in society); gender identity
perspectives (such as feminist or queer perspectives); socioeconomic status and
class status perspectives (such as Marxist or critical theory); and nationality, ethnic
identity, and immigration status concerns. All of this should be done with a focus on
the unique lived experiences of individuals from diverse backgrounds in an attempt
to better understand how the intersections of experience relate to crime and justice
system phenomena.
Conclusion
This chapter has provided an overview of contemporary theoretical approaches to
the study of race, ethnicity, crime, and criminal justice. As discussed throughout the
chapter, much of the contemporary research literature continues to rely traditional
theoretical approaches to the study of race, ethnicity, and crime. This research often
tries to simply explain away the race/ethnicity–crime relationship through the
incorporation of broad race and ethnicity control variables. Indeed, in some
instances researchers feel that it is sufficient to incorporate a “percent non‐White”
type of control measure that promotes the othering of nondominant social group­
ings in society. We call for research to stop relying on this White male framework
and lens of traditional theory and move toward development of race‐centric and
ethnic‐centric theoretical approaches. This can be done by acknowledging and
248
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
studying differences in lived experience across ethno‐racial groups. In fact, some
progress has been made in breaking down these experiences in research, as seen in
the work of Martinez and colleagues in examining Mariel, Jamaican, and Haitian
immigrant experiences in Miami, for example (e.g., Martinez & Lee, 2000). While in
some research these populations may have been grouped together into a catch‐all
“non‐White” category or broken down into “White,” “Black,” “Latino,” and “Other”
groupings, this work examined how outcomes differ when examining the differ­
ences in experience by ethno‐racial groupings. Indeed, for example, grouping all
Latinos together ignores some rather dramatic sociocultural differences between
immigrants from Mexican, Puerto Rican, Nicaraguan, Columbian, El Salvadorian,
Cuban, and other categorical backgrounds. Understanding how these differences (as
well as the differences in immigration experiences) contribute to differences in jus­
tice system contact and criminality will serve to advance the field and remains an
important avenue for future research.
Future research efforts need to move beyond the incremental advancing of tradi­
tional theoretical approaches and toward theorizing focused specifically on under­
standing the race/ethnicity–crime relationship. These (potentially integrated)
theories should simultaneously examine traditional definitions of offending and
victimization, but should also include less traditional definitions of these concepts
(such as victimization by the state, as seen in inappropriate or unlawful police use of
force, for example). Research efforts need to step away from the White male theo­
rizing that has dominated the field to date and shift toward a focus on grounded
theory approaches that have the potential to contribute to more robust theoretical
approaches. Grounded theory is technically a research methodology that allows
theory to emerge through an analysis of and the discovery of emerging patterns in
(usually qualitative) data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Grounded theory lets new theo­
retical perspectives emerge through an analysis of the data and alteration of data
collection methods (and areas of inquiry) in response to emergent data patterns
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967).
Disaggregation of independent variables similar to the recent work disaggregat­
ing outcome measures (such as disaggregating homicides into gang‐motivated,
intimate partner violence, robbery‐related, drug‐related, etc.) would provide an
important new perspective on the mechanisms at play in the race/ethnicity–crime
relationship. Although communities and crime research has successfully disaggre­
gated dependent variables, the same approach has not been used with independent
variables. Census data are available at the census block group, census tract, county,
and state levels, with a variety of variables disaggregated by race (e.g., poverty,
unemployment, housing characteristics). This research is possible and should be
encouraged. These types of approaches will also require robust longitudinal
research designs that allow for the examination of change over time in macro‐level
features. Research should also expand to focus on critical and intersectional
approaches to the study of crime (whether research is done at the micro, macro, or
meso level of analysis).
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
249
In Intersectionality and Criminology: Disrupting and Revolutionizing Studies of
Crime, Hillary Potter (2015) states, “I have an outlook (perhaps utopian) that a criti­
cal mass of critical scholars can cause a paradigm shift and that a critical mass of
consciousness‐raising can work toward dismantling Whitemaleness as the default
and the standard on which we measure all people” (p. 7). Similarly to Potter, the
fundamental purpose of this chapter is to call for a paradigmatic shift in the over­
simplification of analysis toward marginalized groups—with this contextual
emphasis on racial and ethnic minorities. After several decades of substantial growth
in the criminal justice discipline, while emerging from the roots and foundations of
sociology and sociological theory, it is unimaginably disconcerting that we continue
to examine race and ethnicity in the criminal justice system in such a rudimentary
and unsophisticated manner—particularly when considering the relationship that
the criminal justice system shares specifically with African Americans, Latinos, and
Native Americans. In a most straightforward examination, many criminologists
have published, advanced, and labored on the backs of the criminal justice, minority‐
structured majority. We share Potter’s outlook and hope for a growth of attempts to
better understand the critical mass—the majority of those on death row, in juvenile
detention centers, jails, and prisons, in courtrooms, and having frequent and deadly
interactions with the police (Walker et al., 2017). Advancing research through the
incorporation of intersectional and integrated theoretical approaches that place race
and ethnicity (and other identities) at the center rather than on the periphery will
serve to advance the field, particularly in the area of race and ethnicity studies, in a
manner that will allow for better theory, improved research, and better policy impli­
cations. This will allow the science of criminology to shift from domination of the
“old” more traditional approaches to new theoretical perspectives designed to
advance knowledge in the context of postmodern society.
References
Akers, R. L. (1979). Theory and ideology in Marxist criminology. Criminology, 16(4),
527–544.
Akers, R. L., Sellers, C. S., & Jennings, W. G. (2016). Criminological theories: Introduction,
evaluation, and application (7th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Akins, S., Rumbaut, R. G., & Stansfield, R. (2009). Immigration, economic disadvantage, and
homicide: A community‐level analysis of Austin, Texas. Homicide Studies, 13(3),
307–314.
Alaniz, M. L., Cartmill, R. S., & Parker, R. N. (1998). Immigrants and violence: The impor­
tance of neighborhood context. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Science, 20(2),
155–174.
Bailey, S., Saperstein, A., & Penner, A. (2014). Race, color, and income inequality across the
Americas. Demographic Research, 31, 735–756.
Bernard, T. J, Snipes, J. B., & Gerould, A. L. (2016). Vold’s theoretical criminology (7th ed.).
New York, Oxford University Press.
250
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
Boutwell, B. B., Nedelec, J. L., Lewis, R. H., Barnes, J.C., & Beaver, K. M. (2015). A behavioral
genetic test of the evolutionary taxonomy. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 1,
241–250.
Brunson, R. K. (2007). “Police don’t like Black people”: African‐American young men’s accu­
mulated police experiences. Criminology and Public Policy, 6(1), 71–102.
Bursik, R. J., & Grasmick, H. G. (1993). Neighborhoods and crime: The dimensions of effective
community control. New York, NY: Lexington Books.
Bursik, R. J., & Webb, J. (1982). Community change and patterns of delinquency. American
Journal of Sociology, 88(1), 24–42.
Carr, P. J., Napolitano, L., & Keating, J. (2007). We never call the cops and here is why: A
qualitative examination of legal cynicism in three Philadelphia neighborhoods.
Criminology, 45(2), 445–480.
Chambliss, W. J. (1989). State‐organized crime: The American Society of Criminology, 1988
presidential address. Criminology, 27(2), 183–208.
Chambliss, W. J., & Mankoff, M. L. (Eds.). (1976). Whose law? What order? A conflict approach
to criminology. New York, NY: Wiley.
Conley, D. (1999). Being Black, living in the red: Race, wealth, and social policy in America.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Cooney, M. (1998). Warriors and peacemakers: How third parties shape violence. New York,
NY: New York University Press.
Curtler, H. M. (2016). Rediscovering values: Coming to terms with postmodernism. New York,
NY: Routledge.
Dippel, C. (2014). Forced coexistence and economic development: Evidence from Native
American reservations. Econometrica, 82(6), 2131–2165.
Forst, B. (2016). The socio‐economics of crime and justice. New York, NY: Routledge.
Gabbidon, S. L. (2015) Criminological perspectives on race and crime (3rd ed.). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Garland, D. (2012). Punishment and modern society: A study in social theory. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Gato, E., Posick, C., Williams, A., & Mays, C. (2017). Examining the link between the human
microbiome and antisocial behavior: Why criminologists should care about biochem­
istry. Deviant Behavior. doi:10.1080/01639625.2017.1410373
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative
research. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine‐Transaction.
Gottfredson, M. R., & Hirschi, T. (1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Greenberg, D. F. (1979). Mathematical criminology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. K. L. (1998). Measuring individual differ­
ences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480.
Hagan, J., & Palloni, A. (1999). Sociological criminology and the mythology of Hispanic
immigration and crime. Social Problems, 46(4), 617–632.
Hawkins, D. F. (2011). Things fall apart: Resisting race and ethnic differences in criminal
violence amidst a crime drop. Race and Justice, 1(1), 3–48.
Hinch, R. (1983). Marxist criminology in the 1970s: Clarifying the clutter. Crime and Social
Justice, 19(3), 65–74.
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
251
Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Inciardi, J. A. (1979). Heroin use and street crime. Crime and Delinquency, 25, 335–346.
Inverarity, J. M., Lauderdale, P., & Feld, B. C. (1983). Law and society: Sociological perspectives
on criminal law. Boston, MA: Little Brown.
Ito, T. A., Friedman, N. P., Bartholow, B. D., Correll, J., Loersch, C., Altamirano, L. J., &
Miyake, A. (2015). Toward a comprehensive understanding of executive cognitive
function in implicit racial bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(2), 187.
Keister, L. A., Agius Vallejo, J., & Borelli, E. P. (2014). Mexican American mobility: An explo­
ration of wealth accumulation trajectories. Social Forces, 89, 763–74.
Lee, M. T., and Martinez, R., Jr. 2002. Social disorganization revisited: Mapping the recent
immigration and Black homicide relationship in Northern Miami. Sociological Focus,
35(4), 363–380.
Lee, M.T., Martinez, R., Jr., & Rosenfeld, R. (2001). Does immigration increase homicide?
Negative evidence from three border cities. Sociological Quarterly, 42(4), 559–580.
MacDonald, J., & Sampson, R. J. (2012). The world in a city: Immigration and America’s
changing social fabric. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 641(1), 6–15.
Martinez, R., Jr. (1996). Latinos and lethal violence: The impact of poverty and inequality.
Social Problems, 43(2), 131–146.
Martinez, R., Jr. (1997). Homicide among the 1980 Mariel refugees in Miami: Victims and
offenders. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 19(2), 107–122.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2000). Immigration and urban violence: The link between immigrant
Latinos and types of homicide. Social Science Quarterly, 81(1), 363–374.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2002). Latino homicide: Immigration, violence, and community. New York,
NY: Routledge.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2003). Moving beyond Black and White violence: African American,
Haitian, and Latino homicides in Miami. In D. F. Hawkins (Ed.), Violent crime: Assessing
race and ethnic differences (pp. 22–43). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2010). Policy essay: Economic conditions and racial/ethnic variations in
violence: Immigration, the Latino paradox and future research. Criminology and Public
Policy, 9(4), 707–713.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2014). Latino homicide: Immigration, violence, and community (2nd ed.).
New York, NY: Routledge.
Martinez, R., Jr., & Hollis, M. E. (Eds.). (2017). Ethnographies from the margins. Special issue
of Sociological Focus, 50(1).
Martinez, R., Jr., & Lee, M. T. (2000). Comparing the context of immigrant homicides in
Miami: Haitians, Jamaicans, and Mariels. International Migration Review, 34(3),
794–812.
Martinez, R., Jr., & Stowell, J. I. (2012). Extending immigration and crime studies: National
implications and local settings. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 641(1), 174–191.
Martinez, R., Jr., Stowell, J., & Lee, M. T. (2010). Immigration and crime in an era of transfor­
mation: A longitudinal analysis of homicides in San Diego neighborhoods, 1980–2000.
Criminology, 48(3), 797–829.
Marx, K. (1977). Preface. In Karl Marx, A contribution to the critique of political economy.
Moscow, Russia: Progress. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/
works/1859/critique‐pol‐economy/preface.htm (Original work published 1859)
252
Scott Wm. Bowman and Meghan E. Hollis
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (2002). The communist manifesto. New York, NY: Penguin. (Original
work published 1848)
Massey, D. S., & Denton, N. A. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the
underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Morenoff, J. D., Sampson, R. J., & Raudenbush, S. W. (2001). Neighborhood inequality,
collective efficacy, and the spatial dynamics of urban violence. Criminology, 39(3),
517–560.
Oliver, M. L., & Shapiro, T. M. (2006). Black wealth, White wealth: A new perspective on racial
inequality. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
O’Malley, P. (1987). Marxist theory and Marxist criminology. Crime and Social Justice, 29,
70–87.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the
1990s. New York, NY: Routledge.
Oswald, F. L., Mitchell, G., Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., & Tetlock, P. E. (2013). Predicting ethnic
and racial discrimination: A meta‐analysis of IAT criterion studies. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 105(2), 171–92.
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (1993). Racial segregation and urban Black violence. Social
Forces, 71(4), 1001–1026.
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2010). Divergent social worlds: Neighborhood crime and the
racial‐spatial divide. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Platt, A. (1974). Prospects for a radical criminology in the United States. Crime and Social
Justice, 1, 2–10.
Potter, H. (2015). Intersectionality and criminology: Disrupting and revolutionizing studies of
crime. New York, NY: Routledge.
Quane, J. M., Wilson, W. J., & Hwang, J. (2015). Black men and the struggle for work: Social
and economic barriers persist. Education Next, 15(2), 22–30.
Quinney, R. (1970). The social reality of crime. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
Quinney, R. (1974). Critique of the legal order: Crime control in capitalist society. Piscataway,
NJ: Transaction.
Rae, J. R., Newheiser, A. K., & Olson, K. R. (2015). Exposure to racial out‐groups and implicit
race bias in the United States. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(5),
535–543.
Rafter, N., Posick, C., & Rocque, M. (2016). The criminal brain (2nd ed.). New York, NY: New
York University Press.
Raine. A. (2013). The anatomy of violence: The biological roots of crime. New York, NY:
Vintage.
Reiman, J., & Leighton, P. (2015). The rich get richer and the poor get prison: Ideology, class,
and criminal justice (11th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Rocque, M. & Posick, C. (2017). Paradigm shift or normal science? The future of (biosocial)
criminology. Theoretical Criminology, 21, 288–303. doi.org/10.1177/1362480617707949
Rocque, M., Posick, C., & Felix, S. (2015). The role of the brain in urban violent offending:
Integrating biology with structural theories of “the streets.” Criminal Justice Studies,
28(1), 84–103.
Ryscavage, P. (2015). Income inequality in America: An analysis of trends. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Contemporary Theoretical Approaches
253
Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A
Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy. Science, 277(5328), 918–924.
Shaw, C., & McKay, H. (1969). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Shelden, R. (2007). Controlling the dangerous classes: A history of criminal justice in America.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice‐Hall.
Sugrue, T. J. (2005). The origins of the urban crisis: Race and inequality in postwar Detroit.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sykes, G. M. (1974). The rise of critical criminology. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology,
65(2), 206–213.
Turk, A. T. (1979). Analyzing official deviance. Criminology, 16(4), 459–476.
Unnever, J., & Gabbidon, S. (2011). A theory of African American offending. New York, NY:
Routledge.
US Census. (2017). Topics: Population (Data tables). Retrieved from www.census.gov
Walker, S., Spohn, C., & DeLone, M. (2017). The color of justice: Race, ethnicity, and crime in
America (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Walsh, A., & Yun, I. (2017). Examining the race, poverty, and crime nexus adding Asian
Americans and biosocial processes. Journal of Criminal Justice. Online First. http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2017.05.017
Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, W. J. (2011). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York, NY:
Vintage.
Wright, J. P., & DeLisi, M. (2017). What criminologist don’t say, and why: Monopolized by the
Left, academic research on crime gets almost everything wrong. City Journal, Manhattan
Institute. Retrieved from https://www.city‐journal.org/html/what‐criminologists‐dont‐
say‐and‐why‐15328.html
Wright, R. A. (2000). Left out? The coverage of critical perspectives in introductory
­criminology textbooks, 1990–1999. Critical Criminology, 9(1), 101–122.
Young, J. R. (2016). Underemployment among Hispanics: The case of involuntary part‐time
work. Monthly Labor Review, 139, 1.
11
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
Malcolm D. Holmes
Modern democracies entrust the police with primary responsibility for the domestic
exercise of coercive control, the core of their function being the legitimate capacity
to use force to protect citizens and officers from the dangerous people in their midst
(Bittner, 1970). The legitimacy of the police rests largely on the premise that officers
will treat citizens fairly and equally. Indeed, the political tenet of equal justice stands
among the most cherished ideals of the United States. Yet, when significant social
inequalities exist, policing implicitly involves protecting social arrangements that
advantage more privileged segments of society. Groups perceived as special threats
to the status quo, especially racial and ethnic minorities, may bear the brunt of
coercive control by the police (Holmes & Smith, 2008).
The conflict theory of law maintains that coercive crime control is an instrument
expressly used by powerful groups to protect their interests (e.g., Chambliss, 2001;
Turk, 1969). In this view, the economic oppression and legal injustice long experienced by Blacks and Hispanics (particularly those of Mexican origin) make them
troublesome populations in the eyes of the dominant group and the police, who perceive them as potential threats to social order and personal safety (Holmes & Smith,
2008).1 Preservation of the differential structure of privilege requires ­exercising
coercive power to control the threat posed by these disadvantaged groups, which
have much to gain and little to lose (Jacobs & O’Brien, 1998). The structural characteristics of society thus become manifested in the formal and informal o
­ rganization
and practices of policing (Chambliss, 2001). Racial threat theories are derivatives of
the conflict tradition that specify testable relationships between structural indicators
of racial threat (e.g., percent Black in a population) and resource allocations to police
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
256
Malcolm D. Holmes
agencies and street‐level strategies of policing. Although policing may represent the
legitimate interest of all citizens in controlling crime and its injurious effects, empirical
research reveals that police coercion is linked to the racial composition of communities (e.g., Carmichael & Kent, 2014; B. Smith & Holmes, 2014).
This chapter assays contemporary racial threat theory and research. The theoretical development of the threat perspective has focused on issues such as whose
interests are served by various forms of police coercion and the contexts in which
racial threat is most salient. These matters are the focus of the next section.
Then empirical investigations that test threat hypotheses about resource allocations
(personnel and fiscal) to police departments and street‐level behaviors of police
(arrest, use of excessive force, police‐caused homicide) are reviewed. A discussion
of what we know and need to know about the relationship between racial threat
and police coercion concludes the chapter.
Racial Threat Theory
The generic concept of racial (or minority) threat is often used somewhat imprecisely in research on various forms of social control (Eitle, D’Alessio & Stolzenberg,
2002). While various perspectives provide insight into dominant‐group responses to
minority populations, this chapter focuses specifically on the empirically testable
theoretical perspective introduced in the first section. Research in that tradition
employs multivariate analyses of aggregated data to look at how the racial composition of geographic entities influences patterns of police coercion. Large cities are
generally the focus of these investigations.
Racial Composition and Threat
Racial threat theories maintain that White citizens and local police officials exercise
their political influence to encourage the strategic use of coercive crime control
against minority citizens in cities with relatively large minority populations. Popular
stereotypes associate Blacks and Hispanics (particularly those of Mexican origin)
with serious criminality and violent proclivities (e.g., Bender, 2003; Chiricos, Welch
& Gertz, 2004; Quillian & Pager, 2001). The presence of relatively large minority
populations (whether real or perceived) heightens perceptions of criminal threat
among Whites (e.g., Chiricos, Hogan, & Gertz, 1997; Liska, Lawrence, & Sanchirico,
1982; Wang, 2012). Similarly, police officials may believe that minority groups are
inclined to criminality and threaten social order (e.g., Turk, 1969), and thus they
may see relatively large minority populations as presenting a substantial problem of
social control (e.g., Liska & Yu, 1992). While agreeing on these particulars, variants
of the racial threat hypothesis conceptualize the effect of perceived threat on coercive
crime control somewhat differently.
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
257
The first systematic statement of racial threat theory appeared in Blalock’s seminal
Toward a Theory of Minority‐Group Relations in 1967. He argued that minority
groups may experience discrimination when they threaten the political or economic
interests of the dominant group in society. The relative size of a minority group
determines the degree of threat it presents and the amount of discrimination it will
confront. Of special relevance to state social control, Blalock (1967) hypothesized
that as a minority group is perceived ideologically as posing a greater threat of crime
and violence, social control efforts increase dramatically (pp. 166–168). Thus, the
theory predicts an upward‐curving relationship between threat‐oriented ideologies
and social control efforts. Subsequent work suggests, however, that there are limits
on the increasing use of social control by the state (e.g., Jackson & Carroll, 1981).
When a minority group represents a numerical majority, it achieves greater political
power and becomes capable of effectively mobilizing resources for collective action
on its behalf. In predominantly minority communities, therefore, minority citizens’
ascendant political power may reduce the use of coercive crime control strategies,
which are seen as supporting dominant interests. Research on coercive crime c­ ontrol
framed in this modified variant of the “power‐threat” argument predicts an initially
positive relationship between percent minority and the mobilization of coercive
crime control strategies, which will turn negative as the minority population reaches
a level where it can begin successfully exerting political power (see B. Smith &
Holmes, 2014).2
Also building on Blalock’s model, racial threat theory offers an alternative linear
hypothesis about the effects of percent minority on crime control efforts. The “threat
hypothesis” postulates that "the greater the number of acts or people threatening to
the interests of the powerful, the greater the level of deviance and crime control"
(Liska, 1992, p. 18). This approach maintains that the dominant group and police
authorities can effectively marshal coercive crime control mechanisms even as
minority populations become increasingly large. These tactics help preserve existing
social arrangements to the benefit of the dominant group, but perhaps more importantly certain forms of coercive control may serve the interests of police officers on
the street (Holmes, 2000; Liska & Yu, 1992). In this perspective, relatively large
minority populations may amplify the risk perceived by police and increase their
willingness to employ coercive street‐level tactics irrespective of any political
­opposition from minority citizens.
Both the curvilinear power‐threat and linear threat hypotheses provide potentially
fruitful approaches for explaining the coercive control of minority populations, but a
critical question concerns whose interests are served by various forms of police
­coercion. Do the police protect dominant‐group interests, or do their actions reflect
their own interests? Politically powerful citizens may wield considerable sway over
the distribution of resources for policing by state and local government, but they may
exert appreciably less influence over the street‐level actions of police officers.
Nonetheless, police authorities must remain mindful of resource disadvantages that
might befall their agency should influential citizens become dissatisfied with the
258
Malcolm D. Holmes
operational practices of the organization. Accordingly, rather than heeding an official
policy of fairly administering justice in a value‐free framework, police agencies may
substitute goals and implement policies that accommodate this organizational imperative (Chambliss & Seidman, 1971). The street‐level operations of policing involve policies and practices that maximize rewards and minimize strains for the organization—
it is organizationally expedient for police to refrain from deploying coercive action
against more powerful citizens and to focus on the powerless instead. In this way, the
differential mobilization of street‐level coercive control reflects the organizational
imperatives of policing and protects dominant‐group interests.
Even though coinciding in some degree with dominant‐group interests, the
street‐level behavior of police is motivated appreciably less by dominant values and
interests than by the exigencies of their unique position. Police stereotypes of minorities conflate race and violent criminality, imagery that is reinforced by selective
personal experience and departmental folklore (e.g., Bolton & Feagin, 2004;
Ogletree, Prosser, Smith, & Talley, 1995; M. Smith & Alpert, 2007). The attitudes
and actions of minority citizens may be perceived as directly threatening a police
officer’s well‐being or challenging an officer’s authority (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993;
Westley, 1970). Moreover, police behavior is characterized by a high degree of discretion and a low degree of visibility and may thus be guided by extralegal factors
(e.g., D. Smith & Visher, 1981). In light of these considerations, it makes sense that
the immediate threats perceived by police during encounters with minority citizens
would take primacy over more distal political pressures from the dominant group in
motivating their street‐level actions (Holmes, 2000; Liska & Yu, 1992). At the same
time, the practices of street‐level policing do not ordinarily elicit scrutiny by
­dominant group members, who may willfully ignore clandestine “dirty work” that
represents their interests (Jacobs & O’Brien, 1998).
Taken together, these considerations indicate that threat has multiple dimensions,
reflecting the interests of both dominant‐group members and the police (Holmes,
2000; Holmes & Smith, 2008). Resource allocations and surveillance strategies of
policing may assuage the racial threat perceived by the dominant group, but police
officers patrolling the street are hardly automatons mindlessly heeding dominant‐
group expectations about police work. Questionable practices that may not be
acceptable should they come to light in more demure social circles of the dominant
group may well serve the interests of officers on the street. Therefore, the curvilinear
power‐threat hypothesis may better predict certain forms of state social control,
whereas the linear threat hypothesis may better predict others.
Ecological Factors and Threat
While racial threat hypotheses are frequently framed in terms of the relative size of
minority populations, that alone may not be sufficient to explain levels of perceived
racial threat and police coercion in cities. Ecological or spatial characteristics of
­cities, particularly residential segregation, also may exert an important influence.
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
259
On the one hand, given that racial segregation isolates threatening populations and
limits intergroup contact, it may effectively minimize perceptions of threat among
dominant‐group members and reduce social control efforts (e.g., Blalock, 1967). On
the other hand, although Whites may not perceive the crimes that take place in
minority neighborhoods as personal threats, they may still perceive disadvantaged
minority citizens of segregated neighborhoods as special threats to social order
(e.g., Liska & Yu, 1992; Spitzer, 1975). Work on police coercion is informed more by
the latter perspective.
One such argument maintains that police discriminate against Blacks to defend the
interests of White neighborhoods. For example, Stewart, Baumer, Brunson, and
Simons (2009) found that Black youths residing in predominantly White neighborhoods more frequently perceived discrimination by the police compared with their
counterparts in predominantly Black neighborhoods. However, the binary question
used in the study, which simply indicated whether the respondent had experienced
police discrimination, did not allow determination of whether the respondents’
­perceptions indicated objective differences of treatment or less reliable subjective
impressions. Further evidence for the defense of White neighborhood hypothesis is
found in studies employing objective indicators of police behavior. A study conducted in New York City showed that Blacks and Hispanics were stopped by police at
higher rates than Whites in all areas of the city, but those encountered in neighborhoods with comparatively small Black populations were stopped relatively more frequently (Fagan & Davies, 2000). Similarly, a study of police surveillance of m
­ otorists
found that Blacks driving in nonminority areas were subjected to greater surveillance
(Meehan & Ponder, 2002). These studies are limited to a few jurisdictions, however,
and field research provides evidence that residents of minority neighborhoods are
targeted for more aggressive policing strategies (e.g., Brunson & Miller, 2006;
Chambliss, 1994; Curtis, 1998; Herbert, 1997; Rios, 2011; Venkatesh, 2000).
In contrast to the defense of neighborhood argument, Holmes and Smith (2008,
2012; B. Smith & Holmes, 2014) maintain that police patrolling in highly segregated cities perceive minority citizens as directly threatening to their well‐being
and are more likely to employ aggressive tactics in that context. Many Black and
Hispanic urban neighborhoods are characterized by challenging economic and
social conditions—poverty, social isolation, crime, weapon availability, violence,
and social disorder/incivilities—that may pose objective and subjective threats to
police (see, e.g., Anderson, 1999; Massey & Denton, 1993; Peterson & Krivo, 2010;
Skogan, 1990). Their day‐to‐day work in such areas exposes them to the most
­difficult conditions of urban life. Moreover, citizens sometimes challenge their
authority (e.g., Weitzer & Brunson, 2009) or personal safety (e.g., Kent, 2010).
Officers may become conditioned to associate such locales with criminality and
danger (e.g., Bayley & Mendelsohn, 1968; Crank, 1998; Herbert, 1997; Meehan &
Ponder, 2002) through exposure to other officers’ war stories and personal experience. Whether symbolic or real, threats perceived by police may elicit emotions
such as fear and anger, which may play a major role in triggering aggressive
responses to minority citizens (Holmes & Smith, 2008, 2012). Stereotyping may
260
Malcolm D. Holmes
amplify officers’ emotional responses. While useful for conserving mental resources
and routinizing interactions, stereotyping may elicit specious attributions and inappropriate behavioral reactions to minority citizens. Officers who work in districts with
large populations, high rates of violent crime, and greater concentrations of minorities
may be especially prone to stereotypic responses to minority citizens (Correll et al.,
2007), including gratuitous acts of aggression (Holmes & Smith, 2008, 2012).
In addition to the spatial organization of cities, regional differences in race relations may influence perceptions of racial threat. The unique historical circumstances
of northern and southern states may produce variations in the social control of
Black populations (Blalock, 1967; Chambliss & Seidman, 1971; Hawkins, 1987).
Southern ideology includes exaggerated beliefs about Black males being “oversexed,
overaggressive, and criminally inclined,” imagery that justifies extreme coercive
control (Blalock, 1967, p. 167). In contrast, Blacks in the North may be seen as less
threatening and thus largely ignored. A competing viewpoint suggests that southern
paternalism diminishes social control of Blacks compared with other regions (see
Hawkins, 1987). Regional variations in perceptions of threat may, however, be mediated by historical events. For example, in an early study of police strength in cities,
Liska and colleagues (1981) found the effects of percent non‐White and segregation
depended on region and year. The findings across five time periods from 1950 to
1972 reflected the impact of the civil rights movement in the South and urban disorder in the non‐South.
Regarding Hispanics, the Mexican‐origin population of the Southwest comprises
the largest segment of the overall Hispanic population and is perceived as a major
criminal threat (Holmes, Smith, Freng, & Muñoz, 2008; Wang, 2012). Tensions between the police and the Mexican‐origin population are deeply rooted in the history
of the Southwest (Bender, 2003). Contemporary stereotypes of Mexican criminality
include imagery such as “gang bangers” and “illegal drug smugglers” (Bender, 2003;
Martinez, 2002). Bias against those of Mexican origin reflects nativist sentiments,
and stereotypes highlight the criminal threat allegedly posed by poor Mexican
immigrants. Yet, crime is not a major problem among that population (see, e.g.,
Hagan & Palloni, 1999; Ousey & Kubrin, 2009). Nonetheless, media portrayals and
political rhetoric fuel anxiety among the dominant group (Bender, 2003; Martinez,
2002), which may mobilize its political power in support of enhanced police coercive
control in the Southwest (Holmes et al., 2008). There is some evidence that Hispanics
in the Southwest are subjected to more extensive police coercion than those living in
other regions (Holmes, 2000; Jackson, 1985).
Racial Threat and Dimensions of Police Coercion
Police coercion falls into two broad categories: The allocations of resources to police
agencies, and the strategies of street‐level policing. Numerous studies of racial threat
focus on allocations of law enforcement personnel and fiscal expenditures to city
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
261
police departments, which involve political decisions that reflect patterns of influence
among various groups of citizens. Evidence for these resource allocations with
­predictions of threat hypotheses—after controlling for alternative e­ xplanations—
would support the proposition that dominant‐group fears translate into a greater
capacity for social control of minority populations. That does not necessarily support
a conclusion that the underlying motivation is overtly discriminatory, or even that
the resources are deployed differentially in disadvantaged minority neighborhoods.
It seems implausible, however, that increases in the fiscal operating capacity and
strength of numbers for policing would be utilized to regulate more affluent White
neighborhoods.
The coercive strategies of street‐level policing take two general forms—those that
are legitimate and those that are not. Racial disparities in the use of tactics that fall
within the bounds of law may reflect underlying patterns of criminal behavior,
discrimination by police, or both. These include arrests and police‐caused
­homicides. Illegitimate police actions involve violations of departmental regulations
and/or criminal statutes. Use of excessive force falls squarely into this category.
These actions are especially interesting from the standpoint of racial threat theory,
as a differential pattern of deployment across racial groups can only be explained as
a product of discrimination.
Police Resource Allocations
Research on the crime control capacity of political entities has proliferated over
the past half‐century. A key question addressed in that body of work is whether the
­allocation of public resources to policing primarily represents a community’s consensual interest in controlling crime or the political interests of the dominant group
in controlling minority populations.
The possibility that the distribution of resources to policing is driven largely by
consensual public concern about crime derives from economic rational choice theories. The underlying assumption of that perspective is that the demand for crime
control reflects a relatively stable economic preference or interest (Liska, 1992). The
political system is said to respond to various welfare concerns by maximizing
resource allocations to high‐demand services. Crime involves great potential costs
for all citizens and represents a fundamental political interest, and communities
with higher crime rates will experience a greater consensual demand for policing
(Nalla, Lynch, & Leiber, 1997). Crime rates should, therefore, dictate resource
distributions to policing.
In contrast, racial threat arguments stipulate that group interests and political
influence are unequally distributed and that crime control efforts correspond with
the interests of the powerful (Liska, 1992). As discussed, White citizens and police
authorities perceive relatively large minority populations as criminal threats and
problems of social control. Rather than fighting crime in general, police agencies
262
Malcolm D. Holmes
concentrate their efforts in disadvantaged minority neighborhoods (Chambliss,
2001). Rank‐and‐file officers also may push for increased police strength and other
assets for street‐level policing in areas where citizens are viewed as threats to their
safety. In the racial threat perspective, then, the primary drivers of resource
­allocations to policing are the racial and spatial composition of the city.
A number of early studies tested predictions about the effects of rational choice
and racial threat variables on police resource allocations (primarily measured as
police strength) using various research designs (for a review, see Sever, 2003).
Generally, these studies provided considerable support for threat hypotheses, with
only 5 of 28 reporting negative findings. The relationship between crime (and other
rational choice predictors) and police resources is less consistent and provides comparatively little support for the rational choice model (Holmes et al., 2008). That
body of research afforded little attention to the power‐threat hypothesis, although a
few studies reported evidence consistent with it (Greenberg, Kessler, & Loftin, 1985;
Jackson, 1985, 1986; Jackson & Carroll, 1981).3 Moreover, the Hispanic population
and racial segregation received little attention.
More recent studies extend earlier research in several ways. In addition to further
testing the alternative versions of the threat hypothesis, newer studies give more
attention to the effects of percent Hispanic (Carmichael & Kent, 2014; Holmes et al.,
2008; Kent & Jacobs, 2005; Stucky, 2005; Stults & Baumer, 2007) and racial s­ egregation
(Carmichael & Kent, 2014; Kent & Jacobs, 2005; Stults & Baumer, 2007). They also
give some consideration to the interaction of percent minority and region variables
(Kent & Jacobs, 2005) and the underlying micro‐level assumptions of racial threat
hypotheses (Stults & Baumer, 2007).
In regard to the power‐threat hypothesis, which is most theoretically relevant to
resource allocations for policing, the findings are somewhat mixed. Using a pooled
time‐series model, Kent and Jacobs (2005) found a positive effect of the natural
log of percent Black (the logged effect indicates that the strength of the relationship diminished at higher values of percent Black), which became larger in later
time periods. The increase in this effect over time suggests that the oppression of
Blacks is intensifying, contrary to the prediction of more optimistic views about
contemporary race relations in the United States. A curvilinear effect of percent
Hispanic did not correspond to power‐threat predictions, initially being slightly
negative then turning sharply positive at about 25 percent Hispanic in a city. The
researchers suggested that given the low percentage of Hispanics in most cities,
research focusing specifically on that population should probably be restricted to
the Southwest. Another study employing a pooled time‐series approach found
similar effects of percent Black on police strength (Carmichael & Kent, 2014).
Percent Hispanic had no effect, however. Similarly, a cross‐sectional study reported
an initially positive curvilinear relationship of percent Black consistent with the
power‐threat hypothesis, but no relationship of percent Hispanic to police force
size (Stults & Baumer, 2007). In addition, a curvilinear relationship between
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
263
Whites’ fear of crime and police force strength corresponded to the effect of
percent Black, supporting a key premise about what motivates perceptions
­
of racial threat.
Of particular significance to the argument that political influence from competing groups affects the allocation of police resources, Stucky (2005) considered the
mediating effect of the form of city government on the relationship of percent
minority variables to police strength. The form of the relationship of percent Black
and percent Hispanic to total police employees was contingent on the degree to
which cities had traditional political systems that render political officials more
susceptible to influence from citizens. While generally consistent with threat
­
­arguments, the findings suggest that the effects of racial threat on police strength are
more complex than commonly conceptualized.
Following the suggestion of restricting analyses of Hispanics to the Southwest,
Holmes and colleagues (2008) conducted cross‐sectional analyses of per capita
expenditures on policing and the number of police officers in southwestern cities.
Percent Hispanic had a positive relationship to police expenditures that turned
­negative at about 27 percent Hispanic population. Percent Hispanic was not related
to the police strength variable. Interestingly, given the regional context of the study,
percent Black had a positive, linear relationship with both outcome variables.
The mean percent Black was small in these cities, which may explain the lack of
­curvilinear relationships. Factors uniquely important to perceived threat in the
Southwest—distance to the US–Mexico border and Anglo [non‐Hispanic White]–
Hispanic income inequality—influenced, respectively, expenditures and police
strength. These findings again suggest that racial threat may involve more than just
the racial composition of city populations.
Another important threat indicator is the degree of segregation within a city. The
study by Kent and Jacobs (2005) found that Black–White segregation sharply
reduced police strength in the South compared with other regions, possibly because
law enforcement officials in segregated southern cities believe Blacks want less
policing in their neighborhoods. Another possibility, however, is that segregated
Blacks in the South are seen as less threatening to the dominant group compared
with those living in inner‐city neighborhoods in other regions, a finding consistent
with the argument that Blacks are treated with greater lenity in the South (see
Hawkins, 1987). An interaction between percent Black and Black–White segregation was also present in the data, which indicated that less police strength can be
expected in cities with relatively large and highly segregated Black populations. Two
other studies including Black–White segregation found that the measure is positively related to police strength (Carmichael & Kent, 2014; Stults & Baumer, 2007).
In addition, one study included Hispanic–White segregation, which was not
s­tatistically significant (Carmichael & Kent, 2014).
Overall, the findings from studies of police resource allocations provide
­considerable support for threat hypotheses with respect to the Black population.
264
Malcolm D. Holmes
The findings for Black segregation are somewhat mixed but indicate that segregation also influences allocations of police resources. The more limited findings
regarding the Hispanic population provide mixed support for the threat hypothesis,
although a study of the Southwest suggests that regional variations in perceived
threat may matter. The single study considering Hispanic segregation showed it had
no effect on police resource allocations.
Coercive Strategies of Policing
Social scientists have long been concerned about street‐level police practices in
minority communities (e.g., Johnson, 2003; Myrdal, 1944; Westley, 1970). Much of
the research on the issue provides evidence of the differential treatment of minority
citizens, but it typically focuses on a limited sample of communities (e.g., D. Smith,
1986). While that research provides important insights into discriminatory police
action, the broader comparisons conducted to test racial threat theory offer important insights into whether these findings reflect a widespread pattern of differential
coercive control.
Arrest The power to arrest is fundamental to formal social control and comprises a
key part of the police role in society. Yet, police possess substantial discretion in
exercising their legitimate authority to arrest criminal suspects, particularly in less
serious cases (Ousey & Lee, 2008). The racial threat and place hypotheses predict
that the discretionary capacity to selectively arrest suspects is essential to the containment and control of threatening minority populations (see Stolzenberg,
D’Alessio, & Eitle, 2004). The “differential crime hypothesis” counters that minority
communities have higher crime rates, which translate into higher arrest rates.
Until rather recently, little research on the relationship between racial threat and
arrest rates was reported. Sophisticated quantitative analyses began to appear in the
literature more frequently during the last few years. By necessity, these studies consider only Blacks because available data generally do not include Hispanic arrests.
One such study tested Blalock’s (1967) hypotheses regarding political and economic
threat, as well as Liska’s (1992) threat of minority crime hypothesis. Employing data
for South Carolina counties and pooled cross‐section time‐series analyses, the study
examined the Black‐to‐White arrest ratio for violent felony offenses (Eitle et al.,
2002). Rather than using percent Black as a predictor of threat, more specific
­measures of the various forms of threat were included in the analysis because racial
composition cannot adequately capture how the various dimensions of minority
threat are manifested. Percent of reported violent felony offenses involving a Black
perpetrator and White victim served as the measure of racial threat, which was the
only statistically significant predictor of the outcome measure. These findings
­supported the threat of Black crime hypothesis, but not the political or economic
threat hypotheses.
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
265
Another study used a multilevel analysis, which incorporated a micro‐level measure of Black‐on‐White‐crime and macro‐level measures of percent Black and racial
segregation (Stolzenberg et al., 2004). The outcome measure was violent crimes that
resulted in arrest and the victim provided information on offender characteristics.
The findings did not support the racial threat hypothesis, revealing that the arrest
rate of Blacks declined sharply with a decelerating slope as percent Black increased.
At the micro level, Black offenders were less likely to be arrested within cities with
large Black populations. Racial segregation conditioned the probability of a Black
offender being arrested, however, with the likelihood being greater in integrated cities and lower in segregated cities. In addition, police were more likely to make an
arrest in Black‐on‐White crimes in integrated cities. Stolzenberg and colleagues
concluded that racial segregation serves as an instrument of state control by which
“problem populations” are handled passively with less reliance on police coercion
being required.
An aggregate‐level analysis of race‐specific total arrest rates by Parker, Stults, and
Rice (2005) similarly provides findings contradicting racial threat hypotheses. The
results showed that Black arrests declined as the relative size of the Black population
increased. Such findings are consistent with the “benign neglect” hypothesis—
victim–perpetrator dyads are more frequently intraracial in cities with relatively
large and segregated minority populations, and minority crime victims may be seen
as less deserving than White victims of official action. Racial segregation was not
related to Black arrest rates, but an index of concentrated racial economic disadvantage was positively related to arrest rates. This suggests that greater concentrated
Black disadvantage heightens group differences and increases social control of poor
urban Blacks. However, greater concentrated disadvantage among Whites was also
related to higher arrest rates among that group. Parker and colleagues (2005)
­concluded that these results are consistent with a Marxist interpretation that in
­general poor populations are perceived as a threat to the social order.
Two analyses using city‐level data included lesser offenses, in which police have
greater discretion regarding arrest. In a study of race‐specific arrest rates for drug
offenses, Eitle and Monahan (2009) considered the role of police organization in
addition to community characteristics. The findings for percent Black were consistent with the power‐threat hypothesis. A racial inequality index (another indicator
of racial threat) was included in the analysis, with its effect on Black arrest rates
being moderated by the degree of formalization of police departments. The effect of
racial inequality on Black arrest rates was negligible in cities with a relatively high
degree of formalization, but its effect increased substantially with less formalization,
consistent with racial threat hypotheses. The other city‐level study analyzed the
Black–White gap in arrest rates for violent, property, drug, and weapon offenses
(Ousey & Lee, 2008). The analysis substituted a Black–White exposure index for
percent Black, a measure that captures the probability of interracial encounters in a
particular census tract. The findings provided little support for either racial threat or
benign neglect arguments. Residential segregation was included to capture the
266
Malcolm D. Holmes
spatial opportunity for selective deployment of law enforcement resources and
discretionary arrest decisions based on race. These arguments were supported by
the finding that residential segregation was positively related to the Black–White
arrest gap for drug and weapon offenses, but not for property and violent offenses.
Excessive force The legitimate authority to use force is a singular defining
characteristic of the police (Bittner, 1970), but the police may also employ it gratuitously (Holmes & Smith, 2008). Occurring without lawful necessity, such force
ranges from relatively minor transgressions, such as "roughing up" uncooperative
or disrespectful suspects, to unjustifiable homicides. Not only may excessive
force cause harm to individual victims, it can damage police–minority relations
in the larger community. Despite the clear importance of the issue, until recently
it has received little attention in research on racial threat.
Whereas racial threat theory sees police use of excessive force as a byproduct of
deeply embedded social inequalities, various organizational perspectives maintain
that characteristics of police agencies explain the variable incidence of excessive
force across jurisdictions (e.g., Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993). Subcultural norms encourage
the use of excessive force and demand that officers remain loyal and maintain
secrecy when fellow officers violate official regulations. The insularity of the police
subculture diminishes police accountability to the citizens they are supposed
to serve. Enhancing “community accountability” is the aim of leading policy
­recommendations (e.g., increasing the racial diversity of departments) to improve
police–minority relations and reduce the use of excessive force (see, e.g.,
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968; Ogletree et al., 1995;
US Department of Justice, 2001).
Studies of racial threat and excessive force have examined the effects of percent
Black and percent Hispanic on official complaints alleging police use of excessive
force in large cities. Two studies analyzed civil rights criminal complaints alleging
police brutality that were investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and
reported to the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) (Holmes,
2000; B. Smith & Holmes, 2003). These studies augmented the original DOJ data,
which included only cities with two or more complaints annually, by including all
cities of 150,000 or more population and racial threat variables.
The first study found that percent Black did not affect civil rights criminal complaints in the cities contained in the original DOJ dataset, but it had a strong positive
effect in the data for all cities of 150,000 or more population (Holmes, 2000).
The different findings resulted from sample‐selection bias. Cities with two or more
­complaints annually had a substantially larger percentage of Blacks in the population
than did cities with fewer than two complaints, which suppressed the effect of percent Black in the analysis including only two or more complaints cities. In addition,
percent Hispanic was related positively to civil rights criminal complaints in both
samples of cities, but the effect occurred only in the Southwest. This finding is particularly noteworthy. The Mexican‐origin population may be perceived as a special
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
267
threat to dominant interests and the police in that region because of its proximity to
the US–Mexico border and the alleged problem of immigrant criminality that
inflames fear of crime (Holmes & Smith, 2008; Holmes et al., 2008; Wang, 2012).
While providing evidence consistent with the minority threat hypothesis, that
study did not consider the alternative explanations proffered by the community
accountability perspective. To address that issue, the subsequent analysis of that
dataset added organizational variables (B. Smith & Holmes, 2003). The organizational variables captured departmental characteristics (e.g., minority representation)
that are thought to make the police more accountable to the communities they serve.
Despite the inclusion of five community accountability measures, the findings for
the minority threat variables were virtually unchanged from the earlier study. There
were limited effects consistent with the community accountability hypotheses.
Neither of the federal civil rights criminal complaints studies reported evidence
­supporting the predictions of the power‐threat hypothesis.
Those investigations included only the small number of severe excessive force
complaints that came to the attention of federal authorities. Most complaints
are adjudicated within local police agencies. Moreover, the effects of segregation
were not considered, and the second study did not include community policing, an
important accountability policy that had not been widely adopted during the time
period encompassed by the data. To address those issues, B. Smith and Holmes
(2014) analyzed sustained excessive force complaints that were adjudicated departmentally. In addition to percent Black, percent Hispanic and several community
accountability variables, the analysis included residential segregation measures.
Both percent Black and percent Hispanic were related positively to the incidence
of sustained excessive force complaints, which is consistent with the threat hypothesis. The quadratic terms included to test the predictions of the power‐threat hypothesis were not statistically significant. The effect of percent Hispanic was smaller
than that of percent Black, perhaps because of the greater diversity and varying
experiences with social control among the Hispanic population. The percent
Hispanic effect was not limited to the Southwest in these data (B. Smith & Holmes,
2014), which may reflect the recent growth of the Hispanic (particularly the
Mexican‐origin) population outside that region. A particularly striking finding for
Black segregation was observed in this study. The analysis revealed that the level of
sustained complaints was dramatically higher in cities with the highest degree of
Black segregation compared with cities that were less segregated. There was not,
however, a significant effect for Hispanic dissimilarity, perhaps because Hispanic
segregation was appreciably less pronounced than Black segregation in the cities
under study. The average degree of Hispanic neighborhood disadvantage is also
lower than in Black neighborhoods (see Peterson & Krivo, 2010).
Findings for community accountability variables were mixed and largely inconsistent with predictions. An unexpected finding was the positive relationship of the
ratio of Hispanic officers to Hispanic citizens to sustained excessive force complaints
in the Southwest: departments with greater Hispanic diversity had a higher ­incidence
268
Malcolm D. Holmes
of sustained excessive force complaints. Hispanic police officers in the Southwest
often work in communities with large immigrant populations, and the difficult conditions of impoverished barrios and hostility toward recent immigrants from Mexico
who reside in them may produce harsher responses to Hispanic citizens by both
Hispanic and White police officers.
Taken together, the available research on excessive force provides consistent
support for racial threat hypotheses. The linear effects of percent Black and percent
Hispanic variables, as well as the effect of the Black segregation variable in one study,
suggest that the use of excessive force reflects the concerns of the police more than
those of the dominant group. In addition, the findings suggest that the Southwest is
unique with respect to police use of excessive force against Hispanics. The Mexican‐
origin population may be perceived as a special threat by police in that region
because of persistent stereotypes of criminality and violent proclivities among those
of Mexican origin (see, e.g., Bender, 2003; Martinez, 2002), perceptions that may
trigger gratuitous uses of force.
It is important to note that official complaints filed against the police are the only
currently available data that permit aggregate‐level analyses of excessive force across
cities. But these data have limitations. Most importantly, it is virtually impossible to
empirically verify that complaints accurately represent the underlying incidence of
excessive force within cities. Yet, various factors may create systematic barriers to
the filing of excessive force complaints by minority citizens (B. Smith & Holmes,
2014), which would tend to suppress the effects of percent minority and minority
segregation variables on the incidence of complaints. Findings from complaints data
may, therefore, provide conservative estimates of the relationships of racial composition and segregation to excessive force. Moreover, several other considerations
indicate aggregated complaints data provide valid evidence about patterns of excessive force. First, findings for percent minority variables are similar in studies of federal civil rights criminal complaints (Holmes, 2000; B. Smith & Holmes, 2003) and
of sustained complaints at the local level (B. Smith & Holmes, 2014). Second, as will
be shown, these findings are generally consistent with results from studies of police
killings of felons (e.g., Holmes, Painter, & Smith, 2016; Jacobs & O’Brien, 1998).
Third, the results for Black segregation parallel observations of aggressive policing
in studies of minority neighborhoods in various cities (e.g., Brunson & Miller, 2006;
Chambliss, 1994; Herbert, 1997; D. Smith, 1986; Weitzer, 1999).
Police‐caused homicides Given the extreme severity and finality of the action, police‐
caused homicides are of special concern with respect to racial disadvantage at the
hands of police. Police officers may legitimately employ deadly force when a suspect
poses a clear and imminent danger to citizens or officers. Several early studies
reported that Black citizens were overrepresented in killings by police but generally
found that their higher death rates were explained by higher rates of violence and
resistance (for a review, see Fyfe, 1988). Based on such findings, the “community
violence” hypothesis maintains that the primary predictor of the incidence of
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
269
police‐caused homicides is the level of criminal violence in cities (see, e.g., B. Smith,
2003). Given that disadvantaged urban African and Hispanic populations have
relatively high rates of violent crime (Peterson & Krivo, 2010), their overrepresentation in police‐caused homicide statistics may be explained by the real threats police
officers experience in encounters with them. The threat perspective maintains that
racial bias influences patterns of police‐caused homicides of minority citizens.
Early studies of police‐caused homicides framed in the racial threat perspective
employed data that predate the Tennessee v. Garner (471 U.S. 1 [1985]) decision,
which largely precluded the use of deadly force to apprehend unarmed fleeing felons.
Liska and Yu (1992) found a positive effect of percent non‐White on total and
group‐specific (White/non‐White) rates of police‐caused homicide in large cities.
Tests for nonlinearity indicated that the quadratic relationship postulated by the
power‐threat hypothesis was not present in the data. Two other studies included
measures of percent Black, with both finding that it is an important predictor of
police homicide rates in large cities (Jacobs & O’Brien, 1998; Sorensen, Marquart, &
Brock, 1993). One showed that percent Black was not related to the overall rate of
police killings but had a positive relationship to killings of Blacks in group‐specific
analyses (Jacobs & O’Brien, 1998). Tests of the power‐threat hypothesis were not
reported in either of these studies.
More recent research relies on data from the post‐Garner era, during which the
elective use of deadly force was more restricted. Two studies by B. Smith (2003,
2004) found that proportion Black had a statistically significant, positive relationship to the incidence of police‐caused homicides in large cities, but proportion
Hispanic was not significant. One study (B. Smith, 2004) also included race‐specific
(Black and White) models, which revealed that proportion Black was a strong predictor of the incidence of police‐caused homicides in the Black population. Another
study included both large and small cities (Willits & Nowacki, 2014). The results
showed that percent Black had a statistically significant, positive relationship to the
incidence of police‐caused homicides in the overall dataset, and a positive relationship that approached statistical significance in the subsample of larger cities. Percent
Hispanic was unrelated to police‐caused homicides in all analyses. None of these
studies reported tests for the curvilinearity predicted by the power‐threat hypothesis.
All of these studies included measures of community violence. They provide
somewhat mixed evidence that level of criminal violence in cities influences
­patterns of police‐caused homicide. Clearly, however, inclusion of these indicators
did not eliminate the effects of percent minority, which belies the argument that the
level of violence in cities is largely responsible for the higher incidence of police‐
caused homicides in the Black population.
Research on police‐caused homicide has given relatively little consideration to the
effects of segregation. Liska & Yu (1992) found that White–non‐White segregation
was positively related to police‐caused homicides, but it was not statistically
significant when the analysis was disaggregated by race. Another study briefly noted
that a supplementary analysis including a Black–White segregation measure did not
270
Malcolm D. Holmes
alter the reported findings, and that the segregation measure was unrelated to the
incidence of police killings (Jacobs & O’Brien, 1998). Willits and Nowacki’s (2014)
study revealed no effect of either Black or Hispanic segregation on police‐caused
homicides. Although extant findings on police‐caused homicide are largely negative
regarding the effect of segregation, there are issues of sample size and/or missing
data in two of the studies (Liska & Yu, 1992; Willits & Nowacki, 2014). Moreover,
based on findings for excessive force (B. Smith & Holmes, 2014), it is plausible that
the effects of segregation are nonlinear.
These studies offer important insights into the incidence of police‐caused homicides in communities, but they have several limitations that caution against drawing
anything more than tentative conclusions. To address those issues, Holmes and
­colleagues (2016) sought to conduct a more comprehensive investigation. Using
data from several sources for cities of 100,000 or more population, they conducted
analyses of the overall incidence, Black incidence, and Hispanic incidence of police‐
caused homicides during 2008–2013, inclusive.
The initial findings of that project indicate that neither variant of the racial threat
hypothesis is supported in the total incidence of police‐caused homicide analysis
and Black group‐specific analysis. The group‐specific data for Hispanics, however,
generally supported the predictions of the power‐threat hypothesis. The observed
curvilinear relationship suggests that in cities with a very high percentage of
Hispanics, citizens may be able to exert greater control over the actions of police, at
least in respect to these highly visible acts of violence that cannot easily be swept
from public view.
The total incidence and group‐specific analyses revealed that cities with high
levels of Black segregation had a higher incidence of police‐caused homicides
­compared with less segregated cities. Fyfe (1980) suggested that large cities are
divided into “free‐fire zones” where police violence is widespread and acceptable,
and “sleepy hollows” where it is not. The findings for Black segregation are certainly
consistent with that argument. Moreover, they parallel those for sustained excessive
force complaints discussed earlier (B. Smith & Holmes, 2014). There was no effect of
Hispanic segregation in the total police‐caused homicides model, which again
mirrors findings for sustained excessive force complaints. There was, however, a
positive linear effect in the group‐specific analysis of Hispanics. In addition, cities in
the Southwest had a much higher incidence of police‐caused homicides of Hispanics
compared with other regions. The measures of community violence were important
predictors of police‐caused homicides, but as with previous studies the percent
minority and segregation effects were not simply the upshot of community violence.
While the findings of police‐caused homicide studies provide support for racial
threat hypotheses, virtually all research on the issue relies on Supplemental Homicide
Reports (SHR) from the Unified Crime Reports (UCR). These data undercount
police killings but allow judicious cross‐city comparisons (Loftin, Wiersema,
McDowall, & Dobrin, 2003). Another methodological concern revolves around the
legitimacy of the police‐caused homicides reported in the SHR data. Ostensibly
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
271
those killings involve the justifiable killing of felons.4 That definition suggests that
all such incidents are legitimate police actions, but it seems unlikely that strict adherence to legal standards produced the disparities observed across multiple studies.
Only rarely do police‐caused homicides result in criminal prosecution (see, e.g.,
Kindy & Kelly, 2015). Many cases involve ambiguous circumstances and limited, if
any, independent evidence apart from the statements of officers. Officers may have
believed someone posed a threat when in reality they did not. Moreover, the strict
code of secrecy of the police subculture helps shield officers from detection when
they needlessly employ violence (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993). As a result, authorities may
give the benefit of the doubt to police, and police‐caused homicides involving
minority citizens may be ruled justifiable even when they involve questionable
­circumstances. The evidence of racial threat effects from multiple studies certainly
suggests police are more likely to gratuitously target relatively large and/or segregated minority populations.
Conclusion
Racial threat theory has emerged as a leading explanation of the differential deployment of police coercion against Black and Hispanic populations in the United States.
This chapter has sought to sketch out variants of the theory and examine research
findings. By necessity, the review is selective and aims to identify key issues and
findings. While the evidence from research in this tradition provides support for
racial threat hypotheses, it is not entirely unequivocal. Still, some important regularities can be identified.
Certainly, the strongest and most consistent support for racial threat theory is
found in research on Blacks. Most studies of police resource allocations report curvilinear effects of percent Black that are consistent with the power‐threat hypothesis
(Carmichael & Kent, 2014; Kent & Jacobs, 2005; Stults & Baumer, 2007), but findings from one study suggest that the effect of percent Black is mediated by type of
local political system (Stucky, 2005). In addition, Black segregation generally has a
positive linear relationship to police resources (Carmichael & Kent, 2014; Stults &
Baumer, 2007), although one study indicates that the nature of that relationship is
contingent on region and relative size of the Black population (Kent & Jacobs, 2005).
Research on excessive force and police‐caused homicides consistently finds that percent Black influences these street‐level behaviors, but the effects are mostly linear.
Segregation findings are more limited and less consistent in that research. Studies
that consider the possibility of nonlinearity report, however, that highly segregated
cities exhibit an appreciably higher incidence of sustained excessive force complaints
(B. Smith & Holmes, 2014) and police‐caused homicides (Holmes et al., 2016). The
probability of such a unique pattern appearing by chance for two separate indicators
of police coercion seems remote. The similarity of findings strongly suggests that
Blacks in highly segregated cities experience greater exposure to gratuitous police
272
Malcolm D. Holmes
violence. On balance, this body of work suggests that the interests of Whites
influence allocations of resources for policing, whereas the interests of police dictate
their street‐level behavior.
Anomalous findings appear in research on Black arrest, where support for racial
threat hypotheses is decidedly mixed. While it is certainly plausible that arrest practices involve dynamics not captured by that approach, it seems more likely that differences of research design explain the inconsistent findings. These studies focus on
various types of offenses, employ dissimilar measures of the predictor variables, and
rely on markedly different statistical approaches and models. Clearly further research
will be necessary to determine how racial threat affects patterns of Black arrest.
Other priorities for future research on Black threat and police coercion include
further consideration of place and region effects. Although several studies include
Black segregation, findings vary a good bit, except for those regarding police resource
allocations. Findings of nonlinear segregation effects for excessive force complaints
(B. Smith & Holmes, 2014) and police‐caused homicides (Holmes et al., 2016)
­suggest one avenue of investigation, as does the finding that the effect of Black
­segregation on police strength varies by region (Kent & Jacobs, 2005).
Comparatively little research on racial threat incorporates characteristics of the
Hispanic population, which is surprising given that its tremendous growth in recent
years has resulted in Hispanics becoming the largest minority population in the
United States. In southwestern states, citizens’ perception of a large undocumented
immigrant population amplifies the perceived criminal threat purportedly posed by
undocumented immigrants, consistent with predictions of the threat hypothesis
(Wang, 2012). Research that investigates regional variation provides the most consistent findings that percent Hispanic is related to police coercion. While the effects of
racial threat variables on police resource allocations are decidedly mixed in national
studies (Carmichael & Kent, 2014; Kent & Jacobs, 2005; Stucky, 2005; Stults & Baumer,
2007), research focusing on the Southwest suggests that percent Hispanic and region‐
specific indicators of Hispanic threat are significant predictors of resource allocations
(Holmes et al., 2008). Some studies of excessive force find that percent Hispanic
effects are limited to that region (Holmes, 2000; B. Smith & Holmes, 2003). The few
studies of police‐caused homicides that incorporate percent Hispanic generally
report nonsignificant findings (B. Smith 2003, 2004; Willits and Nowacki, 2014),
although a group‐specific analysis reveals a curvilinear effect consistent with the
power‐threat hypothesis (Holmes et al., 2016). That group‐specific analysis also
shows that the incidence of police‐caused homicides increases as Hispanic–White
segregation increases. And very importantly, it demonstrates that police‐caused
homicides of Hispanics occur very disproportionately in the Southwest.
Clearly, the findings for Hispanic threat are not as robust as for Black threat. Yet,
fewer studies of Hispanic threat and police coercion appear in the literature. Little
attention has focused on Hispanic segregation and region. Further research on
police coercion in the Southwest that incorporates region‐specific indicators of
threat (e.g., proximity to the US–Mexico border) may shed new light on the dynamics
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
273
of Hispanic threat. Research on racial threat and Hispanic arrest patterns is also
needed. Fortunately, the UCR recently began reporting Hispanic arrest data, which
will provide opportunities to pursue that line of inquiry.
So, what can we conclude about racial threat and police coercion in the United
States? Despite the prominence of the racial threat theory in the research literature, answers to many questions must await future research. The dynamics of
racial threat involve historical (e.g., regional variations in race relations) and contextual (e.g., organizational characteristics of police departments) complexities
that defy efforts to make broad generalizations at present. More precise indicators
of racial threat are also needed. These considerations notwithstanding, extant
studies provide compelling evidence that racial threat matters. It is incumbent on
social scientists to disentangle the intricacies of the relationship of racial threat to
police coercion.
Notes
The author thanks Christopher J. Holmes for helpful comments on a draft of this chapter. He
remains solely responsible for the analyses and interpretations presented herein.
1 The terms Black and Hispanic are used to identify those groups because they are more
commonly used in the racial threat literature than are alternatives such as African
American and Latino, respectively.
2 This form of curvilinear relationship is estimated using a quadratic (parabolic) statistical
model. This model is estimated by simultaneously entering percent minority and percent
minority squared as predictor variables.
3 The findings of these studies are consistent with the modified version of the power‐threat
hypothesis, which predicts an initially positive relationship between percent minority and
coercive control, which turns negative at roughly 50% minority population. Hereafter, the
use of “power‐threat hypothesis” refers to the modified variant of the hypothesis unless
otherwise indicated.
4 Homicides may be categorized as criminal or justifiable. The latter include police killings
in cases involving suspects deemed to have presented a clear and present danger to police
or citizens.
References
Anderson, E. (1999). code of the street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city.
New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Bayley, D. H., & Mendelsohn, H. (1968). Minorities and the police: Confrontation in America.
New York, NY: Free Press.
Bender, S. W. (2003). Greasers and gringos: Latinos, law, and the American imagination.
New York, NY: New York University.
Bittner, E. (1970). The functions of police in modern society. Washington, DC: US Government
Printing Office.
274
Malcolm D. Holmes
Blalock, H. M. (1967). Toward a theory of minority‐group relations. New York: Wiley.
Bolton, K., Jr., & Feagin, J. R. (2004). Black in blue: African‐American police officers and
­racism. New York, NY: Routledge.
Brunson, R. K., & Miller, J. (2006). Young Black men and urban policing in the United States.
British Journal of Criminology, 46(4), 613–640.
Carmichael, J. T., & Kent, S. L. (2014). The persistent significance of racial and economic
inequality on the size of municipal police forces in the United States 1980–2010.
Social Problems, 61(2), 259–282.
Chambliss, W. J. (1994). Policing the ghetto underclass: The politics of law and law enforcement. Social Problems, 41(2), 177–194.
Chambliss, W. J. (2001). Power, politics and crime. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Chambliss, W. J., & Seidman. R. B. (1971). Law, order, and power. Reading, MA:
Addison‐Wesley.
Chiricos, T., Hogan, M., & Gertz, M. (1997). Racial composition of neighborhood and fear of
crime. Criminology, 35(1), 107–131.
Chiricos, T., Welch, K., & Gertz, M. (2004). Racial typification of crime and support for
punitive measures. Criminology, 42(2), 359–389.
Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., Wittenbrenk, B., Sadler, M. S., & Keesee, T. (2007). Across the
thin blue line: Police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1006–1023.
Crank, J. P. (1998). Understanding police culture. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.
Curtis, R. (1998). The improbable transformation of inner‐city neighborhoods: Crime,
­violence, drugs, and youth in the 1990s. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 88(4),
1233–1276.
Eitle, D., D’Alessio, S. J., & Stolzenberg, L. (2002). Racial threat and social control: A test of
the political, economic, and threat of Black crime hypotheses. Social Forces, 81(2),
557–576.
Eitle, D., & Monahan, S. (2009). Revisiting the racial threat thesis: The role of police organizational characteristics in predicting race‐specific drug arrest rates. Justice Quarterly
26(4), 528–561.
Fagan, J., & Davies, G. (2000). Street stops and broken windows: Terry, race, and disorder in
New York City. Fordham Urban Law Journal 28(2), 457–504.
Greenberg, D. F., Kessler, R. C., & Loftin, C. (1985). Social inequality and crime control.
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 76(3), 684–704.
Fyfe, J. J. (1980). Geographical correlates of police shootings: A microanalysis. Journal of
Research in Crime and Delinquency, 17(1), 101–113.
Fyfe, J. J. (1988). Police Use of deadly force: Research and reform. Justice Quarterly, 5(2),
165–205.
Hagan, J., & Palloni, A. (1999). Sociological criminology and the mythology of Hispanic
immigration and crime. Social Problems, 46(4), 617–632.
Hawkins, D. F. (1987). Beyond anomalies: Rethinking the conflict perspective on race and
criminal punishment. Social Forces, 65, 719–745.
Herbert, S. (1997). Policing space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police Department.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Holmes, M. D. (2000). Minority threat and police brutality: Determinants of civil rights
criminal complaints in US municipalities. Criminology, 38(2), 343–367.
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
275
Holmes, M. D., Painter, M. A., & Smith, B. W. (2016). Race, place, and homicides by police in
US cities (Unpublished manuscript under review).
Holmes, M. D, & Smith, B. W. (2008). Race and police brutality: Roots of an urban dilemma.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Holmes, M. D, & Smith, B. W. (2012). Intergroup dynamics of extra‐legal police aggression:
An integrated theory of race and place. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17(4), 344–353.
Holmes, M. D., Smith, B. W., Freng, A. B., & Muñoz, E. A. (2008). Minority threat, crime
control, and police resource allocation in the southwestern United States. Crime and
Delinquency, 54(1), 128–152.
Jackson, P. I. (1985). Ethnicity, region, and public fiscal commitment to policing. Justice
Quarterly, 2(2), 167–195.
Jackson, P. I. (1986). Black visibility, city size, and social control. Sociological Quarterly, 27(2),
185–203.
Jackson, P. I., & Carroll, L. (1981). Race and the war on crime: The sociopolitical determinants of municipal police expenditures in 90 non‐Southern cities. American Sociological
Review, 46(4), 390–405.
Jacobs, D., & O’Brien, R. M. (1998). The determinants of deadly force: A structural analysis
of police violence. American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 837–862.
Johnson, M. S. (2003). Street justice: A history of police violence in New York City. Boston, MA:
Beacon Press.
Kent, S. L. (2010). Killings of police in US cities since 1980: An examination of environmental
and political explanations. Homicide Studies, 14(1), 3–23.
Kent, S. L., & Jacobs, D. (2005). Minority threat and police strength from 1980 to 2000:
A fixed‐effects analysis of nonlinear and interactive effects in large cities. Criminology,
43(3), 731–760.
Kindy, K., & Kelly, K. (2015, April 11). Thousands dead, few prosecuted. Washington Post.
Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands‐dead‐
few‐prosecuted/
Liska, A. E. (1992). Introduction to the study of social control. In A. E. Liska (Ed.), Social
threat and social control (pp. 1–32). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Liska, A. E., Lawrence, J. J., & Benson, M. (1981). Perspectives on the legal order: The capacity
for social control. American Journal of Sociology, 87, 413–425.
Liska, A. E., Lawrence, J. J., & Sanchirico, A. (1982). Fear of crime as a social fact. Social
Forces, 60(3), 760–770.
Liska, A. E., & Yu, J. (1992). Specifying and testing the threat hypothesis: Police use of deadly
force. In A. E. Liska (Ed.), Social threat and social control (pp. 53–70). Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Loftin, C., Wiersema, B., McDowall, D., & Dobrin, A. (2003). Underreporting of justifiable
homicides committed by police officers in the United States, 1976–1998. American
Journal of Public Health, 93(7): 1117–1121.
Martinez, R., Jr. (2002). Latino homicide: Immigration, violence, and community. New York,
NY: Routledge.
Massey, D. S., & Denton, N. A. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the
underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Meehan, A. J., & Ponder, M. C. (2002). Race and place: The ecology of racial profiling African
American motorists. Justice Quarterly, 19(3), 399–430.
276
Malcolm D. Holmes
Myrdal. G. (1944). An American dilemma (Vol. 2). New York: Harper Brothers.
Nalla, M. K., Lynch, M. J., & Leiber, M. J. (1997). Determinants of police growth in Phoenix,
1950–1988. Justice Quarterly, 14(1), 115–143.
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. (1968). Report of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Ogletree, C. J., Prosser, M., Smith, A., & Talley, W., Jr. (1995). Beyond the Rodney King story:
An Investigation of police conduct in minority communities. National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People and the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law
School. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
Ousey, G. C., Kubrin, C. E. (2009). Exploring the connection between immigration and
violent crime rate in US cities, 1980–2000. Social Problems, 56(3), 447–473.
Ousey, G. C., & Lee, M. R. (2008). Racial disparity in formal social control: An investigation
of alternative explanations of arrest rate inequality. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 45(3), 322–355.
Parker, K. F., Stults, B. J., & Rice, S. K. (2005). Racial threat, concentrated disadvantage and
social control: Considering the macro‐level sources of variation in arrests. Criminology,
43(4), 1111–1134.
Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2010). Divergent social worlds: Neighborhood crime and the
racial‐spatial divide. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Quillian, L., & Pager, D. (2001). Black neighbors, higher crime? The role of racial stereotypes
in evaluations of neighborhood crime. American Journal of Sociology, 107(3), 717–767.
Rios, V. M. (2011). Punished: Policing the lives of Black and Latino boys. New York, NY: New
York University Press.
Sever, B. (2003). The minority population/police strength relationship: Exploring past
research. Criminal Justice Studies, 16(2), 153–171.
Skogan, W. G. (1990). Disorder and decline: Crime and the spiral of decay in American
­neighborhoods. New York, NY: Free Press.
Skolnick, J. H., & Fyfe, J. J. (1993). Above the law: Police and the excessive use of force.
New York, NY: Free Press.
Smith, B. W. (2003). The impact of police officer diversity on police‐caused homicides.
Policy Studies Journal, 31(2), 147–162.
Smith, B. W. (2004). Structural and organizational predictors of homicide by police. Policing:
An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 27(4), 539–557.
Smith, B. W., & Holmes, M. D. (2003). Community accountability, minority threat, and
police brutality: An examination of civil rights criminal complaints. Criminology, 41(4),
1035–63.
Smith, B. W., & Holmes, M. D. (2014). Police use of excessive force in minority communities:
A test of the minority threat, place, and community accountability hypotheses. Social
Problems, 61(1), 83–104.
Smith, D. A. (1986). The neighborhood context of police behavior. In A. J. Reiss, Jr. &
M. Tonry (Eds.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 8, pp. 313–341). Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Smith, D. A., & Visher, C. A. (1981). Street level justice: Situational determinants of police
arrest decisions. Social Problems, 29(2), 167–177.
Smith, M. R., & Alpert, G. P. (2007). Explaining police bias: A theory of social conditioning
and illusory correlation. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 34(10), 1262–1283.
Racial Threat and Police Coercion
277
Sorensen, J. R., Marquart, J. W., & Brock, D. E. (1993). Factors related to killings of felons by
police officers: A test of the community violence and conflict hypotheses. Justice
Quarterly, 10(3), 417–440.
Spitzer, S. (1975). Toward a Marxian theory of deviance. Social Problems, 22(5), 638–651.
Stewart, E. A., Baumer, E. P., Brunson, R. K., & Simons, R. L. (2009). Neighborhood racial
context and perceptions of police‐based racial discrimination among Black youth.
Criminology, 47(3), 847–887.
Stolzenberg, L., D’Alessio, S. J., & Eitle, D. (2004). A multilevel test of racial threat theory.
Criminology, 42(3), 673–698.
Stucky, T. D. (2005). Local politics and police strength. Justice Quarterly, 22(2), 139–169.
Stults, B. J., & Baumer, E. P. (2007). Racial context and police force size: Evaluating the
empirical validity of the minority threat perspective. American Journal of Sociology,
113(2), 507–546.
Turk, A. (1969). Criminality and the legal order. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.
US Department of Justice. (2001). Principles for promoting police integrity: Examples of promising police practices and policies. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
Venkatesh, S. A. (2000). American project: The rise and fall of a modern ghetto. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Wang, X. (2012). Undocumented immigrants as perceived criminal threat: A test of the
minority threat perspective. Criminology, 50(3), 743–776.
Weitzer, R. (1999). Citizens’ perceptions of police misconduct. Justice Quarterly, 16,
819–846.
Weitzer, R., & Brunson, R. K. (2009). Strategic responses to the police among inner‐city
youth. Sociological Quarterly, 50(2), 235–256.
Westley, W. A. (1970). Violence and the police: A sociological study of law, custom, and morality.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Willits, D. W., & Nowacki, J. S. (2014). Police organisation and deadly force: An examination
of variation across large and small cities. Policing and Society, 24(1), 63–80.
12
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s
Looking Glass: Nonrecognition
of Self‐Presentation as Racialized
Experience
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
As processes of racialization have become more subtle, obscured by the strategies of
what Bonilla‐Silva (2014) calls “color‐blind racism”—and the false veneer of
“political correctness”—it is important to expose the racial bias embedded in the
ordinary expectations of social interaction. Simply by acting in familiar ways, people
can reproduce racist outcomes every day without being aware of it. The phenomenon
we address in this chapter involves the nonrecognition by others of a presentation of
self, followed by withdrawal of the presenting self from mutual reciprocity.1 It is a
“fracturing” of what C. H. Cooley (1902) called the “looking‐glass self.” Everyone
depends on others for information about their interactional performance. If a person
makes a competent presentation of an identity they have a legitimate claim to
(lawyer, citizen, company vice‐president) and the response the other(s) reflect back
to them is not related to that identity, we say the identity has not been recognized:
the reflection they get back is fractured as if reflected from a broken looking glass.
The “normal” expectation is to attempt to repair the presentation. But, past a certain
threshold of experiencing nonrecognition repeatedly, a person may suspect that the
other either cannot, or refuses to, “see” them in the identity they have presented,
even though they are entitled to that identity, and have presented it competently:
They may at that point refuse to repair, and withdraw from mutuality. The refusal to
acknowledge nonrecognition, or repair the identity presentation, completes the
fracturing.
To explore this phenomenon, we turn to narrative data. Because people are largely
unaware of the taken‐for‐granted racial biases built into everyday interaction, their
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
280
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
attitudes toward race and their answers to questions about race don’t correspond to
the racism embedded in their everyday actions. As our narrative data reveals, the
Black men we talked with said they were not sure their experiences involved race—
even as they described them as racialized experiences. Only as the narrative unwinds
does one get a picture of what they are up against. Survey and attitude data would
not reveal the taken‐for‐granted assumptions that lead to fracturing.
What Joe Feagin (2013) calls the “White racial frame” is a deeply taken‐for‐
granted way of framing identity that reserves high status positions for Whites,
while assigning Black identities to low status locations and positions. As a
consequence African Americans are frequently not “seen” or recognized in high
status identities or in “White” places. The White racial frame assigns low status
identities to Black men such that no matter who they are, how they act, or where
they are, they are likely to be “seen” in a low status identity they have not presented.
The nonrecognition of competent identity presentations that results from this
racial framing violates basic interactional expectations and distorts the reflection of
self‐presentation that is reflected back by others to the self during interaction. The
resulting fractures are failures of mutual reciprocity that damage the coherence of
interaction for everyone.
Successful interaction requires a mutual commitment to the social practices
­appropriate to a situation, combined with an extension of mutual reciprocity to one
another. We propose that if a person experiences fracturing often enough, a threshold
of frequency is reached that makes defensive strategies, including withdrawal from
mutual reciprocity, likely. The self receiving the fractured response will not attempt
repair. The high status Black men in our data all describe not responding when they
encounter more of what they referred to as “it.” Remaining committed to the constitutive requirements of interaction—the interaction order—and initiating some kind
of repair, would be to take responsibility for an error in the presentation. In a case
where nonrecognition is racially based, and the presentation of identity is adequate,
there has been no error. Taking responsibility for the other’s failure to “see” them
would result in personal anguish and meaninglessness. Black men learn not to do this.
The argument explores interaction order properties of race that are institutionalized in everyday interaction. The tendency to focus on individual attitudes and treat
racial micro‐aggressions as individually motivated is problematic: it overlooks the
institutionalized racism embedded in the interaction order expectations of everyday
life. Centuries of segregation and inequality have led not only to the absorption of a
racial framing of experience, but to subtle differences in interaction order expectations between participants identified as Black and White (Rawls, 2000).2 In same‐
race situations participants cooperate to repair misunderstandings. In interaction
across racial groups, however, miscommunication can lead participants to quickly
abandon their mutual commitment to shared expectations, falling back instead on
stereotypes and motivated accounts (Rawls & David, 2006). Understanding the fracturing process helps explain why problems with interaction order expectations—
including failures to recognize and confirm the identities performed by African
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
281
Americans, can lead to failures of trust that reinforce old stereotypes, create new
ones, and undermine the interaction order itself.
From its beginnings at the University of Chicago over a century ago, the idea
that the social self is achieved through a coordinated social process of reciprocity
and mutuality has been a basic tenet of American Sociology. Any breakdown in
that ­process which can be traced to unfairness and inequality by race is serious. For
C. H. Cooley (1902), the achievement of self depended on what was reflected back
by the response of the other: Cooley’s looking‐glass self (pp. 152, 179–185).
According to G. H. Mead (1913) the self (and self‐consciousness) is achieved
through a process of taking the perspective (or role) of the other toward the self
(p. 377). Erving Goffman (1959) argued that the achievement of self through
­presentation of self in interaction is both continual and fragile, requiring a mutual
commitment (working consensus) to the interaction order (Goffman, 1983) within
which participants extend each other equality and benefit of the doubt. For Harold
Garfinkel (1963) the process also requires a deep reciprocity of position and orientation toward constitutive rules (or background expectations) that he called “trust.”
Involvement obligations and interactional expectations define the objects, meanings
and identities relevant to any situation. Trust and “benefit of the doubt” are basic
interactional preferences that display and extend the guarantee that participants will
work together using the same practices to “repair” and resolve small problems so
that no one loses “face.”
When mutual recognition fails, the symmetry of normal turn pairs, in which a
response is expected to return information about how the prior turn (or action) has
been understood, is missing. There is a mutual obligation to return such feedback
because all parties to an interaction depend on feedback for confirmation of who
they are and what they are understood by the others to have said. If the feedback loop
fails, people are left guessing. Confirmation allows the process of interpretation to
continue turn‐by‐turn, as Self and Other make sense step‐by‐step through an
emergent order of interaction that all parties are equally responsible for. When contributions to the interaction are not reciprocated it takes on an asymmetrical character.
When this asymmetry involves nonrecognition of self we call it “fracture.” Getting
confirmation of self from the response of the other is problematic in such cases.
Mutual reciprocity has failed. In the face of this failure, and resulting asymmetry,
participants may import symbolic and stereotyped meanings into interaction.
They often fall back on racialized narrative accounts when the feedback loop has
“fractured.” Because those who experience such fractures with some frequency learn
not to remain in reciprocity relations, thereby allowing disconfirming responses
by others to define their own sense of self, the racism built into the interactional
practices of White Americans has the consequence of rendering interaction between
races an ever more fragile accomplishment.
We maintain that occurrences of fracturing are a commonplace for Black
Americans. Furthermore, we propose that the experience of nonrecognition
­continues to have an effect long after the interaction is over because of the threshold
282
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
effect. Anyone enacting an identity not broadly associated with the “category” or
“label” the White racial frame imposes on them is likely to have frequent experiences of nonrecognition: Young Black men who are professors at universities for
instance, and women working in male‐dominated professions, will be familiar with
this idea. So will other minorities, and those who are stigmatized by society.
Because White Americans (and some Black Americans) often do not recognize
and therefore don’t confirm the identity presentations of high status Black men, they
learn to be ready for this. “Fractured reflections” occur as a consequence of unfair
distributions of identities by race in the situation in question: it is institutionalized
racism not individual prejudice. Because a deeply embedded racial framing of identity is responsible, there may be no conscious awareness of race at all. But, when a
person rejects distorted reflections of their presentation of self, that act is both a
rejection of being racialized, and at the same time a racialized experience.
There is a danger here that our argument may focus attention on damage to Black
selves, which will then be viewed as diminished and degraded as a result of such
exchanges: a culture of poverty argument. We need to be clear: We do not believe
that Black selves are diminished and degraded by this process. Instead, with Du Bois
we argue that insight is acquired by Black selves through this process that Whites
generally do not achieve. Black Americans are aware that there are two different and
unequal racial experiences in the United States, and they are more likely than Whites
to make a strong commitment to equality as a consequence (Du Bois, 1903; Rawls,
2000). It is the interaction that is damaged, and the mutual reciprocity needed to
sustain it—not the Black self. The experience is a handicap, but also has advantages.
In the American context it doesn’t lead to the distorted self‐understanding and low
self‐esteem characteristic of colonized peoples (Franz Fanon). The problem for
Black Americans is that access to achieved identities is unequal; an unfairness built
into the system that only those who experience it are aware of.
Because the social self and shared meaning are social achievements that depend
heavily on cooperation in the use of properties of the interaction order, a social
contract (or working consensus) guaranteeing equality is a necessary constitutive
feature of mutually intelligible interaction (Rawls, 2012). When access to social
identities and constitutive practices is unequally distributed (by race, class, gender,
stigma, etc.), as it is in modern American society, mutual intelligibility is jeopardized and modern democratic publics become impossible. The unpredictable
character of the phenomenon of nonrecognition—not knowing when a White
person will refuse to recognize, or a Black person will refuse to respond—leaves
constitutive conditions of face‐to‐face interaction open to nullification at any
next point.
The interactional process of fracturing the reflection of self not only explains a
dynamic of racialized experience, it contributes to social theory—as these interactional processes with regard to race push forward the boundaries of what we
­understand about self and sensemaking—and how and why they impose a justice
condition on interaction.
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
283
This chapter has three objectives: (1) to establish that what we call fracturing
occurs; (2) to provide an understanding of how it occurs, elaborating the shape and
contours of the interactional event; and (3) to discuss the practical and theoretical
implications of our analysis. We leave it to others to pursue questions regarding the
frequency and distribution of fracturing. We also focus on interviews, leaving analysis of naturally occurring cases to others. We predict that such studies will reveal
the prevalence of a previously unseen and consequently unmeasured racialization of
social interaction and the presentation of self.
Note on Method
We present material from interviews as a matter of illustration. As with the experiences Du Bois (1903) drew on to illustrate “double consciousness,” the phenomenon
we have in view is currently known primarily as an experience shared among Black
Americans, and Black men in particular. Our objective is to discover its empirical
contours and establish that it occurs. If we can show that it occurs even once, we
maintain that we will have brought a previously unexamined phenomenon to light.
In this we emulate the single‐case approach Durkheim took in The Elementary
Forms of the Religious Life in 1912: if a phenomenon can be established as occurring
in one single case, a general survey of the phenomena does not add anything to that
certainty (Rawls, 2004). We maintain that fracturing will only occur past the
threshold where the person who is refused recognition stops trying to repair interaction. Furthermore, because we are making a threshold argument, an abstracted
(or conceptual) assessment of a large number of cases would not be helpful: It would
not clarify the details of how the phenomenon works—that requires a close analysis
of individual cases—nor would it establish the threshold.
Following an initial experience with the phenomenon, the authors began interviewing high status Black men to see if they reported similar experiences. We used a method
whereby an initial narrative is used as what Garfinkel (2002) called a “coat hanger” for
collecting more. It is a method for use in exploratory work. If the i­nterviewee recognizes the story, they tell a similar story. All of the interviewees ­recognized our story and
offered comparable narratives. It turns out that Black men share these stories among
themselves. The details of the stories were pursued with follow‐up questions to elicit as
much detail as possible. It is interesting to note that most interviewees initially said they
did not experience problems with race at work, questioning the relevance of race to
their experiences—even as they told their stories. It is also notable that once they got
going race began to be obvious and explicit in their narratives.3
Because our task is to establish the existence and contours of a phenomenon and
not its frequency, we focus on material from three interviews only. The depth of
description makes the interviews rich. By limiting ourselves to three, we can pursue
a deeper narrative sense of how these experiences have played out over the course of
these men’s working lives. These high status Black executives (age 35–45) describe
284
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
learning to “ignore” and “brush off ” unexpected and inappropriate responses; to
“expect” White people to confuse them with other Black people, and to expect to be
treated as incompetent. They describe learning the importance of vigilantly not
trusting those whose responses confront them in unfair and disconfirming ways.
One gets the sense that they are constantly “on guard.” It is notable that they
were reluctant to identify these experiences as racial. Our argument suggests that
the racialized character of the experience can be independent of any “intent” or
motivation to be racist. “Fracturing” is triggered by interactional asymmetries—
institutionalized inequalities—that may be independent of intent. The problem is
systemic. It follows Black men from one situation to another. Their readiness to
­protect their self‐presentations may already exist, with the threshold crossed long
ago—but until and unless a failure of recognition occurs, protective responses are
not invoked (see also Rawls & David, 2006). Like other aspects of racialized experience described by Du Bois, this process is usually invisible to White others.
First Interviewee: Robert, Corporate Vice President
The Black male vice president (mid‐forties) of a large corporation, whom we call
Robert,4 described problems he has at the office with identity and competence issues.
Because he has frequent experiences with people who do not respond to him as a
competent vice president, he has developed what he calls “strategies” for getting his
job done. These involve expecting the sort of trouble he describes, not trusting those
who respond to him in ways he considers inappropriate, and not responding when
it happens.
Robert: His Assistant “Second Guesses” His Instructions
Robert has a White female office assistant who will not do what he asks without
“second guessing” and “checking” to see whether his instructions should be
­followed. The person she checks with is his boss—the president of the company.
He expresses his belief that his assistant wants him to succeed. But, when he gives
her an instruction and she checks with the president of the company before carrying
out the instruction, it creates problems for him. He has already talked to the president
and knows what he expects. If his assistant checks with the president, it makes
Robert look incompetent. In spite of her “good intentions,” she gives him the
feedback that she does not recognize his competence.
Data Excerpt 1—Robert, Transcription 3
Robert: Ok, the most frequent interactions that I have are with persons who
report to me and I have given them either an assignment or I have been given an
assignment from my superior and I ask for them to do certain kinds of things
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
285
where that ­assignment is concerned and they have a habit of going around me
and asking my, actually asking the President of the company, if this is something
that he really wants done, or is this the way that he wants it done. And it is couched
in, “Well I wanted to make certain that I was protecting you by asking how the
President wants this accomplished.” Now I’ve already been told how the President
wants it accomplished and I’ve already shared that with the person who reports to
me, but it is not good enough. She, for instance, in many instances, needs to get it
from the President. And I have not witnessed her doing that to anybody else. And
then she gets patronizing and says, “I was just doing it to protect you.” I don’t need
her protection, you understand what I’m saying, and so what she does is, she tries
to couch her, in my mind insurrection and insubordination, she tries to couch it
in being responsible for me.
Robert’s assistant’s behavior indicates to him (and others) that she doesn’t recognize
his competence to act in his identity as Company Vice‐President and thinks he will
not succeed without her intervention. He refers to her behavior as “insurrection and
insubordination.” Her behavior is patronizing because she acts as if she needs to protect him, and as if she knows more than he does. It is insubordination because her
response denies his identity as her boss and refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of
his instructions. Because Robert rejects the relevance of this response for his own
identity and competence, however, her nonresponsiveness does not damage his self‐
esteem. It does make it difficult for him to perform competently in his role. His own
boss will be irritated by interruptions from Robert’s assistant and must wonder what
is going on. It also makes mutual understanding between the assistant and Robert
problematic.
Robert: Trust Issues
When the interviewer asked what effect this nonresponsive behavior on the part
of a subordinate might have on Robert’s willingness to trust them, he responded
vehemently and with many repetitions for emphasis that it leads him not to
trust them:
Data Excerpt 2—Robert, Transcription 3
Robert: I never trust you. I never trust you. I never ever trust you. I always second
guess your motives. This person, one of these people who reports to me does an
outstanding job, outstanding, every “i” is dotted every “t” is crossed, it’s outstanding. But the process by which she has gone to do it, she causes me not to
trust her, not to trust her. So it becomes exceptionally convoluted, you know,
the relationship becomes one of somebody where I need somebody whom I
need to be trusting but I can’t, but someone who gets her job done and does it
286
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
exceptionally well, but I still have to question the motivation and all of that. So
no, I don’t ever trust her.
Robert has responded to his assistant’s nonrecognition of his identity by withdrawing
from trust relations with her and questioning her motivation. When he asks her to
do something for him, he does not trust that she will do it. He never trusts that she
will respond to him as a competent vice president. He withdraws trust even if, as in
this case, the motivation of the person refusing to ratify his identity seems to be to
help and protect him. Refusing to ratify a person’s presentation of self has negative
consequences no matter what the motivation.
Robert: Trust Issues with a Black Employee
When asked whether he had ever had the same experience with a Black employee,
Robert told a story about nonresponsiveness from a Black employee. But, his
response to that was different. When the nonrecognition occurred, he checked
with other employees first to see whether he was the one at fault. Accepting the
possibility that the fault was his and that repair and adjustment might be relevant
makes him vulnerable. He has learned not to do that with Whites. With a Black
employee, he needed to check with others. The narrative invokes the motivation
of Blacks who want to be valued by Whites so much that they take on the
characteristic of Whites in refusing to recognize the legitimacy of Black identity
performances.
Data Excerpt 3—Robert, Transcription 3
Robert: Yeah, um hm. That caused me to wonder, really to be frank, I began to
wonder, “Ok, is it me? Am I emitting some kind of persona that would cause one
to have to second guess me? Am I coming off arrogant or am I coming off without
self‐confidence? What is it that’s causing this to be the case?” And I have talked to
other people about this. I’ve talked to others and they’ve said, “No, that’s not it.”
A good number of even people of Color, because they want to be, they wanna be
prized and celebrated by the institution they then take on these same kinds of
­characteristics as White folk about other Black people. And so I began to wonder
if it was me and they would say, “No, no, no, you gotta understand, that Black
person does every other Black person the same way.” And they began to cite
stories and ­scenarios where this Black person has undermined a lot of people’s
authority.
Checking whether the fault is his, Robert is told that this Black employee is known
for undermining the authority of other Black employees: “that Black person does
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
287
every other Black person the same way.” He explains that even “people of Color”
will “take on these same kinds of characteristics as White folk about other Black
people.”
Checking and attempting to repair one’s presentation of self after a failure of the
other to recognize the identity presented is the “normal” procedure following a
failure of interactional reciprocity. What is so unusual about these narratives of
­fracturing is that the resources for doing “normal,” on‐the‐spot repair are generally
absent. Even in this case, while Robert did check with others about the appropriateness of his presentation of self when nonrecognition occurred with a Black employee,
he did not try repairing that interaction immediately face‐to‐face. That act of repair
requires a level of trust that Robert was unwilling to extend. What he learns from
checking with others is that he was giving the Black employee too much benefit of
the doubt even by considering that it might be his fault. The person is known to have
“undermined a lot of people’s authority.” Following this, he will be on guard with
that Black employee also.
Robert: White People Refuse to Accept That a Black Man Is Competent
Although initially telling us that his problem was not racial, Robert went on to
­formulate the problems he experiences in terms of the unwillingness of White
­people to recognize a Black man in a competent identity. He told us that at least he
had not had to resort to negative sanctions for the nonresponsiveness of employees.
If that were necessary, he says, he would have to be meting out negative sanctions to
“all kinds of people.”
Data Excerpt 4—Robert, Transcription 3
Robert: Because one of the things that I have come to realize is that particularly
White folk, White people, and I don’t know if I’m being too graphic here, but
White people simply refuse to accept that a Black man could possibly have the
kind of intellectual acumen to get things done without their striving to do those
things for us. You know, there’s the sense that they are superior.
Like all of our interviewees, Robert is reluctant to express things in terms of race.
Nevertheless, he states explicitly that in his experience White people “refuse” to
accept that a Black man could have the “intellectual acumen to get things done”
without help. He says he feels “that White people feel they are superior.”
Robert goes on to describe another occasion when his administrative assistant
scripted a presentation for him to make. He was very insulted by this and interpreted it as signifying that she felt he could not make the presentation
without her help.
288
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
Data Excerpt 5—Robert, Transcription 3
Robert: Another case with White people, yesterday I had to make a presentation, and to be frank with you, I make presentations all of the time so speaking
publicly is not something that is new to me, I do it all of the time. Well my
administrative assistant decided that she would have to script for me what
needed to be said at the presentation … She scripted what needed to be said,
and had the audacity to give it to me. And she had the audacity to give the
script to me and I said to her, “I don’t need this. I know exactly what I’m gonna
do and I know exactly what is to be said.” I said, “Now, what I need from you,
I need the exact names of the persons whom I have to address, I need their
names and their departments, that’s all I need from you.” And she then says,
“Well I’m just trying to help. I just wanna make sure …” again, very patriarchal,
patronizing, “I just wanna make sure that you come off ­positively.” I don’t need
her for that.
In the face of his assistant scripting “what needed to be said” Robert repeats that he
doesn’t need this “help.” Trying to “help” can in itself convey the feedback that a
Black man’s performance of high status identity is not competent. Good intentions
can be a bigger problem than blatant obstructionism. But good intentions rarely
come under scrutiny in studies of racism.
A lack of trust—although a useful protective strategy—may also be preventing
Robert from dealing with these issues directly with his employees. Repair work
requires trust and mutual commitment. His assistant, who probably can see clearly
that he is not happy with her, is likely as a consequence do more and more to “help”
him. Her increased efforts to help will again tell Robert that she does not think he is
competent and the cycle will continue. The inability to effect a within‐interaction
repair, because he does not trust, will prevent Robert from giving her the
needed feedback.
Second Interviewee: George, Corporate Executive
Our second interviewee, George, is a young (mid‐thirties) up and coming executive
with a major newspaper. He told us about a number of strange experiences with his
White coworkers. He was for years one of only two Black executives working for the
company, until a third Black executive was hired. While there were still only two of
them, George was often mistaken for the other man, his mentor, who was 25 years
his senior: Being mistaken for other Black people is a frequent complaint. After five
years, a third Black executive was hired. George was congratulated by many people
for his new job. It was not his job. People who had worked with him for five years
could not tell the difference between George and the new Black executive. He was
also once handed his mentor’s paycheck.
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
289
In addition to such literal recognition problems, George, like Robert, had trouble
getting people to recognize him in his role/identity and do as he requested. He told
us that he realized early on in his job that his White coworkers considered that he
had not earned his position through merit. Following a temporary promotion to
acting director of his department (to replace his vacationing boss), he experienced
an amazing combination of face‐to‐face insult and employees in other departments
refusing to do what he asked them to do. He told us he had expected trouble, but was
still surprised by the extent of it. His experiences in this regard are quite striking—
especially given his reluctance to say that they are race related.
George: Problems as Acting Manager
When he had been at the paper for only two years, George had been promoted
­several times and was a favorite of his boss. When his boss went on vacation he
decided to name George the acting manager in his place for the two weeks he would
be away. George told us he had been doing a great job and his boss was rewarding
him for his performance. George refers to himself in this context as “the young Black
kid.” His narrative of his two weeks as acting manager includes many problems:
people in other departments refusing to do work requested by his department: “not
processing paperwork, not processing the client’s ads, pushing back on us things that
should have been produced, to make things stressful for me.”
Data Excerpt 1—George—WS310111
George: And I had a manager who was going on vacation for two weeks. The manager had to decide, they told him that he had to decide who would be the head of
the department, or the Acting Manager in his absence. He chose me to be his
Acting Manager because I was doing such a great job and he felt I could handle the
job and the team always really respected me. It was a team of twelve of us. So he
put me as the Acting Manager in his absence for two weeks, which was again,
unprecedented, because I was the young Black kid. What happened is, after, you
know, while I was in my Acting Manager’s position for those two weeks a lot of
people in the company were not happy with that and they had no problem making
it known by messing with all of the people who worked out of my department, not
processing paperwork, not processing the clients’ ads, pushing back on us things
that should have been p
­ roduced to make things stressful for me, to make me think
that, “Oh it’s so stressful, I shouldn’t wanna do this.” So they kept ­making it harder.
George discovered that his instructions to various departments were being ignored.
While members of his own department seemed to be working hard for him, his
directions were being ignored by employees in other departments. When they didn’t
290
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
run ads as requested, they said things like, “Well, we didn’t know if they were supposed to run.”
We asked George how he found out that people in other departments were
­delaying his stuff—how it got back to him. He explained as follows.
Data Excerpt 2—George—WS310111
George: Oh, it got back to me because the employees who I was over at the time were
telling me that things weren’t getting processed, their ads weren’t getting—some
people’s ads didn’t appear in the paper, some people’s online advertising didn’t start
and they were confused as to why it didn’t happen. And then with me being the
­acting leader, I had to call and check into it, and then as I started calling and
checking with people, like, “Ok, what happened with these clients digital programs?” And they were like, “Well, we didn’t know if they were supposed to run.”
You know, they gave me explanations that did not justify not putting them in, and
then I explained to them that, you know, I let them know that I could tell that their
reasoning wasn’t appropriate for not taking the actions that they should have. So
they was really trying to stir up problems, you know, missing ads, which cost the
department money, which made me look bad under my leadership. And things
billing incorrectly which would make things look bad under my leadership.
According to George “The explanations didn’t justify their actions.” When he
­discovered the problem he says “I didn’t delegate it,” but rather took care of it
­personally: “I made sure I got in front of people who were doing these things.”
“I handled the problem,” because as George says, “it was on my name.”
Data Excerpt 3—George—WS310111
George: I was finding these things out as I made calls to see what was going on,
because I didn’t delegate it, I stood—because it was on my name I made sure I
got in front of the people who were doing these things. I handled the problem.
Each– and that was when I– and then as I would talk to these different departments and people I could hear that they were messing my stuff up, or messing
stuff up in my department on purpose, with no justifiable reason. And then
that’s when I realized that they were, you know, that this was something against
me personally. Because then, as I said, the explanations didn’t justify their
actions. Any other time they would have processed everything or put this
through or billed something correctly, but within the time frame that I was–
they wouldn’t process it, they wouldn’t bill it ­correctly. They wouldn’t design the
ads for my salespeople– everything, everything was just like, “No, no, no, no, no.
We can’t do it.” Or, “We didn’t wanna do it.” Or “We didn’t know what to do, so
we just didn’t do anything.”
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
291
George: “Most people like George are in jail”
The interviewer asked George to elaborate on a face‐to‐face challenge to his identity
that occurred during this period as acting manager when a White coworker from
another department came into his department and insulted him. George’s immediate
subordinates had been telling this man what a good job George was doing and
saying they would like to be more like him. The man’s response to their enthusiasm
was: “I don’t know if you wanna be like George, because most people like George are
in jail.” Race is not directly mentioned, but the implications are obvious. What
George describes is initiating a complete interactional break at this point.
Data Excerpt 4—George—WS310111
George: The one that was personal was when the guy, he was about 55, 56, and he
had been there for like 30 years doing the same job and now I was the Acting
Manager and he was mad because he just didn’t believe that I was– because I
wasn’t part of the good old boy system, he didn’t believe I should have had that
opportunity. And so he came into the department and with a very comedic type
of attitude was talking to me about, “Oh, so I hear you’re in charge over here. Oh
wow.” So when he said that, my subordinates were like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, George
is in charge. We’re trying to be more like George. He’s making goals, he knows his
processes, he’s sharp, he’s all of this.” And then that’s when he tells the group, “I
don’t know if you wanna be like George, because most people like George are in
jail.” And that’s how he worded it on the floor, in front of everybody. And then, I
just, I just turned from him and just walked away. Well, actually, he was at my
desk, so I really turned from him and just went back to my work. So it would be
like you standing over me and then I just stop looking at you, I don’t give you my
attention anymore, and then I went back to my desk and just started working.
The insult George says was delivered “in front of everybody.” What George describes
himself as doing in response is turning away and refusing to acknowledge the insult.
In our terms this is a complete fracturing. He backed out of reciprocity relations and
removed himself from the interaction. It is this removal from interactional reciprocity that we want to highlight. We came across it repeatedly in the interviews. A
high status Black man confronting a fracturing removes himself from interactional
reciprocity relations. The way the situation played out is that George’s staff (primarily African American women) “spoke up” for him.
Data Excerpt 5—George—WS310111
George: And then my staff, who part of them were, mostly they were African
American women, some were African American women, some were White
292
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
women, some were White men—they just all started, you know, well, actually
the African American women really spoke up. And they were older than me. So
they really like, I mean, they were more, I would put them in their forties, and
they were more boisterous to him for that attack on me, than anyone else in the
group because they know that I was doing good things, and so they were pretty
much defending me. And I just asked the ladies to let it be, “It’s ok, don’t worry
about it, we don’t need to, we have other things we have to do. He said it, please
let’s move on.” And so, that’s kind of how I ended it. And then I went back to my
work and he left with pretty much, egg on his face that this came out. And I did
a good job, and I did a good job and I ended up being promoted a couple of
months quicker.
In George’s view he came out of this interaction the winner and believes the man
who insulted him “left with pretty much, egg on his face.” His employees stood up
for him. George ignored it.
George: Knowing Your Enemies and Not Trusting Them
George explained that it is important to know who is in your corner, to know who is
against you. He could tell friends from enemies in terms of their interactional style.
Enemies he said would speak to him in “abstract terms” that were no help to him
instead of speaking in “specifics.”
Data Excerpt 6—George—WS310111
George: I, um, I could tell. I could tell when I felt my enemies would always speak
to me in very abstract terms. You know, not giving me any, well you know, my
enemies would say that I did something wrong but wouldn’t tell me exactly what
I did wrong. For example, just saying that, “You know what, all of this is wrong.”
And then, just don’t wanna give me any specifics as to what components of it is
wrong. Those are the people who I immediately just looked at as my enemies,
because they didn’t, weren’t trying to help me do something better, they was really
just trying to frustrate me by just telling me that what I was doing was wrong but
wouldn’t give me any answers as to how or what. So those people who would say
things and then, yeah, usually the people who I didn’t trust, the little ones who
would try to make things—I just—if their actions or their words were to make
things harder for me then I didn’t trust them.
George is clear in his view that there are enemies in the workplace and he needs to
figure out who they are, “they was really just trying to frustrate me by just telling me
that what I was doing was wrong but wouldn’t give me any answers as to how or
what.” He also refers to “the people who I didn’t trust” as “the little ones who would
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
293
try to make things … harder for me.” He considers it important to identify such
people. Then he would “either put processes in place where they had to do whatever
I asked them to do” or figure out how to work around them. The prospect of working
amidst enemies and people who can’t be trusted because they are hoping to make
things so hard for you that you give up is staggering. But George treats it as what he
expects and what he needs to deal with.
Third Interviewee: Simon, Corporate Executive
Simon was a corporate executive who held a job as an advertising account executive
selling advertising space for a major newspaper. When we told our initial “coat
hanger” story, he indicated immediately that he was familiar with what we described.
However, he did not begin by telling us a story about the phenomenon—but rather
took “it” so much for granted that he began by telling us how he dealt with “it.”
According to Simon, he was at a point in his career (in his early forties) where he has
had a number of different positions and sufficient experience to “learn to deal with
it.” He said, “I think experience teaches you how to deal with it and act maturely.”
In taking “it” for granted the way he does, Simon reinforces the prevalent character
of the fracturing phenomenon in his life.
Simon: “I don’t know if it’s necessarily race related”
Simon began by offering the disclaimer that he did not know whether any of his
experiences with “it” were race related. Nevertheless, he quite explicitly formulated
his problems getting subordinates to do as he asked in terms of a race and gender
“double standard,” saying that the question of whether or not they were race related
was “a gnawing feeling in the back of my head”: a fairly graphic description.
Data Excerpt 1—Simon—WS310127
Simon: I don’t know if it’s necessarily race related. I mean, I don’t ever wanna say
something is definitely race related unless someone says it for sure, but it’s
always a gnawing feeling in the back of my head, and it gets to the point of what
are you gonna do about it? You know what I mean, and it’s almost a rhetorical
question.
In spite of his reluctance to say that “it” is race related, the problem of race is not only
“always a gnawing feeling” in the back of his head but “it’s almost a rhetorical
question.” Having said he’s not sure “it” is race related, he exhibits his strong feeling
that it is race related.
294
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
Simon: Subordinates Challenge His Authority
and Will Not Do As He Asks
Simon went on to describe how he deals with various problems at his workplace. In
his view, subordinates are often reluctant to do as he asks. It has apparently become
necessary on many occasions for Simon to “assert his authority” to get things done.
Assistants tell him that they are busy working on other projects. He is not recognized as the authority figure.
Data Excerpt 2—Simon—WS310127
Simon: But I’ve had situations where I’ve had to tell subordinates, remind them of
who the authority figure was, namely myself. I had an assistant once who I asked
to do something and, you know, she told me she was working on something else
and it was a priority and to me that was just, that was mind blowing and I had to
remind her that I set her priorities and that what I asked her to do, which was
something that was coming from my own boss, was urgent and needed to be
done and that just, that was mind boggling.
The need to assert authority to get things done is not only an indication of a problem,
but Simon recognizes that it can in and of itself be a problem. If he needs to deal with
too many situations forcefully, Simon worries that he may come off as “arrogant.”
Simon: It’s Like a “Double Standard”
While he is reluctant to say that his experiences have anything to do with race, he
calls it a “double standard” and compares his own situation as a Black man to that of
women. He finds that his position is analogous to the situation where “men who are
aggressive are applauded in the workforce and women who are aggressive are called
a very derogatory term.”
Data Excerpt 3—Simon—WS310127
Simon: I had other situations where you hear feedback from people and some of the
words that come up, you know, whether someone is saying that you’re perceived
by your coworkers or colleagues or subordinates as being arrogant or not
approachable or something like that, which again, I think that was kind of mind
boggling, it’s a double standard where I can see, you know, White males in a
­similar position and maybe exhibit the same behavior I did or do and they don’t
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
295
have that same kind of feedback. It’s almost like the situation where men who are
aggressive are applauded in the workforce and women who are aggressive are
called a very derogatory term, and it’s kind of like that double standard, and
again, I think just with experience you just kind of learn to deal with it or brush
it off and figure out a way to approach the situation that’s not going to negatively
impact my own career.
Simon characterizes Black men as subject to a similar double standard as women.
Feeling that he is being forced to be aggressive, Simon worries about this. It is the
double standard that keeps people from recognizing his identity that forces him to
be aggressive. But, given the analogy of the position of Black men to women, he also
recognizes the likelihood that others will not applaud aggression on his part. He may
find himself in the position of an aggressive woman being “called a very derogatory
term.” So, even though he feels his authority is not being respected, he prefers to
“brush it off ” and deal with “it” in a nonconfrontational way.
Simon: How to Deal with Abstract Instructions
When asked whether he had experiences with instructions or criticisms that were
too abstract to be helpful—a point George had raised—Simon said that he had, but
that he had learned a long time ago “not to be there anymore.” Again Simon picks up
on the description as a reference to a well‐known problem that he takes for granted—
just what a “coat hanger” story is designed to elicit. According to Simon he has
learned to be very careful to ask for explicit instructions so that he will not find
­himself in a position to be “berated or chastised or chided.”
Data Excerpt 4—Simon—WS310127
Simon: I mean, you know I’ve learned again through experience just to continually
ask enough questions until I feel like I have enough of an answer to move forward
because I don’t want to—I think very early I had some situations where I worked
at a law firm where I got my assignment from a partner and I didn’t ask enough
questions and came back with, you know, not a full idea of what he or she was
looking for, and you know, a law firm is just a totally different environment than
corporate America and I’ve learned as a result of that experience of being, you
know, berated or chastised or chided, not to be there anymore, so I make sure if
something is not clear to me I have to question until I’m comfortable enough that
I know which path I’m on, and I think that can happen to anybody. I mean, that’s
just the nature of communication and some people are just not as effective
­communicators as others.
296
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
Instructions that are not clear enough to follow do not strike the authors as a
common topic among White workers. It seems notable that both Simon and George
frame the problem in just this way. It is also notable that Simon works hard during
this answer to suggest that race has nothing to do with his experience in this regard.
It is, he says, “just the nature of communication.” His sense of his own competence
seems to require that the problems he confronts not be race related—even though he
has several times explicitly formulated them in terms of race (and gender).
It is also suggestive that Simon describes asking questions until he is comfortable.
One of the conversational preferences that conversation analysis has documented is
that explicit questioning is dispreferred and may itself cast doubt on competence.
Therefore, as in the case of needing to be assertive or aggressive, the need to resort
to repeated explicit questioning because the instructions you have been given are
“abstract” may itself be problematic.
Theoretical Implications of the Fracturing Phenomenon
There are categories of people who are typically identified by “labels” in American
society: Black/African American, Asian American, Native American, Woman.
Charles Lemert (1994) argues that the only noncategory is White men (absent a category term, “person” is usually heard as referring to White men). The colorblind
effort to leave out category terms and say “man” instead of “Black man” thereby confuses the issue. There are racialized framings of many identities such that people
with those identities have difficulty getting their presentations of self ratified (Feagin,
2013). Goffman discussed the problem in Stigma and Asylums with a focus on
­people with physical and mental illness (Goffman, 1961a, 1961b). Garfinkel (1967)
raised the issue in his discussion of Agnes, a transgendered person. A similar
problem occurs with any labeled person. Women, even in professional positions, are
often expected to present as submissive and feminine, making it difficult for them to
do their jobs. When Black men present high status identities, others often have difficulty “seeing” that they have done so. Thus, Black men often do not get back a
reflection of the self they have presented. To be successful they learn not to treat
such “fractured reflections” as true assessments of their self‐presentation.
There are consequences of the process of fracturing not only for the experience of
self‐presentation and the ability to perform successfully in roles, but also for the
interactional process on which everyone depends. In policing it is likely that the frequency of stops Black men experience leads to the need for protective responses as
police challenge the legitimacy of their identities and threaten to throw them in jail.
This not only makes Black men’s lives more difficult—it makes policing more difficult. In corporate contexts, the results would similarly handicap those with whom
Black men work and the organizations they work for. It is important to come to grips
with the fact that unfair treatment makes everyone’s job more difficult.
It was Cooley’s position that some essential part of self‐understanding is reflected
back from the other as if they were a mirror; or looking glass. This idea has become
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
297
a sociological staple, and while the processes of self‐presentation and the inner dialogue of self‐reflection as Mead and Goffman analyzed them are more complex
processes, this “reflection” remains an essential moment in the achievement of the
social self. Mead’s argument that self‐consciousness has its origin in the act of seeing
the self from the perspective of the other, for instance, would not be possible if the
other did not reflect back something relevant: if nothing about the other’s response
to one’s presentation of self were intelligible. Cooley’s looking‐glass self is thus an
essential aspect of Mead’s perspective. The same is the case with Goffman’s version
of the presentation of self. Multilayered as it is, involving mutual commitments and
complicated mutual displays not considered by Cooley, the mechanisms of the interaction order and self‐presentation nevertheless fail if participants observing a
performance of self give no relevant feedback to the performer. Concerned that a
breakdown of feedback and trust could result in a state of social invisibility and
senselessness, Garfinkel (1963) focused on the essential character of this feedback
and the mutual “trust” commitment required to sustain it.
The television series Get Smart made an ongoing gag of the complaint by women
that when they make a suggestion no one hears it, but when a man makes the same
suggestion everyone says how brilliant it is. The female agent “99” makes a suggestion in almost every show which Smart and the others ignore (or even put down).
Then, within a few moments, Smart makes the same suggestion and they all say how
great it is. The gag worked by having Smart repeat 99’s words exactly—and having
the others respond only to him—while she would say “but I just said that” and again
be ignored.
The state of invisibility and nonrecognition that Black men report goes much
­farther. Ralph Ellison (1952) called attention to the problem in The Invisible Man.
You know that you are participating and talking, but the feedback you expect is
either missing altogether, or not (in any sense that you can make out) a response to
or affirmation of the identity you are presenting. When this happens there is a failure
of mutual intelligibility and recognition of self that would “normally” result in repair.
But repair requires mutual commitment and trust. In the cases reported by our three
interviewees, repair does not occur. In fact, the fracturing is a signal that the reciprocity and commitment to shared practice (rules of the game) required for mutual
sensemaking are already insufficient. As a person experiences more such problematic exchanges, they will become less and less willing to follow through on the difficult repair work that mutual sensemaking requires.
Furthermore, continued attempts at repair would reinforce the sense that the
problem is theirs: It is not. Our interviewees learn to break off reciprocity and fall
back quickly on stereotypes and motivated accounts as a way of making sense for
themselves of troubled interactions, while refusing to acknowledge the relevance of
the other’s response.
We propose that those who experience frequent and unpredictable failures by
others to affirm the self they are trying to present will at some point cross a threshold
where they begin refusing to make corrections, or repairs. Correcting a presentation
of self in the face of the other’s response is an ongoing and essential part of the
298
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
normal process of achieving and maintaining self. But the fragile character of the
self limits the extent to which such “correction” can occur without cooperation from
others. We see the effect of this in the case of Robert, who has stopped treating his
assistant’s responses as having anything to do with the competence of his own
performance. We see it also in the narratives of Simon and George, who recognize
the need to “ignore” and “brush off ” responses they do not recognize as relevant to
their own conceptions of themselves.
This refusal to acknowledge the relevance of the other’s response to their identity
work amounts to a refusal to continue committing to the background conditions of
trust and working consensus necessary to sustain a stable, mutually intelligible
interaction. Therefore, there are consequences for interaction orders: communication failures and loss of mutual intelligibility that can result from the need to protect
the self from nonrecognition. In Elijah Anderson’s (2011) terms, the ability to s­ ustain
the reciprocal orientation toward others (identified as “cosmopolitan”), on which
“democratic” interaction in modern social spaces depends, becomes impossible and
retreat into group‐based belief and narrative resources for sensemaking occurs
(Rawls & David, 2006).
It has been popular to focus on color prejudice and stereotypical individual attitudes as a significant barrier to interaction across race. We argue that there are
significant phenomena of racialization operating in interaction that do not involve
attitudes and are instead institutionalized interactional phenomena. Fractured
reflections may not be racially motivated at all. The racialized “frames” and “labels”
getting in the way are likely not conscious. Our Black male interviewees are
­reluctant to say that what they are experiencing is race—although it becomes clear
as they talk that they know it is. What we describe is the systemic institutionalization
of the social construction of race at the level of constitutive interaction orders.
A good attitude doesn’t change the effect of nonresponsiveness, as Robert’s discussion
of his secretary illustrates. She has (in his view) a good attitude. She wants to help
him. The problem is that she violates the interaction order expectations with regard
to his presentation of self in doing so. It is not attitudes that lead to these interactional failures—although attitudes may be supported by the racial frames that render
people unable to “see” Black men in high status positions: It is racism institutionalized in interactional expectations.
What we describe are failures of constitutive practice that trigger the use of stereotypes as a fallback device. Whether or not stereotypes contribute to these failures,
they become resources for sensemaking when mutual reciprocity fails. In fact, in our
view, many stereotypes result from interactional problems (Rawls, 2000) and are
invoked (Rawls & David, 2006) at points where interactional failures occur. Getting
rid of stereotypes will not solve the problem if they are generated all over again
next time people try to talk across racial lines. It is the institutionalization of racial
expectations in interaction that we must eliminate.
In spite of the problems we outline, the men we interviewed are achieving a high
degree of success. That success, however, requires skilled use of adaptive strategies
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
299
not required of “normal” others. It comes at a price, requiring them to succeed
without access to some of the interactional tools available to their White competitors. Furthermore, they need frequently to break off reciprocity relations, which has
consequences. We argue that this ultimately undermines “trust” relations that are
constitutive of self and sensemaking for everyone and explains much about the
­contemporary experience of race; even among high status Black Americans.
Conclusion
The problems of race and inequality are difficult issues that are not only complex,
but resist good intentions. In spite of the fact that many Americans believe they are
“colorblind,” and do not either see or respond to race, Americans have with some
frequency a problem “seeing” Black men in many identities that are “normal” for
Whites; this involves the frequent inability to see poor Black men as respectable
citizens, as well as difficulty recognizing Black men in high status identities.
­
We maintain that understanding the phenomenon of “fractured reflections” can
make a difference in how we view questions not only of race and self‐identity, but
also about the importance of fairness and equality in modern public contexts.
Our approach, which treats interaction order phenomena as structural/­
institutional inequalities in significant ways, provides a platform for addressing
fundamental questions of justice and equality in a sociological context. Equality and
fairness are not luxuries we can do without. The practice of withdrawing from reciprocity relations in response to fracturing, and the problems produced for everyone
involved, demonstrate that “fairness” and “mutual reciprocity” are in fact necessary
in order for all persons to safely and effectively achieve the identities to which they
are ­entitled, while making sense together in modern public and work spaces. This
being the case, inequalities built into the social distribution of identity expectations
pose a huge threat to the achievement of modern democratic publics.
The phenomenon we identify lends support to the argument that unfairness in
the distribution of opportunities is disruptive of the very fabric of mutuality, cohesion and mutual intelligibility in modernity: an argument made by Durkheim (1893)
that has not been well understood. The actual unfairness so obvious in modern life
is treated by many as proof that justice is not a constitutive necessity. But what has
been overlooked is that interaction in modern life often fails. In the cases we
examine, unfairness does indeed nullify mutual intelligibility as Black male participants pull out of reciprocity relations with others—pulling out of working consensus
and trust conditions—when they perceive their presentation of self being responded
to unfairly. We maintain that it is the persistence in modernity of traditional solidarities based on cultural beliefs and values (with their inherent inequalities) and their
intrusion into interaction orders that produce these problems. We need to become
fully modern, embrace diversity, and excise traditional structural inequalities from
interactional expectations.
300
Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Orlando Duck
As Elijah Anderson (2011) explained in The Cosmopolitan Canopy, Black
Americans all too often learn that it is dangerous to adopt an egalitarian approach to
interaction: an approach that Anderson calls “cosmopolitan” or “cosmo.” Such an
approach leaves them open to damaging racialized moments that come out of the
blue and are hard to anticipate.5 In other words, while a “cosmo” approach that treats
everyone as equals is highly desirable and essential to public civility in modern
democratic public spaces, Black Americans (and others experiencing frequent
­fracturing responses to their identity work) may find an approach embedded in
their own ethnicity and community of values less risky. As a consequence, a more
protective ethnic and cultural stance is frequently adopted in contexts of institutional inequality.
While Black men are all likely to be perceived as inhabiting identities (or roles)
that are more negative than they anticipate, it is successful Black men, who engage
in frequent cross‐racial interaction because they work in White‐dominated environments, who are likely to experience a high level of the kind of fracturing we describe.
They have legitimate claims to positive competent identities, but, although highly
competent and well paid in these identities, they frequently cannot get them ratified
even by significant others who work for them. Because they are successful (in the
White‐dominated workplace), they are more likely to find themselves in situations
in which most of the available identities are associated with “White.” When they make
competent self‐presentations, their performances are responded to as if they had
done something other than what they actually did. It can be difficult for them to
judge whether the negative feedback contains information about the appropriateness and competence of their presentation of self which is relevant and which they
should take into account for purposes of repair and adjustment. It will often be
important, even essential, to dismiss the relevance of such responses. The subtlety of
the process is frightening and the available resources inadequate. We might all be
doing this to someone at any next moment.
Notes
1 For additional information, see a previous article in Sociological Focus based on the same
research project (Rawls & Duck, 2017).
2 The capitalization of Black and White is purposeful to indicate that White and Black are
social and not biological categories. Nevertheless, they are social categories in different
ways. Black designates a community of persons who often recognize a joint membership
in experiences such as the one we are writing about. Most White Americans do not
­recognize a shared community associated with “Whiteness.” Furthermore, unlike the
Black common experience which is inclusionary, when “White” is used to define a
community it is invariably exclusionary.
3 If we had asked them simply whether they had experienced racism on the job (as in a
conventional survey) they would have said no. With a large sample this might have led to
the conclusion that high status Black men are not experiencing racism on the job. We are
certain that this sort of false result occurs.
“Fractured Reflections” in Cooley’s Looking Glass
301
4 All names have been changed and some descriptions altered to protect the identities of
interviewees.
5 Comments made at a conference Anderson organized on inequality held at Yale University
in September 2012.
References
Anderson, E. (2011). The cosmopolitan canopy: Race and civility in everyday life. New York,
NY: W. W. Norton.
Bonilla‐Silva, E. (2014). Racism without racists: Color‐blind racism and the persistence of
racial inequality in the United States (4th ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New York, NY: Scribner’s.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of black folk. Chicago, IL: A. C. McClurg.
Durkheim, E. (1893). The division of labor in society. Paris, France: Alcan.
Ellison, R. (1952). The invisible man. New York, NY: Random House.
Feagin, J. (2013). The White racial frame: Centuries of racial framing and counter‐framing.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Garfinkel, H. (1963). A conception of and experiments with “trust” as a condition of stable
concerted actions. In O. J. Harvey (Ed.), Motivation and social interaction (pp. 187–238).
New York, NY: Ronald Press.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology’s program: Working out Durkheim’s aphorism.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Chicago, IL: Free Press.
Goffman, E. (1961a). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other
inmates. New York, NY: Anchor.
Goffman, E. (1961b). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Chicago, IL: Free
Press.
Goffman, E. (1983). Interaction order. American Sociological Review, 48, 1–17.
Lemert, C. (1994). A classic from the other side of the veil. Sociological Quarterly, 35(3),
383–396.
Mead, G. H. (1913). The social self. Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods,
10, 374–380.
Rawls, A. W. (2000). “Race” as an interaction order phenomenon: W. E. B. Du Bois’s “double
consciousness” thesis revisited. Sociological Theory, 18(2), 239–272.
Rawls, A. W. (2004). Epistemology and practice: Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious
Life. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Rawls, A. W. (2012). Durkheim’s theory of modernity: Self‐regulating practices as constitutive orders of social and moral facts. Journal of Classical Sociology, 12(3–4), 479–512.
Rawls, A. W., & David, G. (2006). Accountably other: Trust, reciprocity and exclusion in a
context of situated practice. Human Studies, 28(4), 469–497.
Rawls, A. W., & Duck, W. (2017). “Fractured reflections” of high‐status Black male presentations of self: Nonrecognition of identity as a “tacit” form of institutional racism.
Sociological Focus, 50(1), 36–51.
13
Examining the Intersections of Gender
and Sexual Orientation within
the Discipline: A Case for Feminist
and Queer Criminology
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
An Overview of Feminist Criminology
Regardless of how crime is measured, the crime rate of men is greater and more
serious than that of women. As a result, criminology, as a discipline, has focused on
male criminality and victimization. Scholars paid little attention to female offenders’
criminal behavior and victimization, because of their lower rate of offending and
less serious offense patterns. However, for over 30 years feminist criminology has
challenged the masculinity of criminological theories and methods by drawing
attention to the exclusion and misrepresentation of women in the discipline
(Chesney‐Lind, 2006; Daly & Chesney‐Lind, 1988; DeKeseredy, 2011; Flavin, 2001;
Simpson, 1989). Feminist criminology provides an understanding of the different
ways crime and victimization is gendered and shapes patterns of experiences with
and within the criminal justice system (Flavin, 2001).
Feminist criminology is complex, with diverse perspectives, theories, and methods
that overall bring attention to women’s issues while striving for equality and social
justice (Flavin, 2001; Rafter & Heidensohn, 1995). Much of the push toward
including girls and women in criminological discussions were influenced by various
feminist movements, such as the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s (also
referred to as second wave feminism). The women’s movement sparked a conversation
in criminology that emphasized women and challenged misrepresentations of
­feminism and women in the field of criminology through various discussions of
gender, crime, punishment, and victimization. As feminist criminologists have
noted, gender matters in discussions of crime, particularly in the ways gender shapes
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
304
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
“patterns of offending” and the criminal justice systems’ response to crime and
offenders (Bloom, 2003, p. xviii).
Highlighting gender and women in criminology involves more than taking
androcentric criminological theories and providing an “add women and stir”
­
(Daly & Chesney‐Lind, 1988) approach. Scholars have advocated for gender‐­
responsive ­policies and practices, noting that there are “gendered differences in
female pathways to crime and incarceration, their offense patterns, and their
behavior and needs while incarcerated” (Bloom, 2003, p. xviii). Furthermore, feminist scholars also draw attention to the impact incarceration has on the family, most
of which falls on the shoulders of women (Hannem, 2011; Richie, 2012). Given that
women are the primary caretakers of children, their experiences in the criminal justice system have profound effects on their children and thus future generations
(Swavala, Riley, & Subramanian, 2016). This is especially true for women of Color.
As Crutchfield and Weeks (2015) point out, poor people of Color are disproportionally incarcerated and the collateral consequences incurred by the families residing in
these racially and economically segregated neighborhoods and families are extensive.
Feminist Perspectives
There are many different feminist perspectives that address a variety of gender and
social issues (Simpson, 1989). As noted by Daly and Chesney‐Lind (1988), “feminism is a set of theories about women’s oppression and a set of strategies for social
change” (p. 502). The field of criminology is one such area that feminists and feminist theory have challenged and brought attention to the gendering of crime and
victimization. Feminist criminology is not only about women and not only comprised of women scholars, but also addresses masculinity, patriarchy, “doing gender,”
and the gendering of pathways to crime. As there are many forms of feminism, many
forms of feminist criminological theory exist.
Feminist criminology perspectives have brought attention to the “generalizability
problem” of mainstream criminological approaches (Daly & Chesney‐Lind, 1988;
Flavin, 2001; Rosenbaum, 1987). The generalizability argument points to the small
number of women, in comparison to men, in the criminal justice system as a reason
for minimal attention to gender and women’s issues in criminology (Daly &
Chesney‐Lind, 1988; Flavin, 2001; Rosenbaum, 1987). By arguing that more men are
incarcerated than women—and thus men should be given more attention—mainstream criminology has limited its discussion of women offenders and crime. For
example, the focus on male incarceration in discussions of mass incarceration in the
United States overshadows the alarming rate of female incarceration. Feminist
scholars have noted that women are the fastest growing prison population in the
United States, yet mainstream criminology tends to pay minimal attention to the
issue since female offenders currently make up only 7 percent of the prison
population (Bloom, Owen, & Covington, 2004; Swavala et al., 2016).
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
305
A range of scholars note that the majority of the literature on mass incarceration
devotes little time to discussing female incarceration and crime (Chesney‐Lind, 2006;
Ogle & Batton, 2009; Simpson, 1989; Steffensmeier & Allan, 1996). Feminist criminology scholars also point to the masculinist and patriarchal nature of theories of
social control, deviance, and criminality (Burgess‐Proctor, 2006; Chesney‐Lind,
2006). While the rates of female incarceration may not appear as drastic as those of
males, and represent a minority, they still have a significant impact on community
and family structure. The majority of incarcerated women are parents, which poses
challenges for caretaking of children, and often results in children entering the child
welfare system and increases in juvenile delinquency (Bloom et al., 2004; Clear, 2008;
Wakefield & Wildeman, 2011). Scholars have noted the intersection of the foster care
system and prison system and how these systems work together to impact the lives of
poor women of Color as a way to maintain racial, class, and gender inequality (Phillips &
Dettlaff, 2009; Roberts, 2012). Furthermore, both the foster care system and the
prison system are racially disproportionate, with Black mothers comprising about
one‐third of incarcerated women, and Black children comprising one‐third of the
children in the foster care system (Roberts, 2012). Roberts (2012) argues that racial
inequality and the overlapping of the foster care and criminal ­justice systems “is evidence of a form of punitive governance that perpetuates social inequality” (p. 1477).
When addressing the relationship of feminism and race, two approaches have been
taken. Initially, an additive approach was taken, similar to the “add women and stir”
method utilized in the early work which addressed the role of women in criminal
justice. That is, the voices of women of Color were added to the mainstream White
canon, with race, class, and gender still utilized as isolated, independent variables and
their relationship to crime examined. As Baca Zinn and Dill (1996) point out,
addressing race, class and gender as independent constructs that wield independent
influence on dependent variables is not grounded in reality. These variables do not
operate independently and are not fixed; as such, it is the combination of all of these
attributes that shapes people’s experiences and helps to form one’s identity (Dill &
Baca Zinn, 1997). Furthermore, research indicates that Whites enjoy many
­privileges that other races do not. The combination of these two factors led to the the
intersectionality approach which has allowed researchers to simultaneously examine
­multiple intersections of discrimination and privilege (Burgess‐Proctor, 2006).
Intersectionality and Multiple Oppressions
The ignorance of women’s issues in criminology demonstrates the androcentric
nature of the discipline, but also the role of feminist criminology in essentializing
gender. As many critics of feminism and feminist criminology have noted, there is
not one essential or universal experience for both men and women, nor for all
men or all women (Flavin, 2001; Rice, 1990). Scholars have highlighted the diverse
experiences of both men and women in relation to the intersectionality of race, class,
306
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
and gender, as well as other social issues and experiences. Many scholars point to
“multiple oppressions” or “intersectionality” to address the diversity of experiences
with respect to crime, violence, and criminal justice (Burgess‐Proctor, 2006;
Crenshaw, 1991; Morash & Chesney‐Lind, 2009; Richie, 2012).
Intersectionality was a theoretical contribution to feminist criminology that was
brought forth by Black Feminist scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991). In her
innovative work, Crenshaw (1991) argued for an intersectional analysis when discussing violence against women of Color. She noted the limitations posed by the
binaries evident in addressing racism and sexism for women of Color, and how
this binary failed to acknowledge the diversity of women’s experiences and thus
­frequently silenced their experiences and identities (Crenshaw, 1991). As such,
intersectional criminology addresses the marginality of women of Color and has
influenced scholars such as Potter (2006) to argue for a Black feminist criminology
(BFC) to address this gap in the field and challenge the essentialism within feminism and feminist criminology. Grounded in critical race feminist theory and Black
feminist theory, Potter (2006) notes, “BFC extends beyond traditional feminist
criminology to view African American women (and conceivably, other women of
Color) from their multiple marginalized and dominated positions in society, culture,
community, and families” (p. 107).
Victimization and Criminalization of Girls and Women
Much of the work of feminist scholars in criminology has focused on the victimization of women (Chesney‐Lind, 2006; Crenshaw, 1991; Daly & Chesney‐Lind, 1988;
DeKeseredy, Alvi, Schwartz, & Tomaszewski, 2003; Grubb & Turner, 2012; Richie,
2012). Highlighting women’s experiences as victims has opened doors for victim
advocacy and policy assisting victims of sexual assault crimes (including stalking
and marital rape). As women are overwhelmingly victims of sexual assault crimes, it
is even more alarming that rape and other forms of sexual assault continue to be
underreported. Scholars attribute the underreporting to victim blaming and shaming by authorities, family members, and friends (Grubb & Turner, 2012). Feminist
scholars note the dangers of victim‐blaming and the disturbing normalcy of this
practice in society. The everyday language and discussion about women needing to
protect themselves and take preventative cautions such as not walking alone at night
or dressing in a certain way (in an effort to prevent sexual assault) is victim‐blaming
and perpetuated through rape culture. Moreover, women and girls of Color not only
experience victim‐blaming, but in some low‐income communities have developed
avoidance strategies of not leaving their home to avoid violence, or have embraced
an identity as a fighter to prevent future conflict and as a way of protecting themselves and their families (Jones, 2010).
Scholars have noted an increased interest in women and crime. Simpson (1989)
states: “female crime became interesting only when it transcended the expected
boundaries of class, race, and gender” (p. 610). Two early studies, Adler’s Sisters in
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
307
Crime (1975) and Simon’s The Contemporary Woman and Crime (1975), looking at
women and crime were controversial and their claims argued by some scholars to be
more of a myth than reality (Steffensmeier, 1978). These studies slightly differed yet
similarly argued what is known as “emancipation theory.” Emancipation theory
argues that the successes of gender equality from the women’s movement of the
1960s and 1970s, both socially and economically, increased women’s involvement in
crime. Both Adler (1975) and Simon (1975) argued that when women were confined
to domestic roles and there were limitations on social and economic opportunities,
this decreased their involvement in criminal activity (Britton, 2000; Daly & Chesney‐
Lind, 1988). Adler (1975) argued that an increase in violent crime was likely as
women became more like men with their emancipation from the domestic sphere.
Simon (1975) argued that the increased involvement of women in the labor market
would lead to higher rates of property and white‐collar crimes such as embezzlement and fraud. This emancipation theory of women and crime (Adler, 1975; Simon,
1975) was strongly contested by other feminist scholars, who found little empirical
evidence supporting the theory (Britton, 2000). Scholars have noted that there have
been increases in women’s crime, yet the increase is not relative to patterns in men’s
crime (Steffensmeier, 1995) and may have more to do with an increased economic
marginalization of women and changes in policing and views of women by authorities (Britton, 2000). Whether or not differences exist with respect to women of
Color has not been adequately researched and is a question that should be addressed.
Feminist scholars have highlighted the gendered pattern of offending and, as a
result, the gender‐responsive programming required to address the different experiences of incarcerated and community‐policed or supervised women (Bloom &
Covington, 1998). A gender‐responsive program and/or environment is one that
addresses the diverse issues impacting the lives of girls and women (Bloom &
Covington, 1998; Bloom et al., 2004). With over half of the women incarcerated in
both state (69 percent) and federal (59 percent) prisons having an average of two
children (Bloom et al., 2004), and a majority of women incarcerated for nonviolent
drug offenses or property crimes, the impact and results of their incarceration differ
from the experiences of men.
Moreover, qualitative studies have found that the “boundaries between victim and
offender are often blurred in describing the pathways of girls [and women] to the
street and to the penal system” (Daly, 1998, p. 149). There is an evident criminalizing
of both individual victimized women and their survival strategies. For example,
there is a connection between girls and women who experience abuse in their homes
and running away (Chesney‐Lind, 1999; Chesney‐Lind & Irwin, 2008; Chesney‐
Lind & Shelden, 2014; Daly, 1998). However, as noted by Daly (1998), the blurring
of the boundary between victimization and criminality avoids questions of how to
characterize women who commit crimes or cause harm to others. Daly (1998)
­suggests focusing on the diverse pathways of women to crime while going beyond
highlighting “crime as work” (p. 150).
Feminist criminologists have also focused on the larger contextual and structural systems of power that escalate female violence. In studies examining youth
308
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
violence, researchers have relied on patriarchal theories (see Morash & Chesney‐
Lind, 2009) to address girls’ places in what is often portrayed as a masculine realm
of youth ­violence. This feminist perspective addresses several ways that female
violence responds to patriarchal systems of power. Scholars note that patriarchy
includes practices and ideologies that support and enforce male domination. As a
result, in every institution and every scope of girls’ and women’s lives, such as
­families, schools, communities, and work, girls and women are exposed to ideologies and practices that maintain patriarchal ideologies and practices of girls
and women as subservient and dependent, with boys and men as dominant and
­autonomous (Artz, 1998).
Female violence has been explained as a response to patriarchal ideologies and
conditions. Scholars have noted that girls and women have many reasons to be
angry, and much of their violence stems from their anger about the various inequalities and dishonors they experience on a daily basis (Brown, 2003). As noted, some
scholars argue that female violence is a response to patriarchy and other forms of
gender inequality, while others point to gendered pathways arguments that explore
the role of other factors that may influence female violence.
Theoretical arguments based on gendered pathways focus on how research suggests that pathways into crime demonstrate that “gender matters significantly in
shaping criminality” (Bloom et al., 2004, p. 37). Scholars have indicated that the
most common pathways to crime for girls and women involve methods of survival
and substance abuse (Bloom et al., 2004; Chesney‐Lind & Shelden, 2014; Daly,
1998). Feminist scholars have also noted that because of their gender, women are at
a higher risk than men for experiencing sexual assault, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and single‐parent status (Bloom et al., 2004). A majority of girls and women
involved in criminal justice and/or incarcerated have experienced some form of
sexual abuse, sexual assault, or other kinds of trauma. The pathways perspective is
heavily influenced by life‐course theories and addresses the different life experiences of women that result in pathways in and out of crime.
While feminist criminology opened up conversations on gender categories, roles,
and social constructions, less attention has been given to the intersections of gender/
gender identity and sexual orientation. According to Woods (2014b), feminist
­criminology has engaged with sexual orientation through studies of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) victimization (MacKinnon, 1979;
Messerschmidt, 1993; Stanko, 1990), deconstructions of heterosexist social order, as
well as studies about the role of socially constructed gender norms in heterosexual
males (Collier, 1998; Messerschmidt, 1993). Indeed, one of the best known examples
is James Messerschmidt’s (2012) structured action theory, which “emphasizes the
construction of sex, gender, and sexuality as situated social, interactional, and
embodied accomplishments” (p. 28). Across various studies, Messerschmidt
­highlights how violence and crime can be used to accomplish certain forms of
­masculinity, femininity, and (hetero)sexuality. Messerschmidt considers sexuality
one of the three social structures most important to understanding gendered society
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
309
(Belknap, 2007), and his concept of “doing sexuality” is groundbreaking within
­feminist criminology. While these engagements are critical to the field, until recently
they focused solely on victimization, or continued to center on heterosexuality in
some way. As noted by Woods (2014b), this does not advance our understanding of
how gender norms directly affect LGBTQ people’s experiences, or how other additional factors such as race, class, and religion may intersect to shape motivations for
LGBTQ offending, as well as victimization.
Gender scholars have demonstrated the ways in which gender is accomplished
through repeated interactions (West & Zimmerman, 1987), by which categories
of “masculine” and “feminine” are then created and solidified (Butler, 1990). Such
a framework, however, also acknowledges that gender cannot be understood
­completely independently of sexuality, and vice versa. For example, Butler (1990)
designates the heterosexual matrix as a grid of cultural intelligibility in which:
“Bodies, genders, and desires are naturalized … that for bodies to cohere and
make sense there must be a stable sex expressed through a stable gender (masculine expresses male, feminine expresses female) that is oppositionally and hierarchically defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality” (p. 208).
Additionally, Richardson (2007) contends that the relationship of gender and
sexuality is a ­multilayered process, intertwined in socially and historically contextual ways. As Richardson states, “In terms of the metaphor; the strands are in
motion, moving closer at some points, sliding away at other points; having firm
boundaries at some points of connection and becoming porous, bleeding into
each other, in other c­ ontexts” (p. 466). Thus, it is imperative to understand and
acknowledge the role of sexual orientation, in addition to gender, within
criminology.
Just as feminist criminology used gender as a lens in which to view the status quo,
queer criminology uses sexual orientation and gender identity as a lens to do the same.
Moreover, in the same way that feminist criminology sought to identify the injustices
and lack of attention to women in the criminal justice system, queer criminology seeks
to highlight these same issues for LGBTQ individuals. According to Buist and Lenning
(2016), “Queer theory developed from a need to recognize that sexual identity
mattered … and that the lived experiences of an individual identifying as queer was
part of a larger social structure that categorized and labeled that identity” (p. 10). Just
as a power differential exists with regard to gender, a power differential exists with
regard to sexual identity. As noted by Buist and Lenning, there is similarity in the paths
that feminist criminologists and queer criminologists have taken.
They [feminist criminologists] began with the more liberal feminist approach that
focused on equality and recognition within society and the discipline, and then moved
to the more critical approaches such as socialist, radical, and Black feminist theoretical
approaches that focused on several different factors and variables related to inequality
beyond legislations such as capitalism, patriarchy, heterosexism, and race … that is
where we (queer criminology) are today. (p. 12)
310
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
Queer Criminology
Queer criminology is a critical framework that highlights the stigmatization, criminalization and rejection of the queer community, as both victims and offenders, by
the academy and the broader criminal legal system (Buist & Lenning, 2016). Queer
is often employed as an umbrella term for those who identify within the LGBTQ
community, but is also used as a powerfully deconstructive tool.1 The definitional
importance—and political positioning—of the term queer is best described by
Halperin (1995), who outlines that “queer” stands in direct opposition to the norm,
and in essence, is whatever is at odds with that which is normal. Thus, queer criminology is both theoretical and practical in its purpose as it strives to challenge the
ways that LGBTQ people are treated. Queer criminology is not just about bifurcated
and sexualized differences between queer and non‐queer individuals. Queer criminology, rather, consistently analyzes systems of power and shifts the spotlight from
the “rule breaker to the rule maker” (Ball, 2014a, 2014b; Woods, 2014a, 2014b).
Queer theorization serves multiple purposes within the field of criminology.
According to Ball (2014b), there are three primary ways in which queer engagements occur within criminology. First, “queer” as an identity category is used to
explore criminological and criminal justice issues within queer communities.
Second, researchers use concepts of queer theory to explore and critique institutions, practices, or the lives of gender and sexually diverse people. Third, there are
calls for greater connections between queer theory and criminology, in order to create a truly “queer criminology.” Clearly, there are many different ways of doing queer
criminology, and as Buist and Lenning (2016) contend, it should be both “identity
driven” as well as deconstructionist. In other words, queer criminology may focus
on queer populations and their marginalization within victimization, offending, and
the criminal justice system, or may directly challenge the “normative orderings” and
methods that perpetuate such a positioning (Ball, Buist, & Woods, 2014). As Ball
et al. (2014) outline, “queer criminology is a diverse array of criminology‐related
researches, critiques, methodologies, perspectives, and reflections” (p. 2).
Overcoming Historic Homophobia
Criminology has been slow, and even resistant, in attending to nonheterosexual
sexual orientation and nonbinary gender identities, as evidenced by the significant
lack of attention and acknowledgment of sexual orientation within criminology
until recent years. Homophobia is deeply imbedded within criminology, and directly
reflects the ebb and flow of broader societal discussions and theorization of queer
people. Woods (2014b) highlights three key factors that have historically defined
criminology’s engagement with sexual orientation and gender identity:
1. There has historically—and up until very recently— been a significant lack of
data and theorizing on LGBTQ people’s experiences of crime. Moreover, those
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
311
studies that did engage with LGBTQ populations have focused primarily on
­victimization, specifically bias crimes, bullying and intimate partner violence
(see Peterson & Panfil, 2014, p. 16).
2. Because the majority of criminological engagement with sexual orientation and
gender identity transpired prior to the 1980s, their discussions were a direct
reflection of how LGBTQ people were theorized within broader fields: as sexual
deviants.
3. There is a significant lack of theoretical engagement with sexual orientation
and gender identity in the four major schools of criminology: biological,
psychological, sociological, and critical.
These three factors are what foreground Woods’s (2014b, 2015) homosexual deviancy thesis. In this thesis, Woods posits that criminology has historically upheld
and, at times even reinforced, misconceptions of LGBTQ people that prevailed
through broader deviance‐centered rhetoric and the invisibility of LGBTQ populations. Thus, there are two primary components to the homosexual deviancy thesis.
The deviance‐centered element outlines how, until about the 1970s, criminological
theories characterized LGBTQ people in much the same way that the dominant
legal, political, and social rhetoric had. The discipline engaged with sexual orientation and gender identity only as far as determining whether LGBTQ identities and
behaviors were, in fact, a form of deviance themselves. In turn, the invisibility
element refers to criminological discussions of sexual orientation and gender
­identity after the 1970s. It contends that (with the exception of studies focused on
victimization), discussions of LGBTQ populations virtually disappear from criminological theories. According to Woods, this invisibility directly coincided with the
decline in power and popularity of mechanisms of social control. As Woods (2014b)
notes, “when sodomy laws largely lost force in Western countries … discussions of
sexual orientation, gender identity, and LGBTQ populations virtually disappeared
from criminological theory and research” (p. 17). The homosexual deviancy thesis
is a foothold for understanding how and why criminology has resisted queer
inclusion. As Buist and Lenning (2016) outline, Woods’s theory illuminates criminology’s historic homophobic roots, while simultaneously drawing attention to the
lack of current research conducted on and about queer people as they pertain to
the criminal justice system and criminology as a whole.
Current State of the Field
While not discounting the foundational works of authors such as Groombridge
(1998) and Tomsen (1997), queer criminology has recently emerged with major volumes and recognition. In their introduction to the Handbook of LGBT Communities,
Crime, and Justice, Peterson and Panfil (2014) describe how, in the past, authors
focusing on LGBT populations have come up against direct misplacement or misrepresentation of their research at major criminology conferences. As a result,
312
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
Peterson and Panfil organized their own panel for the 2011 American Society of
Criminology conference entitled: “The Role of Identity in LGBT Individuals’
Responses to Violence.” The panel drew the attention of an editor at Springer
Publishing, resulting in the Handbook. Simultaneously, other works emerged,
including Queer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States
(Mogul, Ritchie, & Whitlock, 2011), the 2014 special issue of Critical Criminology
dedicated to Queer/ing Criminology, Queer Criminology (Buist & Lenning, 2016),
and Queering Criminology (Dwyer, Ball, & Crofts, 2016).
The emergence of such discourses signals a landmark time in the history of the
academy, while simultaneously creating a place for ongoing deconstruction and
growth for criminological theories and practices as they relate to queer lives and
positionings. For example, there is a substantial amount of evidence for the latter
point that queer can be both “identity‐driven” and deconstructionist (Ball, 2014b;
Buist & Lenning, 2016; Dwyer et al., 2016). The special issue of Critical Criminology
on Queer/ing Criminology features original papers that emphasize both theoretical
pieces (Ball 2014a; Woods, 2014a), as well as identity‐driven pieces that deal with a
variety of issues. These include transgender offenders and victims of violence (Buist &
Stone, 2014; Perry & Dyck, 2014), queer youth and young adults (Dwyer, 2014;
Fileborn, 2014; Frederick, 2014), the omission of gay perpetrators of violence (Panfil,
2014), as well as mechanisms of power that sustain hate crime discourse and persecution of queer people by the state (Gledhill, 2014; Meyer, 2014). Additionally,
Peterson and Panfil’s (2014) edited volume yields queer deconstructionist pieces, as
well as an array of identity‐based work that deals with a variety of themes about
“LGBT communities” and crime and victimization, juvenile and criminal justice
systems, law and justice, and crime and public health. Finally, Buist and Lenning’s
(2016) book deals with queer theory within criminology, as well as broader themes
of queer criminology as it relates to law enforcement, legal systems, and corrections.
In “What’s queer about queer criminology?” Matthew Ball (2014b) emphasizes
the importance of the diversity within these projects, all the while cautioning criminologists that any work done in the area must also engage with “broader projects of
deconstruction that are an identifying feature of queer theoretical work” (p. 532).
Thus, while identity‐driven approaches do, in fact, bring queer lives into focus and
are crucial in alleviating injustices, queer as a deconstructive “tool” pushes criminology in an even more inclusive direction. To this end, Ball illuminates examples
like governing sexuality through norms, critiques of essentialized identities, and the
roles of heteronormativity, heterosexism and homophobia in crime, in order to
show new ways of theorizing queer experiences of injustice.
Queer criminology is not, however, based solely on these two precedents. Rather,
opening up the space even more requires acknowledgment of definitional tensions
and positional critiques. In terms of definitional tensions, Woods (2014a) warns that
taking either approach too far can create a “Catch 22.” For example, essentialized
categories create issues of exclusion for those nonnormative sexual orientations and/
or gender identities that do not fit within the neat categories of LGBTQ. In contrast,
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
313
abolishing categories altogether and replacing them with even larger umbrella terms
runs the risk of weakening theoretical and practical implications for marginalized
populations. In terms of positional critiques, Ball (2014b) notes that queer criminology must be careful in its methods of knowledge production, so as to not recreate
the same binaries and categories that often erase the fluidity of queer lives.
Additionally, Ball also suggests that queer should extend beyond representation of
gender and sexuality and take up more inclusive (borderland) positions.
Queer may mean one thing to one person, yet mean something completely different to another (Buist & Lenning, 2016). In essence, Queer theory demands that no
singular experience of sexuality and/or gender identity exists. Therefore, if queer
criminology is going to “produce more discursive spaces for queer people to inhabit
and … fundamentally shift the way we think about, talk about, and research these
issues” (Ball, 2014b, p. 546), it must do so from an intersectional lens. As the foremother of intersectionality suggests, identity politics oftentimes conflates or ignores
intragroup difference (Crenshaw, 1991). Additionally, Woods (2014a) accentuates
how individual experience is shaped by a variety of positions, including race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and age, among many others. As a
result, Woods contends that sexual orientation and gender identity should be seen
through a lens of relational difference, a position that does not view these characteristics in isolation, but rather, how they intersect with other positions to shape people’s experiences within the criminal‐legal system. Thus, even if queer criminological
research and samples do not include other facets of identity, it is certainly our job, at
the very least, to discuss this (beyond a brief statement in a limitations section) in
relation to power and governing norms.
Queer criminology is a space of multiplicity. It respects difference, while simultaneously challenging the constructs that create such difference. It is a fluid space that
respects differences in the meaning of language, the role of intersecting identities,
and the inherent theoretical contentions between identity‐driven and deconstructive positions. There are many different ways of doing queer criminology in terms of
methods, theory, and practice, but what lies at the heart of it all is the idea that “to
queer something is therefore to do something” (Ball, 2014b, p. 534).
Queer criminology is in its infancy relative to feminist criminology, and its effect
on the field at this time is limited. It took a number of decades for feminist criminology to make its mark on the criminal justice system and begin to contribute to
the development of best practices. It has been stated that the first 30 years of feminist
criminology can be divided into three stages: mobilization, maturation, and
differentiation. During the mobilization stage, nonacademic grassroot organizations
raised awareness and worked on law reform issues, such as rape, spouse abuse, and
incest, and academics revealed the gender bias in mainstream criminology. In the
second stage, maturation (the 1980s), a large body of literature emerged, including
the earliest work on women in policing, courts, prisons, and female ­victims. During
the third stage, rather than focus on the problem of adding gender to mainstream
criminology, differentiation research began examining more specific issues, u
­ tilizing
314
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
sophisticated methods and focusing on previously unrecognized gender differences
and the development of gender‐specific best practices.
Feminist Criminology in Practice
Until quite recently, research on female offenders generally has been ignored by
criminal justice practitioners. The rates of arrest, seriousness of crimes committed,
and number of incarcerations were thought to be unimportant relative to male criminality, and did not warrant special attention. This resulted in little consideration
given to girls and women in terms of facility design and management, gender‐appropriate training for staff working within these facilities, or the types of rehabilitation
programming available and appropriate for the female corrections population. Until
very recently, there were few resources for addressing the needs of girls at risk or
those already involved with the juvenile justice system. As feminist criminology
began to identify the ways in which female offenders differed from their male counterparts and document the incompatibility of the “male‐centered” focus of the
criminal justice system with female criminality, these findings began to trickle down
to correctional officials.
Identifying and understanding the ways that gender shapes both girls’ and boys’
lives is viewed by many in the field as crucial to implementing effective, theory‐
based programs to address the needs of youth in the juvenile system (Blanchette &
Taylor, 2009; Bloom & Covington, 1998; Bloom, Owen, Deschenes, & Rosenbaum,
2002; Chesney‐Lind, Morash, & Stevens, 2008; Hubbard & Matthews, 2008; Wu,
2010). Just as girls often follow a different trajectory into the juvenile justice system,
they also have different needs than boys once they are in the system. Once young
women are “justice‐involved,” their likelihood for “overdetainment” and returning
to detention is significantly greater than for boys (Wu, 2010, pp. 2–3; see also
Quraishi, 2012). Utilizing sound theory and focusing on the realities of the life of
girls and young women are important when creating gender‐sensitive programs for
female offenders (Bloom & Covington, 1998, p. 5).
A key component to creating gender‐responsive practices involves acknowledging
the traumatic experiences of girls on their pathways to delinquency. An overwhelming number of justice‐involved girls report histories of multiple forms of
trauma such as abuse, neglect, witnessing violence, incest, rape, death of a parent or
parents, and loss of a loved one to incarceration (Chesney‐Lind, 2008; Odgers,
Moretti, & Reppucci, 2005) at a higher rate than boys (NCCD Center, 2009, p. 8; Wu,
2010, p. 4). Furthermore, when these issues are not adequately addressed, girls are at
greater risk for serious mental health issues such as posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), depression, self‐mutilation, and other harming behaviors. For example,
research based on youth incarcerated with the California Youth Authority demonstrated that 65 percent of girls had suffered from PTSD at some point in their lives,
a rate six times higher than that of boys (Wu, 2010, p. 4). Girls often engage in
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
315
significant levels of drug and alcohol experimentation in an effort to cope with traumatic life experiences, especially family instability (Bloom et al., 2002, pp. 794–795).
Family instability has a different impact on girls than on boys. Girls are more likely
to report using alcohol to cope with living with a single parent, and are more likely
to “act out” sexually and/or aggressively against family members as a result of domestic
conflict (Bloom et al., 2002; Odgers et al., 2005; Strom, Warner, Tichavsky, & Zahn,
2010). One study showed that divorce is more likely to cause depression in boys and
delinquency in girls (Bloom et al., 2002, p. 799).
In addition, girls in the juvenile justice system often have greater physical health
needs. Unsurprisingly, many have had ongoing health issues—often as a result of
trauma, neglect, or inability to access services—that have not been properly
addressed, if at all. Reproductive health and/or pregnancy‐related problems are
common, but other issues related to unhealthy and unsafe environments affect girls’
physical well‐being (Bloom et al., 2002, esp. p. 805; Chesney‐Lind et al., 2008;
Watson & Edelman, 2013). Likewise, female biological factors and developmental
issues need to be taken into consideration (Bloom et al., 2002). Unfortunately,
limited health services are provided to juvenile girls in detention. When available,
programs tend to be reactive and respond to high‐crisis issues, but fail to take a
­proactive or preventative approach (Bloom, 2003). If girls’ physical, mental, and
emotional health needs are not met, the baggage that weighs upon them from past
traumas is likely to be exacerbated in institutional life (Wu, 2010, p. 7). This may
provoke behavior that can place them under stricter regulation or disciplinary
action. Such behavior is often construed by staff as “acting out, drama, or lashing
out” (NCCD Center, 2009, p. 8; Wu, 2010). Moreover, research suggests that poorly
developed language, social, and problem‐solving skills are common in the female
delinquent population, and that maladaptive coping styles can be symptomatic of
these deficiencies (Hubbard & Matthews, 2008; Sanger, Maag, & Spilker, 2006).
To treat female delinquents in the same fashion as their male counterparts is
­ineffective; it fails to get at the heart of why girls engage in delinquent behavior and
how the context of their lives informs their choices. Gendered socialization and
structural inequalities are a lived reality for the majority of girls in the system.
Acknowledging the differences and complexities of their experiences as girls and
young women is crucial to implementing a gender‐responsive program (Bloom
et al., 2002; Brown Morton, 2007). Moreover, programs that use an integrative,
cooperative, and holistic approach can foster empowerment, emphasize strengths,
employ gender‐responsive cognitive‐behavioral elements, and build self‐esteem,
resiliency, and self‐efficacy to most effectively address girls’ needs (Blanchette &
Taylor, 2009; Bloom & Covington, 1998; Bloom et al., 2002; Chesney‐Lind et al.,
2008; Matthews & Hubbard, 2008).
Bloom, Owen, and Covington (2005) state that gender‐responsive “principles and
strategies are grounded in three intersecting perspectives: the pathways perspective,
relational theory and female development, and trauma and addiction theories”
(p. 5). The pathways perspective is based on research indicating that gender shapes
316
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
the routes by which girls and women become involved in the criminal justice system,
as well as the factors that work against them once they are involved in the system.
The relational theory and the female development model are interrelated concepts
that shed light on “the reasons why women [and girls] commit crimes, the motivations behind their behaviors, how they can change their behavior, and their reintegration into the community” (Bloom et al., 2005, p.5).
Trauma and addiction theories intersect with the first two perspectives because of
the recognition that, for female offenders, trauma, victimization, mental health, and
addiction are all interconnected and pervasive. Girls and women are particularly
vulnerable to being retraumatized within the criminal justice system due to gender
bias that persists in the system. Gender bias, combined with additional issues such
as racism, classism, and heterosexism, can be retraumatizing (Bloom & Covington,
1998; Chesney‐Lind et al., 2008; NCCD Center, 2009; Wu, 2010). Thus, theories that
address traumatic syndromes and issues of delinquency, such as substance abuse, are
highly relevant, providing “the integration and foundation for gender responsiveness in the criminal justice system” (Bloom et al., 2005, p. 5).
Chesney‐Lind et al. (2008) argue that researchers and practitioners must consider
what girls and young women have to say about their needs: “Research that gives girls
‘voice’ to explain their needs produces crucial evidence of the resources, interventions, and programs they might find useful” (Chesney‐Lind et al., 2008, p. 167).
Similarly, Hubbard and Matthews (2008) maintain that girls should have “a voice in
their treatment” (p. 248), a suggestion echoed in the report from the 2012 National
Girls Institute Listening Sessions (Ravoira, Patino Lydia, Graziano, Glesmann, &
Baker, 2012). In listening to girls’ input, practitioners gain valuable insight about
their needs.
Bloom and Covington (1998) also recommend that a number of elements be considered when developing gender‐specific correctional programming and factored
into service delivery for women and girls. For instance, gender‐specific programs
must provide gender‐relevant opportunities, and not utilize programs designed for
males in a female‐only program. Female‐only programs must recognize the fact that
female needs and issues are very different from those of males, and should be
addressed in a safe, male‐free environment. In addition, these programs should
be culturally sensitive and build upon the strengths of women.
Risk Assessment
Inherent in the notion that women have different pathways to crime than men is the
understanding that the risk factors associated with that offending are also unique
(Belknap & Holsinger, 2006). Yet, most current risk assessment tools were designed
for and validated with male offenders. Though some were valid for women, research
indicated that these classification systems tended to both overclassify women, and
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
317
ignore those risk factors that are most relevant for women (Bloom, Owen, &
Covington, 2004; Chesney‐Lind, 1999; Morash, Bynum, & Koons, 1998; VanVoorhis &
Presser, 2001). As a result of these concerns, the National Institute of Corrections
and the University of Cincinnati began work on a gender‐responsive assessment tool.
Focusing on the factors that research has identified as most relevant to female
offenders—victimization and abuse, relationship problems, mental health, substance
abuse, self‐efficacy, poverty and parental issues—VanVoorhis, Wright, Salisbury, and
Bauman (2010) examined a variety of gender‐responsive assessment models to determine whether these models increased the efficacy of gender‐neutral models. They
found that “the addition of gender‐responsive factors appears to create more powerful prediction models” (p. 281). In addition, their research found that there were
specific risk factors related to treatment priorities. According to their study, “Among
women in community correctional settings, for example, substance abuse, economic,
educational, parental and mental health needs appear to be most associated with
future offending. Additionally, trauma, dysfunctional relationships and mental
health concerns are key to prison adjustment” (p. 281). Finally, their work found
that gender‐responsive variables were statistically significant and a necessary tool for
the appropriate assessment of women offenders. As a result, they created separate
supplemental assessments for probation, institutions and prerelease.
Despite the clear and convincing research that shows the necessity of using
gender‐responsive assessment tools, the Women’s Risk/Need Assessment developed
through the collaboration of the National Institute of Corrections and the University
of Cincinnati is used in only about 25 states. However, according to Maureen Buell,
a correctional program specialist, the fact that it is used in 25 states does not mean
that it has been adopted by the state. Rather, “it may be in community correction
sites in some states, community residential programs in others, prisons in some sites
or in various sites in a few states” (personal communication, 2017). Currently, one
state is in the process of adopting it statewide and a few others are working to develop
the infrastructure to move in that direction. When gender‐responsive classification
systems are not employed and their life circumstances are ignored, women continue
to fall victim to incorrect classification, which often leads to placement in higher‐
security prisons, and, as a result, receive ineffective treatment.
Examples of Gender‐Responsive Programs
During the last 25 years, a variety of gender‐responsive programs have been designed
and implemented. Evaluations have shown that many prove to be much more effective than the gender‐neutral (or male‐centered) programs that have been the dominant mode of treatment. For instance, women are more likely than men to define
themselves and their self‐worth in terms of their relationships. Women’s involvement in criminal behavior is more likely to be drug‐related (Bloom et al., 2004) and
318
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
their drug addiction and relapses are often tied to issues with and the failure of their
relationships (Covington & Surrey, 1997). As a result, gender‐neutral drug treatment
does not effectively address the underlying relational issues. Covington (1998) has
developed two gender‐responsive programs that integrate pathways, addiction,
trauma, and relational theories. In these programs, women explore issues including
self‐esteem, family, relationships, abuse, and sexuality, which feminist theories have
established are related to drug addiction and criminality.
Another program, whose foundation is in feminist criminology, is Moving On.
This program was influenced by relational theory, motivational interviewing, and
cognitive‐behavioral intervention (Orbis Partners, 2006) and is designed to reduce
criminal behavior and increase women’s well‐being. Programs like this focus on the
risk factors that are specifically related to female offending and utilize a variety of
interventions to help women identify both personal and community resources to
create social capital and maintain a crime‐free life.
Similarly, as juvenile courts realized that they were ill‐prepared to deal with the
influx of female offenders, a number of federal initiatives were implemented to focus
on developing gender‐responsive services. One of the products of these initiatives
was the development of Girls Courts throughout the country. Utilizing the
fundamental principles of drug courts and lessons learned in their development,
Girls Courts combine both rehabilitation and disciplinary approaches, more frequent monitoring and greater involvement of the team providing timely services.
While these courts differ in terms of the type of offender and specific services, these
programs have been designed based on feminist pathways theory and guided by the
framework of gender‐responsive programming. Girls Courts are not simply a docket
of only girls, but a program specifically designed to meet the needs of justice‐
involved girls. They constitute specialized programs, which begin with the premise
that victimization and offending are interrelated and the participants are often
caught in a cycle of victimization and offending, or, as Daly (1998) and Gilfus (1992)
characterize this, the “blurred boundaries” of the categorization of victim
and offender.
In an attempt to handle the increased number of girls in the Hawaii juvenile justice system, a Girls Court was initiated in 2004. The entire group of girls and their
parents appear monthly before the judge and individually report on their month,
focusing on their behavior, problems, and accomplishments (Davidson, Pasko, &
Chesney‐Lind, 2011). This forum allows the girls to understand the consequences
of their behavior and, hopefully, benefit from not only their experience, but the
experience of the others. Between court hearings, participants are involved in a
variety of events, including health education, community service projects, and life‐
skills training, and parents interact as a group focused on family problems
(Davidson et al., 2011).
Another Girls Court focused on female offenders who had also been victims of
sex trafficking in Flint, Michigan. Feminist criminologists have noted the importance of listening to women to identify their needs. This Girls’ Court was the direct
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
319
result of looking closely at the writings of incarcerated young women who took part
in a gender‐responsive arts program (Rosenbaum & Spivack, 2014). The program
was designed with a clear focus on the three interrelated perspectives: the pathways
perspective, relational and female development, and trauma and addictions.
The collaborative team included the judge, defense attorney, prosecutor, probation
officer, psychologist, educational specialist, victim‐services counselor, and
community mentor. The members of the team worked with all of the girls
­participating, both individually and as a group. This all‐female team of providers
understands the multiple forms of trauma these young women have experienced
and the impact it has had on their offending, and work with them while utilizing
girl‐sensitive approaches to identify and/or develop resources to reduce both
­commitments and recidivism.
For decades, feminist criminologists have fought to illuminate the gender bias in
popular criminological theories that overlooked women and girls (Renzetti, 2013).
By highlighting this repeated omission and misrepresentation of women in criminological theory, feminists actively challenged the androcentric nature of criminology
(Belknap, 2007). The goal of feminist criminology has been, and continues to be, a
rethinking and restructuring of the ways we conceptualize and theorize the gendered subjects of crime, victimization, and criminal justice.
Queer criminology appears to be following the same trajectory as feminist
criminology. There is now a significant group of scholars conducting research utilizing LGBTQ populations. Early work identified the lack of attention to and the
need for addressing critical issues in criminology. According to Ball (2016),
current queer criminology is a body of criminological scholarship “that is largely
devoted to addressing the general absence of LGBTIQ people from the discipline”;
it is committed to change that would “address the injustices encountered by
LGBTIQ people as a result of the operation of the criminal justice system, and create criminal justice institutions that are more responsive to their needs” (p. 476).
Based on Ball’s assessment, it would be fair to say that queer criminology is in the
second stage, maturation. A presence has been established in the academy and
current research is laying the groundwork for including sexuality in research
efforts moving forward.
Conclusion
There are clear similarities in the origins of feminist and queer criminology. Both
groups of scholars mobilized within academe and as activists, raising awareness of
injustices within the criminal justice system. Mainstream criminologists have
viewed both areas of research as inconsequential and tangential to any serious study
of crime. Early feminist criminologists can cite reactions to their research endeavors
similar to those that Ball (2016) received. Hopefully, queer criminology will find
acceptance within academe at a much more rapid pace.
320
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
As Belknap (2015) noted, many female criminologists entered the field as a result
of their own experiences, be it as victims or offenders, and “have a strong passion for
justice and for contributing to social and legal change.” As a result, many early feminist criminologists sought to expose the plight of, and help victims of rape, spouse
abuse, and incest. Similarly, many queer criminologists have faced discrimination
and victimization and they, too, have actively engaged to reduce the victimization of
LGBTQ populations (Ball, 2016; Buist & Lenning, 2016; Peterson & Panfil, 2014).
It is this type of research that Belknap (2015) called for in her 2014 American Society
of Criminology presidential address.
[Research] effecting policy and legal changes is ideal in criminology activist research,
this approach can also help victims and offenders from whom data are being collected
(e.g., they may feel ‘counted’ and be provided with some resources by the researchers),
help agencies collect better and more meaningful data, report the findings to the
study participants and other similarly situated people in ways that can be validating
and empowering, improve social and legal responses to victims and offenders.
(Belknap, 2015)
With regard to both feminist and queer criminology, it is clear that adding gender
or sexual orientation as a variable and “stirring” is not adequate, and while adding
gender and sexual orientation is necessary, it is not sufficient. It is imperative that we
understand human experience through the lens of gender, sexuality, race, and class
with a focus on the intersectionality of these identities. As Belknap (2015) stated,
“Researchers’ lenses are critical to every aspect of a study from defining the problem
to interpreting and reporting the findings. A significant component of criminology
activism is broadening the diversity of criminologists to provide a lens that more
accurately reflects what we study (crime and the responses to it).” Only by understanding the intersectionality and their multiplicative effects will we be able to
understand the impact of these multiple identities on both offending and responses
to the criminal justice system (Potter, 2015).
Note
1 For the purposes of this analysis, “Queer” is used to encompass all nonbinary sexual
­orientations and gender identities. The term “LGBTQ” is used in reference to the authors’
language.
References
Adler, F. (1975). Sisters in crime: The rise of the new female criminal. New York, NY:
McGraw‐Hill.
Artz, S. (1998). Sex, power, and the violent school girl. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
321
Baca Zinn, M., & Dill, B. T. (1996). Theorizing difference from multiracial feminism. Feminist
Studies, 22(2), 321–331.
Ball, M. (2014a). Queer criminology, critique, and the “art of not being governed.” Critical
Criminology, 22(1), 21–34.
Ball, M. (2014b). What’s queer about queer criminology? In D. Peterson & V. Panfil (Eds.),
Handbook of LGBT communities, crime, and justice. New York, NY: Springer.
Ball, M. (2016). Queer criminology as activism. Critical Criminology, 24(4), 473–487.
Ball, M., Buist, C. L., & Woods, J. B. (2014). Introduction to the special issue on queer/ing
criminology: New directions and frameworks. Critical Criminology, 22(1), 1–4.
Belknap, J. (2007). The invisible woman: Gender, crime, and justice (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.
Belknap, J. (2015). Activist criminology: Criminologists’ responsibility to advocate for social
and legal justice. Criminology, 53, 1–23.
Belknap, J., & Holsinger, K. (2006). The gendered nature of risk factors for delinquency.
Feminist Criminology, 1, 48–71.
Blanchette, K., & Taylor, K. N. (2009). Reintegration of female offenders: Perspectives on
“what works.” Corrections Today, 71(6), 60–63.
Bloom, B. E. (Ed.). (2003). Gendered justice: Addressing female offenders. Durham, NC:
Carolina Academic Press.
Bloom, B. E., & Covington, S. S. (1998). Gender‐specific programming for female offenders:
What is it and why is it important? Paper presented at the American Society of
Criminology, Washington, DC.
Bloom, B., Owen, B., & Covington, S. (2004). Women offenders and the gendered effects of
public policy. Review of Policy Research, 21(1), 31–48.
Bloom, B., Owen, B., & Covington, S. (2005). Gender‐responsive strategies for women offenders:
A summary of research, practice, and guiding principles for women offenders (NIC
No. 020418). Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections.
Bloom, B., Owen, B., Deschenes, E. P., & Rosenbaum, J. (2002). Developing gender‐specific
services for delinquency prevention: Understanding risk and resiliency. In R. Muraskin
(Ed.), It’s a crime: Women and justice (3rd ed., pp. 792–819). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice‐Hall.
Britton, D. M. (2000). Feminism in criminology: Engendering the outlaw. Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 571, 57–76.
Brown, L. M. (2003). Girlfighting: Betrayal and rejection among girls. New York, NY: New
York University Press.
Brown Morton, J. (2007). Providing gender‐responsive services for women and girls.
Corrections Today, 69(4), 6–12.
Buist, C. L., & Lenning, E. (2016). Queer criminology. New York, NY: Routledge.
Buist, C. L., & Stone, C. (2014). Transgender victims and offenders: Failures of the United
States criminal justice system and the necessity of queer criminology. Critical
Criminology, 22(1), 35–47.
Burgess‐Proctor, A. (2006). Intersections of race, class, gender and crime: Future directions
for feminist criminology. Feminist Criminology, 1, 27–47.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Chesney‐Lind, M. (1999). Challenging girls’ invisibility in juvenile court. Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 564, 185–202.
322
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
Chesney‐Lind, M. (2006). Patriarchy, crime, and justice: Feminist criminology in an era of
backlash. Feminist Criminology, 1, 6–26.
Chesney‐Lind, M., & Irwin, K. (2008). Beyond bad girls: Gender, violence, and hype.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Chesney‐Lind, M., Morash, M., & Stevens, T. (2008). Girls’ troubles, girls’ delinquency, and
gender responsive programming: A review. Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Criminology, 41(1), 162–189.
Chesney‐Lind, M., & Shelden, R. G. (2014). Girls, delinquency, and juvenile justice (4th ed.).
Oxford, England: Wiley Blackwell.
Clear, T. (2008). The effects of high imprisonment rates on communities. Crime and Justice,
37(1), 97–132.
Collier, R. (1998). Masculinities, crime and criminology: Men, heterosexuality and the
criminal(ised) other. London, England: Sage.
Covington, S. (1998). The relational theory of women’s psychological development:
Implications for the criminal justice system. In R. T. Zaplin (Ed.), Female offenders:
Critical perspectives and effective interventions (pp. 113–128). Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen.
Covington, S., & Surrey, J. (1997). The relational model of women’s psychological development:
Implications for substance abuse. In S. Wilsnack & R. Wilsnack (Eds.), Gender and
alcohol: Individual and social perspectives (pp. 335–351). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence
against women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241–1299.
Crutchfield, R., & Weeks, G. (2015). The effects of mass incarceration on communities of
Color. Issues in Science and Technology, 32(1), 1–10.
Daly, K. (1998). Women’s pathways to felony court. In K. Daly & L. Maher (Eds.), Criminology
at the crossroads: Feminist readings in crime and justice. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Daly, K., & Chesney‐Lind, M. (1988). Feminism and criminology. Justice Quarterly, 5(4),
497–538.
Davidson, J., Pasko, L., & Chesney‐Lind, M. (2011) “She’s way too good to lose”: An evaluation of Honolulu’s Girls Court.” Women and Criminal Justice, 21(4), 308–327.
DeKeseredy, W. (2011). Contemporary critical criminology. New York, NY: Routledge.
DeKeseredy, W., Alvi, S., Schwartz, M. D., & Tomaszewski, E. A. (2003). Under siege: Poverty
and crime in a public housing community. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Dill, B. T., & Baca Zinn, M. (1997). Race and gender: Re‐visioning the social sciences.
In J. Ladenson, M. Anderson, L. Fine & K. Geissler (Eds.), Doing feminism: Teaching and
research. Lansing, MI: Michigan State Press.
Dwyer, A. (2014). “We’re not like these weird feather boa‐covered AIDS‐spreading monsters”: How LGBT young people and service providers think riskiness informs LGBT
youth–police interactions. Critical Criminology, 22(1), 65–79.
Dwyer, A., Ball, M., & Crofts, T. (Eds.). (2016). Queering criminology. London, England:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Fileborn, B. (2014). Accounting for space, place and identity: GLBTIQ young adults’
­experiences and understandings of unwanted sexual attention in clubs and pubs. Critical
Criminology, 22(1), 81–97.
Flavin, J. (2001). Feminism for the mainstream criminologist: An invitation. Journal of
Criminal Justice, 29, 271–285.
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
323
Frederick, B. J. (2014). “Delinquent boys”: Toward a new understanding of “deviant” and
transgressive behavior in gay men. Critical Criminology, 22(1), 139–149.
Gilfus, M. (1992). From victims to survivors to offenders: Women’s routes of entry and
immersion into street crime. Women and Criminal Justice, 4(1), 63–90.
Gledhill, C. (2014). Queering state crime theory: The state, civil society and marginalization.
Critical Criminology, 22(1), 127–138.
Groombridge, N. (1998). Perverse criminologies: The closet of Doctor Lombroso. Social and
Legal Studies, 8(4), 531–548.
Grubb, A., & Turner, E. (2012). Attribution of blame in rape cases: A review of the impact of
rape myth acceptance, gender role conformity and substance use on victim blaming.
Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17(5), 443–452.
Halperin, D. (1995). Saint Foucault: Towards a gay hagiography. Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press.
Hannem, S. (2011). Stigma and marginality: Gendered experiences of families of male prisoners in Canada. In Aaron Doyle & Dawn Moore (Eds.), Critical criminology in Canada:
New voices, new directions (pp. 83–218). Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press.
Hubbard, D. J., & Matthews, B. (2008). Reconciling the differences between the “gender‐
responsive” and the “what works” literatures to improve services for girls. Crime &
Delinquency, 54(2), 225–258.
Jones, N. (2010). Between good and ghetto: African American girls and inner‐city violence.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
MacKinnon, C. (1979). Sexual harassment of working women: A case of sex discrimination.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Matthews, B., & Hubbard, D. J. (2008). Moving ahead: Five essential elements for working
effectively with girls. Journal of Criminal Justice, 36(6), 494–502.
Messerschmidt, J. W. (1993). Masculinities and crime: Critique and reconceptualization of
theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Messerschmidt, J. W. (2012). Gender, heterosexuality, and youth violence: The struggle for recognition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Meyer, D. (2014). Resisting hate crime discourse: Queer and intersectional challenges to neoliberal hate crime laws. Critical Criminology, 22(1), 113–125.
Mogul, J. L., Ritchie, A. J., & Whitlock, K. (2011). Queer (in)justice: The criminalization of
LGBT people in the United States. Boston, MA: Beacon.
Morash, M., Bynum, T., & Koons, B. (1998). Women offenders: Programming needs and promising approaches. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
Morash, M., & Chesney‐Lind, M. (2009). Girls’ violence in context. In M. A. Zahn (Ed.), The
delinquent girl (pp. 182–206). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
NCCD Center. (2009, February). Getting the facts straight about girls in the juvenile justice
system. NCCD Center for Girls and Young Women. Retrieved from http://www.
nccdglobal.org/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/fact‐sheet‐girls‐in‐juvenile‐justice.pdf
Odgers, C. L., Moretti, M. M., & Reppucci, N. D. (2005). Examining the science and practice of violence risk assessment with female adolescents. Law and Human Behavior,
29(1), 7–27.
Ogle, R., & Batton, C. (2009). Revisiting patriarchy: Its conceptualization and operationalization in criminology. Critical Criminology, 17(3), 159–182.
Orbis Partners (2006). Women Offender Case Management Model. Washington, DC: National
Institute of Corrections.
324
Lindsay Kahle, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, and Sanna King
Panfil, V. (2014). Better left unsaid? The role of agency in queer criminological research.
Critical Criminology, 22(1), 99–111.
Perry, B., & Dyck, D. R. (2014). “I don’t know what is safe”: Trans women’s experiences of
violence. Critical Criminology, 22(1), 49–63.
Peterson, D., & Panfil, V. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of LGBT communities, crime, and justice.
New York, NY: Springer.
Phillips, S. D., & Dettlaff, A. J. (2009). More than parents in prison: The broader overlap
­between the criminal justice and child welfare systems. Journal of Public Child Welfare,
3(1), 3–22.
Potter, H. (2006). An argument for Black feminist criminology: Understanding African
American women’s experiences with intimate partner abuse using an integrated
approach. Feminist Criminology, 1(2), 106–124.
Potter, H. (2015). Intersectionality and criminology: Disrupting and revolutionizing studies of
crime. New York, NY: Routledge.
Quraishi, F. (2012). Enhancing mental health advocacy for girls in the juvenile justice system.
Youth Law News, 31(4).
Rafter, N. H., & Heidensohn, F. (1995). International feminist perspectives in criminology:
Engendering a discipline. Buckingham, England: Open University Press.
Ravoira, L., Patino Lydia, V., Graziano, J., Glesmann, C., & Baker, P. (2012). Voices from the
field: Findings from the NGI listening sessions. Jacksonville, FL: NCCD Center for Girls
and Young Women.
Renzetti, C. (2013). Feminist criminology. New York, NY: Routledge.
Rice, A. (1990). Challenging orthodoxies in feminist theory: A Black feminist critique. In
L. Gelsthorpe & A. Morris (Eds.), Feminist perspectives in criminology (pp. 57–69).
Buckingham, England: Open University Press.
Richardson, D. (2007). Patterned fluidities: (Re)imagining the relationship between gender
and sexuality. Sociology, 41(3), 457–474.
Richie, B. (2012). Arrested justice: Black women, violence, and America’s prison nation.
New York, NY: New York University Press.
Roberts, D. E. (2012). Prison, foster care, and the systemic punishment of Black mothers.
UCLA Law Review, 59, 1474–1500.
Rosenbaum, J. L. (1987). Social control, gender, and delinquency: An analysis of drug, property and violent offenders. Justice Quarterly, 4(1), 117–132.
Rosenbaum, J. L., & Spivack, S. (2014). Implementing a gender based arts program for juvenile
offenders. New York, NY: Routledge.
Sanger, D., Maag, J. W., & Spilker, A. (2006). Communication and behavioral considerations
in planning programs for female juvenile delinquents. Journal of Correctional Education,
57(2), 108–125.
Simon, R. J. (1975). The contemporary woman and crime. Rockville, MD: National Institute of
Mental Health.
Simpson, S. S. (1989). Feminist theory, crime, and justice. Criminology, 27(4), 605–631.
Stanko, E. A. (1990). Everyday violence: How women and men experience sexual and physical
danger. London, England: Pandora.
Steffensmeier, D. J. (1978). Crime and the contemporary woman: An analysis of changing
levels of female property crime, 1960–75. Social Forces, 57, 566–584.
Steffensmeier, D. J. (1995). Trends in female crime: It’s still a man’s world. In B. R. Price &
N. J. Sokoloff (Eds.), The criminal justice system and women. New York, NY: McGraw‐Hill.
A Case for Feminist and Queer Criminology
325
Steffensmeier, D., & Allan, E. A. (1996). Gender and crime: Toward a gendered theory of
female offending. Annual Review of Sociology, 22, 459–487.
Strom, K. J., Warner, T. D., Tichavsky, L., & Zahn, M. A. (2010). Policing juveniles: Domestic
violence arrest policies, gender, and police response to child–parent violence. Crime &
Delinquency, 20(10), 1–24.
Swavala, E., Riley, K., & Subramanian, R. (2016) Overlooked: Women and jails in an era of
reform. New York, NY: Vera Institute of Justice.
Tomsen, S. (1997). Was Lombroso a queer? Criminology, criminal justice, and the heterosexual
imaginary. Sydney, Australia: Hawkins Press, Australian Institute of Criminology.
VanVoorhis, P., & Presser, L. (2001). Classification of women offenders: A national assessment
of current practice. Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections.
VanVoorhis P., Wright, E., Salisbury, E., & Bauman, A. (2010). Women’s risk factors and their
contributions to existing risk/needs assessment: The current status of a gender responsive supplement. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 37(3), 261–288.
Wakefield, S., & Wildeman, C. (2011). Mass imprisonment and racial disparities in childhood
behavioral problems. Criminology and Public Policy, 10(3), 791–792.
Watson, L., & Edelman, P. (2013). Improving the juvenile justice system for girls: Lessons
from the states. Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, 20, 215–268.
West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender and Society, 1(2), 125–151.
Woods, J. B. (2014a). Queer contestations and the future of a critical “queer” criminology.
Critical Criminology, 22(1), 5–19.
Woods, J. B. (2014b). “Queering criminology”: Overview of the state of the field. In
D. Peterson & V. Panfil (Eds.), Handbook of LGBT communities, crime, and justice.
New York, NY: Springer.
Woods, J. (2015). The birth of modern criminology and gendered constructions of homosexual criminal identity. Journal of Homosexuality, 62, 131–166.
Wu, L. (2010). Why do we need gender‐responsive assessments, programs and services for
­justice‐involved girls? Berkeley, CA: Prison Law Office.
Part III
Examining the Intersections
of Race, Ethnicity, and Criminal
Justice System Involvement
Introduction
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
The focus in the third part of this volume is on the intersections of race, ethnicity,
immigration, and the criminal justice system. This part examines three examples of
criminal justice contact: contact with the police (Chapter 14), gangs and policing
(Chapter 15), and incarceration (Chapters 16 and 17). These chapters highlight two
of the most important areas for research related to race, ethnicity, immigration, and
justice system involvement in an effort to identify common themes and new areas
for research.
Eichenberg and Hankhouse discuss challenges that policing agencies have in
responding to ethno‐racial diversity in society in their chapter, “Policing Race,
Gender, and Ethnicity.” Chapter 14 focuses on the issues police encounter and strategies for response. This includes a discussion of concerns with police legitimacy,
police use of force, and racial profiling. Although this chapter provides a general
overview of research in these areas, some important connections are made to the
recent theoretical literature on democratic policing (Manning, 2010).
Chapter 15, “Ethnographic Reflexivity: Geographic Comparisons of Gangs and
Policing in the Barrios of the Southwest” by Robert J. Durán, provides a geographic
comparative study of gangs and policing. This ethnographic work makes important
contributions to our understanding of the policing of gangs and policing more
broadly speaking. This comparison of the policing of gangs in Ogden, Utah, Denver,
Colorado, and the US–Mexico border highlights the importance of understanding
local historical and contextual concerns in gangs and policing research. This work
also highlights the utility of an activist scholar approach in doing research.
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
330
Meghan E. Hollis and Ramiro Martínez, Jr.
Chapter 16, “Ethnicity, Immigration, and the Experience of Incarceration” by
Kathryn Benier and Suzanna Fay‐Ramirez, addresses concerns with the intersections of ethnicity, immigration, and incarceration. They highlight two global trends
that require continued research on the over‐incarceration of ethno‐racial minorities
and immigrants: the growing global refugee crisis, and harsh political rhetoric that
serves to marginalize immigrants and ethno‐racial minorities. This chapter p
­ rovides
a unique focus on comparative studies of immigration and incarceration to highlight this global phenomenon.
Chapter 17, “The Puzzle of Prison Towns: Race, Rurality, and Reflexivity in
Community Studies” by John M. Eason, examines the intersections of race and
­ethnicity in rural prison towns. This work examines the social environment that
prison towns create from an ethnographic perspective. This important work adds a
rural dimension to the studies included in this volume.
The third part is designed to provide the reader with examples of emerging
­concern when studying race, ethnicity, and the criminal justice system. These chapters highlight the importance of developing appropriate theoretical approaches to
understand the race/ethnicity–policing relationship and global challenges in
increasing over‐incarceration. The international twist in Chapter 16 provides an
important perspective that could be used to advance comparative research on race
and ethnicity—an area that does not receive enough attention in the research
­literature, while the comparative ethnographic approach in Chapter 15 provides an
excellent example of activist scholarship in action. Chapter 17 introduces a rural
component that examines the connections between race, ethnicity, power,
and privilege.
Reference
Manning, P. K. (2010). Democratic policing in a changing world. New York, NY: Routledge.
14
Policing Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
M. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse
Formal social control systems were developed in an effort to preserve the public
order and to provide for equal justice under law. A cursory study of American history suggests that equal justice under law has often, if not always, been far less
important than preservation of order. In the United States, a principal concern has
often been seen as keeping the peace or preserving order. Unfortunately, often preserving order is seen as preserving the existing social order in terms of race, gender,
ethnicity, and social class. As such, the focus of law enforcement has been to keep
various subpopulations “in their place” rather than focusing on crime control or
preserving the peace with equality. This indicates that the police may objectively be
seen as protectors of a race and class‐based status quo, particularly by those living in
non‐White communities that predominate in modern urban America.
Examples of the use of law enforcement to preserve the ethno‐racial and class‐
based status quo include the use of pre–Civil War slave patrols and post–Civil War
police efforts to enforce racial segregation. This can also be seen in the historical use
of Irish American cops to police Irish Americans—a task deemed to be demeaning
for native‐born descendants of Anglo‐Saxon Americans. The quiet shuffling of
­middle‐class women from the criminal justice system into the mental health system
provides another example of this use of law enforcement to preserve the racial order
(as mental illness is viewed as less stigmatizing than criminality for women of means,
and these women are more likely to be viewed as troubled and diseased than criminal
due to their social standing).
Accordingly, the use of America’s formal system of criminal justice and, more
­specifically, American law enforcement as a class‐ and race‐based mechanism of
The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, First Edition. Edited by Ramiro Martínez, Jr.,
Meghan E. Hollis, and Jacob I. Stowell.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
332
M. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse
social control is as old as the importation of the first African slaves to the Jamestown,
Virginia colony at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This class‐based and
ethno‐racial tone continues to drive police practice in the United States in modern
times. When a police officer in twenty‐first century Dallas, New York City, Chicago,
or Los Angeles stops a citizen, both the officer and citizen bring a nearly 400‐year
history of ethno‐racial expectations for relationships with law enforcement to the
encounter. The interaction between a police officer and a citizen is the result of each
individual’s intersectional identity (race, class, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual
identity, etc.), as well as their personal history, their knowledge of the history of the
common relational themes between different communities and law enforcement
personnel, and the history and character of the local community and local police
department.
The history of policing and law enforcement in the United States, therefore, has a
significant influence on individual expectations for incidents involving interactions
between the police and the public. These historical influences influence the understanding of each participant as an incident unfolds and contributes to divergent
interpretations of the meaning of an encounter upon the conclusion of that
encounter. In the American South, the historical basis for behavior during police–
citizen encounters is particularly problematic, for example. The history of southern
law enforcement officers as members of slave patrols, enforcers of “Black codes” and
enforcers of “Jim Crow” laws can result in Black and/or African American citizens
denying the legitimacy of a law enforcement officer, denying the legitimacy of the
reason for a stop by law enforcement, and citizen belief that the officer’s actions are
a result of race‐based harassment used to maintain the ethno‐racial status quo.
Similar interaction‐based themes characterize encounters between officers and any
person of Color, person of lower socioeconomic or class status, or of possibly questionable immigration status. Essentially, any person whose appearance would identify
them as not belonging to the dominant, ruling White‐class American ­citizenry is identified as a national enemy in a sense. Currently, this is seen in the othering of the
“Islamic terrorist” or “radical Islamic terrorist” by the executive branch of government
in the United States. Encounters between police officers and those who have been
“othered” in some way (as ethno‐racial minorities, for example) can end unpleasantly
as a result of historical conflict between groups leading to interpersonal conflict in the
encounter. This needs to be understood in terms of probability (rather than as a certainty) as these results are likely only when one participant deviates from the stereotypical script or scripted role for individuals in such an encounter. As will be discussed
later in this chapter, this script is mostly a result of historical forces.
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss policing in relation to race, gender, and
ethnicity. The chapter will begin with a discussion of police legitimacy and the
­historical relationship between the police, women, and racial and ethnic minorities.
This preliminary discussion will then be applied to contemporary policing practice,
including profiling and use of force. We will conclude by attempting to assign
meaning for the future based in past and present practice.
Policing Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
333
Overview of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity and Policing
The foundation of any discussion of policing should begin with the concept of
­legitimacy. Most simply put, and this will be elaborated, legitimacy means people
obey the law because they believe they reap more benefit from the law than what it
costs them to obey the law. Likewise, they obey the law enforcer because they believe
in the law and that the enforcer has the citizen’s best interest at heart. The preservation of social order, indeed the very concept of concept of social order itself, is inextricably bound with the legitimacy of those public institutions created expressly to
maintain order, as legitimacy leads to voluntary compliance. Voluntariness is
expected of citizens in a free society, and as a practical matter, resources cannot be
culled from other uses in a free society to otherwise force the minimum level of
compliance to ensure order; whether that order be seen as keeping the general peace
or enforcing a race and class based status quo.
Moving beyond the most simple definition, police legitimacy may be defined as,
the public’s “willingness to recognize police authority” (National Institute of Justice,
2016). Adding depth, Tyler (2014) states that legitimacy is “a matter of public trust
and confidence,” that it “reflects the willingness of residents to defer to the law and
to police authority,” and “the belief that police actions are morally justified and
appropriate to the circumstances” (p. 9). Weber stated in 1918 that there were three
types of legitimacy, traditional, charismatic, and rational‐legal (Weber, 1991).
Traditional legitimacy is historically based and rests on the authority of tradition.
Although this would be workable in a homogeneous, tradition‐based society, it
would likely not work well in a dynamic, multicultural, racially and ethnically
diverse society with diverse and competing views of social order. Charismatic
­legitimacy is a matter of obedience to a leader whose persona is subsumed into the
“persona” of the government. That is, people respect and obey the social order
because they respect the person of the central leader or leadership of the country.
Stalin and Hitler are two examples of charismatic legitimacy in action. Rational‐
legal legitimacy is just that, it is formal (written) and systematic (limited and limitations are based in known processes), and obedience is based on the idea, mentioned
earlier, that individuals stand to gain more from obedience than obedience costs.
This would seem an ideal means of ensuring social order in a diverse society, as it is
based in rationality. Therein lies the problem; if someone rationally concludes obedience to be a bad bargain, there will be no voluntary compliance and society is back
to the original problem, preservation of social order through application of minimal
resources. If an entire group or class rationally concludes voluntary obedience is a
bad bargain, the problem is multiplied and social order may collapse. It is irrational
to expect rational people to obey a system seen as irrational. At best, a coercive
system may maintain order over time, but there will be flare‐ups; not just common
crime, but mini‐revolutions, if you will. Thus, the African American teen, fighting
the police, may rationally see himself acting in the spirit of a Che Guevara or a Mao
Zedong, even if not versed in revolutionary mythos, per se.
334
M. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse
The natural evolution of societies and social institutions suggests that history
may be a major determinant of the level of legitimacy granted by the public to
policing as an institution, the legitimacy specific communities give to specific
police agencies, and the level of legitimacy that individual members of a community
will give to a specific agency and its individual officers. Policing a free society is
complex in that the police must maintain both order and freedom at levels a­ menable
to the public, if they wish to retain legitimacy. Manning (1999) noted this, stressing
that order maintenance and maintenance of individual rights were contradictory,
thus forcing the officer to develop elaborate tactics in an attempt to at least appear
to be doing both at once. Since this is unlikely, if not impossible, the officer will
constantly have his or her legitimacy in question, as, based in Weber, it is irrational
to expect citizens to acknowledge legitimacy if the officer is perceived to be acting
beyond or outside their accepted mandate. If the police lack legitimacy, they will
lack effectiveness as they will gain compliance only through coercion, the acceptance
of which is viable only in the short term in a free society since such action clearly
violates the mandate.
Each encounter between a citizen and a police officer is shaped by the personal
and vicarious experiences of each. This includes historical knowledge, of both the
citizen and the officer, as well as each participant’s self‐perception and their role in
the specific encounter, such encounters in a more general sense, and in life outside
such encounters. Perception of self and perception of role are based in personal
experience and observation (vicarious experience), as well as historical knowledge,
and in each person’s perception of the person and role of the other in such an
encounter as well as more generally in life. This would include the individual’s
knowledge of the historical relationship between the citizen’s community and
policing in general, as well as the citizen’s definition of self in terms of race, ethnicity,
and gender within the context of an individual encounter with a particular police
officer or officers. In other words, how we see ourselves in relation to the police or a
police officer is a matter of our self‐identity in terms of race, gender, and ethnicity
on both a micro and macro level. If we come from a community that has historically
been the subject of social control that is seen as outside the mandate of the police, it
is very likely both the police and the particular officer will lack legitimacy in any
encounter that even appears related to control. In short, the police are not stopping
one to protect and serve one’s community, but rather to harass and intimidate to
serve the status quo.
And then it gets complicated. Yes, race matters; the race of the citizen as well as
the officer. Yes, ethnicity matters; the ethnicity of the citizen as well as the officer. So
does gender, sexual orientation, and any other factors that make one look anything
other than middle class and White, Anglo‐Saxon, and Protestant. African Americans
were recruited to be police in some cities on the grounds that only a Black officer
knew how to handle Black citizens; the intention here was sometimes in terms of
only a Black officer would use sufficient brutality. In other cities, African Americans
were recruited for policing in terms of public relations with African American
Policing Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
335
c­ ommunities. Some African Americans saw this as a positive sign of improving race
relations, while others saw Black cops as sell‐outs; “Oreos” in 1970s parlance, Black
on the outside, White on the inside. Likewise, although many Whites saw African
Americans in police service as a positive sign of a more liberal society, others saw
them as lackeys and undeserving of either respect or obedience. As a result, some
African Americans and White Americans denied the legitimacy of African American
police officers based solely on skin color. It should be noted that the same problem
occurs with female, Hispanic, Native American, gay, etc. officers. Thus we have the
irony of some officers ignoring or denying the rights of citizens based on race,
gender and ethnicity, and some citizens denying the legitimacy of some officers on
the same basis.
What we have here is an illustration of symbolic interaction. The theory of
symbolic interaction states that as individuals engage one another, each does so
with certain preconceived notions, scripts if you will, as to how they and the other
should behave under the particular circumstances. It may be deduced from
symbolic interaction that personal experience and the history of the communities
with which one identifies write the “scripts” for these encounters, at least in part;
this is based in the premise that one’s knowledge of history shapes one’s perceptions
of the present. Logically, then, an understanding of history may explain the scripts
stereotypically applied to such encounters by all parties involved. As a result, interactions may be simplified, as each participant may anticipate a likely outcome from
a given set of circumstances. Additionally, one need not feel bound to an outdated,
discredited, or otherwise illegitimate script and someone rejecting an illegitimate
script would likely be seen to occupy the moral high ground regardless of the
­outcome of the encounter.
History and Scripting
In his classic article “Police: Mandate, strategies, and appearances,” Manning (1999)
argues that during the developmental stages of modern policing during the early
nineteenth century, the police mandate as given and understood was quite different
between Britain and the Unites States. The police in Britain were created to secure,
or perhaps reestablish, order in a homogeneous society during a process of change
from an agricultural base to an urban, industrial base, while preserving essential
individual rights. The mandate in the United States was more a matter of maintaining the status quo in a rapidly evolving society becoming increasingly heterogeneous. Manning makes a strong argument for his case, raising numerous issues of
import for understanding contemporary policing. As such, although the British
police received a mandate, American police received mandates based in a variety of
situational variables, including region and the ensuing balance among competing
racial and ethnic groups, something that was further complicated by the relationship
of women, from any group, with the police system.
336
M. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse
The police, or any agents of social control, will be seen as legitimate only when
they are seen as working within the mandate as understood by the community
policed. When one takes on more authority than granted, basic ideas of justice and
fairness should lead rational human beings to cry “foul” and demand that the person
overreaching their authority immediately cease. Since the British were working in a
homogeneous society with a clearly stated mandate countrywide, their task was simplified and the limits of their authority were more able to be stated clearly. With
numerous, sometimes competing and contradictory mandates for police in the
United States, citizen expectations were less clear and officer limits were vague and
often subject to change after every election cycle. As such, it would be natural,
rational, for those on the losing side to question the legitimacy of officers seen as
representing the winners. It should be noted that as European democracies have
become more racially and ethnically diverse since 1945, these countries have found
that policing immigrant populations with diverse and sometimes conflicting cultural
systems has become increasingly complex.
During the formative years of British policing, the threat to social order was
largely defined in terms of migration of the working class from rural to urban
industrial centers and a resulting breakdown in morals, leading to illegitimacy,
drunkenness, rampant crime, and civil unrest (Manning, 1999). The industrialization process in fact brought Britain close to social revolution and in many respects
the perceived need was to create an institution that would not only preserve order
and suppress crime but would do so in a manner calculated to defuse revolution
through professionalism and at least the appearance of enforcing the laws with neutrality, if not fairness (W. Miller, 1999). Although the reality of British policing has
never quite lived up fully to the image of the friendly, always patient and ever helpful
Bobby, the state largely succeeded in achieving the goal of a relatively values‐neutral
police, more or less impartially enforcing the law. Policing racial and ethnic homogeneity in a free society may be a somewhat simpler task than policing a free, very
diverse one or one rapidly changing in terms of demographics—if for no other
reason than the police and policed in a homogeneous society are more likely to
understand one another, on multiple levels. As mentioned previously, both the
­citizens and the police in a homogeneous society will have a more or less clear
understanding of the police mandate, the legal and community limits placed on
police authority, and the legal and community limits on a citizen’s actions. The more
diverse the society, the less the mandate and the limits will be clear to all persons,
and a citizen believing themselves to be acting within the bounds of law and custom
may not be so seen by the enforcers of those bounds. If the officer and citizen are of
radically different backgrounds, there may be little to no common ground for
understanding.
In the United States during the early to mid‐nineteenth century the cause of disorder was defined in somewhat different terms than in contemporary Britain,
because the American sociopolitical environment differed so greatly from that of
Britain. Arguably, American and British policing grew up at the same time, but not
Policing Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
337
together; not because of similar need, but more or less coincidentally. Concerns in
America were based partially in what was seen as immigration from Ireland and
various Germanic states overwhelming a previously homogeneous, “Anglo‐Saxon”
culture. These immigrants were often Roman Catholic and their arrival in large
numbers in a mostly Protestant, Anglo‐Saxon America was viewed by many native‐
born as a threat to social order, this view being largely based in religious bigotry,
ethnic prejudice, and class conflict. Language barriers exacerbated these issues, with
the Irish often deemed as incomprehensible of speech as the Germans. Overall, it
was widely feared these immigrants would “fundamentally transform” America
from a White, Anglo‐Saxon Protestant majority into a mere extension of Catholic
Europe. To further complicate matters, many of these immigrants, although from
rural backgrounds, settled in urban areas. Their backgrounds meant they had few
skills for urban employment and preference in employment was most often given to
the “native born,” regardless of skill set, frequently leaving immigrants to labor in a
shadow economy, often criminal in nature. These, and other factors, led the large
cities in the Northeast, notably New York and Boston, to create “professional” (that
is, paid) police departments in the years prior to the Civil War. Identifying an exact
year is somewhat challenging, depending on one’s definition of a “professional”
police department. Many of the police departments in the American Northeast trace
their lineage to eighteenth‐century night watches, paid and unpaid, that often
­functioned as no more than fire watches.
In the South, things were different. This longstanding principle of the social sciences carries over into the study of policing. Although geography, climate, and the
ethnic factors of settlement are certainly of concern, slavery was and probably is the
defining factor of the South; this is no less true today than 200 years ago, and the
migration patterns of southern African Americans since emancipation have made it
a factor in modern policing throughout the United States. Formal law enforcement
in the South originated as slave patrols, predating the paid police departments in
northeastern cities by a number of years. Although the office of sheriff, another
inheritance from the British origins of American government, had existed north and
south since the colonial era, sheriffs were primarily collectors of taxes and servers of
process rather than law enforcement officials, per se. They most certainly were not
proactive crime fighters in the northern or southern colonies or, as they later came
to be, states.
The southern states, defined here as the antebellum slaveholding states, were predominantly rural prior to the Civil War, with a few notable cities. Both the rural and
urban South managed to feel secure in the social order, with a rather lax approach to
law enforcement, until the Haitian Slave Revolt (1791–1804). The vague fears of
southern slave owners of being murdered in their beds by their slaves were made
palpable by actual events occurring in relative proximity. American slave owners,
who were also the governing class of the South, reacted quickly to the Haitian
Revolution by a number of means, one of which, with long‐term consequences, was
the creation of the institution of slave patrols. Although practiced with some
338
M. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse
v­ ariation from state to state, statutory or constitutional mandate required each
county to establish a slave patrol under the sheriff, or some responsible person, to be
formed from a draft of registered voters (White males of military age; some states
also required freehold of real property). Generally, the draft was for three months, at
which time one was exempt from recall for a period of time; usually a year. The
number of men required was based on the population of the county. Patrollers had
an amazing level of authority over slaves, free African Americans, and Whites
­suspected of fomenting slave rebellion or escape. The Bill of Rights was not a constraining factor here as slaves had no legal/constitutional rights and public safety
was considered to override the slave owner’s property rights, at least in some cases.
As a result, detentions and searches were based in skin color (racial profiling).
Although slavery formally ended with the Civil War, and slave patrols with it, it
may be argued the Ku Klux Klan took over from the patrols in terms of widespread
social control of the African American population until the more formal controls of
racial segregation and “Black codes” could be formulated and put into practice. It
should be noted that when the constitutionality of these laws began to fall during the
1950s, there was a strong revival of the Klan which did not fade until the late 1970s,
perhaps later. The fact that many Klansman during this era were sworn law enforcement officers certainly did nothing to change the relationship between the police
and the African American community, as contemporary law enforcement could be
seen, sometimes through living memory, as merely a continuation of the slave
patrols and the Klan. That said, the so‐called “first Klan” was pretty much dead by
1880. One could argue that martial law, the US Army and federal marshals killed it
off, but more likely it was functionalism that killed the Klan; it was simply no longer
needed. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Jim Crow killed the Klan. The
racial segregation laws that swept the South following the presidential election of
1876, and the enforcement of these laws by public law enforcement officers, replaced
the informal, social enforcement mechanisms of the Reconstruction era, including
the Klan. Historically, as northeastern police departments expanded during the late
nineteenth century to control immigrants and mitigate the perceived threats of the
anarchists and trade unionists (mostly immigrants or immigrant inspired), southern
policing rapidly expanded to enforce racial segregation and the perceived threats of
“Negro equality.” Stemming from historical fact, the view of many African Americans
that law enforcement officers are simply enforcers of a race‐based system of social
control rather than protectors of the safety, rights and freedoms of all citizens is fresh
in the mind of many middle‐aged and older Americans from direct, personal
­experience, an image that cannot help but be passed down generationally.
The idea of imagery passed generationally affecting behavior may be seen as a
form of historical trauma. In developing the concept of historical trauma, BraveHeart‐
Jordan and DeBruyn (1995) applied models from Holocaust Studies to the experience of Native Americans to develop a thesis of “Historical Unresolved Grief
Syndrome”; “historical trauma.” BraveHeart (1995) defined historical trauma as a
Policing Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
339
“collective and compounding emotional and psychic wounding [occurring] over
time” (p. 6). That is, “historic, traumatic events do not just effect multiple generations; it is as if each generation actually suffers the trauma” (Eichenberg, 2013, p. 50).
If the concept of historical trauma is an accurate reflection of reality, the psychological
effects of slavery and the Jim Crow era are not limited to those who experienced
them as actual events; the trauma becomes part of the culture and each succeeding
generation experiences the trauma as if participating in the original events.
As stated by Eichenberg (2013):
The traumatic effect of historical events on modern cultures and individuals is
­determined by multiple variables related to the nature of the trauma itself and each
individual’s and each culture’s means of dealing with trauma and grieving, among
others. It may be expected that well integrated individuals who are members of either
the dominant culture or subordinate cultures not too dissimilar to the dominant
culture will be less affected by the traumatic event than those less integrated and more
dissimilar. (p. 50)
The level of social integration and similarity at the individual and group levels may
likely be readily seen during street‐level encounters between citizens and law
enforcement agents. A minority citizen stopped by a police officer may find, to their
dismay, they are not as well integrated with or similar to the dominant social group
as they had thought; a finding which may drive the citizen off script, greatly complicating an already complicated interaction.
Ethnic/racial identity versus assimilation and social integration has proven more
problematic for some groups than others. Irish Americans, once subject to
discrimination on a par with any group in American society, have been “mainstream”
for a very long time now, as have Italian Americans, Jews, and other “European”
types. Asian Americans perhaps less so, and African Americans, Hispanics and
Native Americans far less so. A simple answer is that these former groups worked
very hard to assimilate; a simple counterargument is that a group is not assimilated if
it maintains a common cultural identity as powerful as exists in many of these latter
groups. A far simpler argument is that European immigrants and their descendants
look White, if you will. That is, once removed from the context of neighborhood, language, and clothing styles, it becomes difficult for anyone, street cop or whoever, to
determine the ethnicity of many people of European heritage, short of an ethnic
name or self‐identification. Many Hispanics look Hispanic; many persons of
European Spanish heritage do not, many of whom are Mexican citizens, for example.
Short of Hasidic or other Orthodox Jews, most American Jews simple do not look
Jewish. As this concept of identification by physicality was applied to African
Americans, in most states that had such laws, the old racial segregation laws applied
to persons with one African American great‐grandparent; in at least one state, great‐
great grandparent (Woodward, 1955). One is left to wonder how “Black” such
340
M. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse
p
­ ersons looked and how deeply enforcement could reach without offending persons of unquestionably White backgrounds. However, laws and custom prohibiting
interracial relationships made persons of mixed race, not easily identifiable as subject
to discrimination, rare in the past.
Persons who look and act majority group will likely be treated as such. Persons
whose physical appearance, including clothing and hair (think burqas, beards, and
turbans), identify them as outside the majority, or whose context (an ethnic neighborhood) sets them apart, are in many respects denied the luxury of assimilation.
No matter how well assimilated they may be in all other respects, they will still look
like an outsider. Others may in fact be outsiders, but to the observer are just another
White, Anglo‐Saxon Protestant type.
We return to symbolic interaction in some of its respects. Becker’s classic field
study Outsiders (1997) pertained to marijuana users of the 1950s (then thought to be
mostly jazz musicians and aficionados, many of whom were Black or Hispanic). The
title is of interest as much as the content or the theory itself. The term is meaningful
as it implies “otherness.” The other may be seen as a perpetual threat, thus needing
increased regulation for the sake of mainstream society; or the other may be the
scapegoat for a society in crisis, or at least in a process of change. Or perhaps both.
During the Great Migration of southern African Americans to the industrial centers
of the North, they were seen by many Whites as a threat to their livelihoods, being
willing to work longer hours for less pay than their White counterparts. They were
also blamed for social unrest that was more likely related to social change caused by
World War I than a stereotypical penchant for hedonism. Today, Hispanics are seen
as an economic threat by many and are frequently blamed for urban violence more
clearly related to poverty and diminishing opportunity caused by numerous factors
worldwide. As such, the police are seen as protecting mainstream society from the
variety of threats posed by the other. One could argue that the majority needs such
threats, real or imagined, as a means of maintaining social cohesion and uniting
diverse interests to oppose a common enemy, as well as to give even the most humble
member of mainstream society someone to look down on and thus boost their own
self‐esteem.
In sum, the development of American policing was largely the result of social
conflict, with the police intended to preserve the status quo. As such, American
policing may be seen to differ from British policing in that the British police were
intended to be a buffer, while American police were intended to be a barrier.
This conflict basis for American policing creates a historical precedent for an
­antagonistic relationship between the police and some racial and ethnic groups,
an antagonism that has entered the culture of these racial and ethnic groups as well
as the culture of policing. Culture scripts encounters between the police and these
communities, which may serve to mitigate as well as exacerbate conflict between
these groups. Conflict may be mitigated by all parties to citizen–police street‐level
encounters adhering to the stereotypical, culturally determined scripts, and conflict
may be exacerbated should one party depart from that script.
Policing Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
341
Women, Race, and the Police
The means to enforce social order are classified broadly as “social control.” Two
types of social control exist, as do two social control systems. Formal social control
may best be defined as governmentally sponsored coercion (Black, 1976, 1984;
Melossi, 1990). Informal social control may be defined as everything else that influences human behavior. Traditionally, men have been more subject to the formal
social control system, as historically they were most likely to be engaged in
employment and other areas of society outside the domestic sphere, while women
were more likely to be influenced through the informal controls of family life,
­religion, gossip, and stereotypes of “proper behavior” (Belknap, 1996; Eichenberg,
2000). This, however, is at least somewhat of a sweeping generalization as social
control varies by race and social class, as well as time and place.
For example, the behavior of southern White men was traditionally influenced by
a restrictive code of honor; this code largely made a formal social control system
superfluous for most men, at least pre–Civil War and likely long after, with vestiges
still an issue reflected in higher rates of interpersonal violence in the South and
urban areas in the North that experienced high levels of migration (McWhiney,
1988; Wyatt‐Brown, 1982). Southern White women had no honor code of their own,
their honor being bound to that of husbands, fathers, and brothers. African
Americans had no honor under this code, they being under the very formal as well
as informal social controls of slavery. Although slavery by definition is a social
­control with formal and informal aspects, additionally as part of the enslavement
process, African Americans were systematically stripped of much of their African
cultures as a means of informal social control. Lower‐class White culture was then
grafted onto whatever was remaining of African cultures, creating unique and truly
African American cultures further modified through regional experience. Rothman
(1971) as well as Foucault (1979) held that all forms of social control were founded
in exploitation. The social control of men would exploit their labor; the social
­control of women would exploit their labor and their sexuality. Based in race and
class, the exploitation would limit the sexual expression of upper‐class White
women, while making women of Color and/or lower social class more freely
­available (Aptheker, 1989: Hooks, 1984).
Post–Civil War, racial segregation laws (formal social control), as well as the
informal controls of vigilante justice and social custom, did little to change the pre–
Civil War environment of African Americans. The end result was the development
not only of separate social control systems for men and women, but of separate
social control systems for White middle‐class women, lower‐class White women,
and women of Color. Welter (1976) stated that a “cult of true womanhood” developed around the ideal type of the middle‐ and upper‐class White woman; as such,
these women were largely “off limits” for the police. A middle‐class White woman
caught stealing could be classified as suffering from temporary mental illness
brought on by hormonal fluctuations, and her family contacted. Lower‐class White
342
M. George Eichenberg and Shannon Hankhouse
women, immigrant women, and women of Color caught under the same
­circumstances were more likely to be classified as thieves and arrested.
It really was not that simple. Rather, the intersection of women and law enforcement seems further complicated by the type of offense (Belknap, 1996). Woman
who commit “womanly” crimes, that is, crimes stereotypically regarded as distinctly
feminine, such as low‐level thefts, are more likely to be treated leniently as a matter
of, perhaps, chivalry. Woman who commit stereotypically “masculine” crimes, such
as drunkenness and assault, are more likely to be treated harshly. The idea is that not
only have they offended the law, but they have also offended stereotypical gender
roles and thus threaten the social order more seriously than would be the case in
“mere criminality.” Likewise, offenses such as prostitution are treated harshly, as
the prostitute is likewise acting outside the stereotype of the “lady,” thus offending
social order. The prostitute goes to jail; the customer gets sent home with a lecture.
The prostitute threatens the traditional order of home and family; the customer is a
mere dupe acting as men can (stereotypically) be expected to act.
The social control system for middle‐ and upper‐class White women has often
been criticized as patriarchal, which in fact it has been, but in such cases the system
may be seen as working to their advantage, minimizing contact with the police and
the criminal justice system. The social control system for lower‐class White women
and women of Color may also be criticized as patriarchal, punishing women for not
living up to White, middle‐class standards as much as for criminality. That said, the
system could be seen as mutually exploitive and thus mutually beneficial, with the
bifurcated system of social control based on gender being an essential part of
­civilization as the basis for the nuclear family (Humphries, 1991; Lerner, 1986; Stoll,
1974). If this interpretation has any accuracy, it would be logical that a functional
system of mutual benefit would eventually harden into a system of patriarchy. This
informal system would eventually blend into the formal system of social control,
with the police responsible for policing adherence to stereotypical gender roles
(Foucault, 1979).
Foucault (1979) wrote that, over time, systems of informal and formal control
tend to merge into a single, monolithic system. The informal control of a neighborhood resident seeing “suspicious activity” and acting informally on her or his
­suspicion has merged with a call to 911, thus activating the formal control system.
The dispatched officer may act according to discretion based on situational variables. The officer may also “self‐activate,” investigating suspicious activity on their
own responsibility. The officer need only invoke reasonable suspicion to interact
with a citizen who is seen as out of place, or who merely causes the officer’s intuition
to be activated. One would hope that officer intuition would be based in training
and experience rather than personal prejudice; either way, the officer may be said to
be “profiling.” The fact that officer discretion has a long history of abuse has given
both discretion and profiling a bad reputation, something that has become a major
challenge to communities.
Policing Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
343
Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Profiling
Racial profiling is an issue that has received a great deal of attention from the
public, elected officials, police, and researchers. In fact, the notion that police officers may make decisions based on the racial characteristics of citizens threatens
the idealistic principles of fair and equal treatment before the law. This issue
impacts society as a whole, not just minority populations. The police are expected
to respond, first and foremost, to the need for crime control, and not target or stop
an individual based primarily on racial characteristics rather than on individualized suspicion or probable cause (K. Miller, 2013). The battle against racial profiling by law enforcement is one of the most important civil rights issues of today
(Graves, 2013).
Definition of Racial Profiling
The US Department of Justice defines racial profiling as “a practice that targets
­people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national
origin” (National Institute of Justice, 2013a, p. 1). In response to concerns about
biased law enforcement practices, the US Department of Justice (2014) issued the
following standards for federal law enforcement officers:
●●
●●
In making routine or spontaneous law enforcement decisions, such as ordinary
traffic stops, Federal law enforcement officers may not use race, ethnicity, gender,
national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity to any degree,
except that officers may rely on the listed characteristics in a specific suspect
description. This prohibition applies even where the use of a listed characteristic
might otherwise be lawful.
In conducting all activities other than ro