Hispanics and the Law in
Massachusetts
College of the Holy Cross
March 13, 2008
Class 8: Crime
Robert LeRoux Hernandez,
Instructor
Virgen Palermo
Las Primeras
Criminal law
Trial lawyer
Sole practitioner
MAHA
CRIME
What is it?
Prison populations
Court dockets
Victims
Pew Report
1 in 35 adult
Latino males
is in prison
Jacobs & Carmichael
 Historical review of imprisonment rates and
reported crime: Little relationship
 Communities with larger portion of minorities have
larger proportional number of police
 Political factors influence incarceration: relationship
between Republican strength and incarceration
rates
Urbina
Far from being color-blind, society
has been extremely ‘‘color and
ethnically conscious.’’ As a
consequence, the administration
of justice has been informal,
irregular, arbitrary, capricious, and
secretive.
Steffensmeier: “focal concerns”
theory of sentencing
 assessment of the blameworthiness or culpability of
the offender
 desire to protect the community by incapacitating
dangerous offenders or deterring potential
offenders
 concerns about the practical consequences, or social
costs, of sentencing decisions
 “Perceptual shorthands”
NB
 Underrepresentation of Hispanics in Prison Mental
Health services
 Different nature of crimes for which Hispanics
incarcerated: “public order” crimes
 Interrelation of factors:




Poverty
Education
Employment
Color
Benjamin Laguer
Was he framed?
Did he receive a fair trial?
Did he do it?
Political ramifications
Organizing intellectual support