Read and answer the following questions:

profileRonaldo777
Chapter6raceinamerica.docx
Home>Social Science homework help>Read and answer the following questions:

Chapter 6

Saturday, May 04, 2019

2:06 AM

 

Machine generated alternative text: an pos Machine generated alternative text: MAIN POINTS Recognize the role of the late-twentieth•century prison boom in the creation of the stark racial disparities now seen within the U.S. incarcerated population. Discuss the ways that Americans' fear of crime is strongly connected to their racial identity, their racial attitudes, and the racial makeup of their neighborhood. Understand why members of different racial groups are more likely to commit Or be victims Of crime. Learn how racial disparities in the prison population are driven in large part by severe Criminal sentencing practices that give lengthy prison terms for nonviolent Offenses as well as by new policing techniques that disproportionately affect poor minority communities. No subject requires a higher level of critical thinking, a more unwavering commit- ment to rational assessment, than the subject of crime. If we wish to think deeply about it—and to develop effective Ways Of addressing it—we must resist accept- ing truth the prepaclQgecl Collection of assumptions, Statements, beliefs we commonly (and sometimes carelessly) attach to issues of illegal behavior and pun- ishment. This requires reevaluating those dangers that seem to trouble us the most and taking note of all the other dangers we dismiss because of our selective focus. It also means rethinking the veø,' essence of "crime" and evaluating why. although things inflict harm, only Some Outlawed. Likewise, the way we fight Crime deserves rethinking. America's "get tough on crime" approach is relatively new and, of the many methods designed to decrease crime, may be among the least effec- tive. We also should develop complex appraisals of all the actors found in the legal realm—lawyers. police officers, victims, and criminals—and even farce ourselves Construct multidimensional depictions Of those Who have committed arts that horrify Carrying monstrous deeds does not necessarily make a monster; to 'Mraphrase Helen Preiean, everyone is more than the worst thing they have ever done.' The phrase "Justice is blind" Suggests that the legal field is somehow detached from normal society, that it floats above society's prejudices. As critical thinkers, we need to focus our attention on the multiple ways in which race—as welt as class and gender—operates as a central organizing principle of the criminal justice system. Let us, therefore. approach the hot topic of crime With COOI heads. for arriving at a more rational and rigorous under- Standing Of race, crime, and Can help liberate our thinking from the clutches of fear, thereby helping us to make better decisions as we work to create a more just democracy. Toward such an end, this chapter starts with a historical overview that traces the development of America's prison boom. After that. it explores the workings of race in the legal field in three related sections: fear, crime, and Main Paints 203 Machine generated alternative text: 204 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PRISON Early conceptions and practices of justice, crime, and punishment were formed un- der conditions of colonialism and slavery. Ir«ligenuus systems uf justice were over- shadowed by Which Criminalized tribal practices. (Nut certain dances and idioms were exempt from criminalization.) Enslaved Africans were excluded from the protection of the law, which did not recognize as rape the sexual assault of a slave girl by a white man or classify as murder the accidental killing of a slave at the hands of his master. From its Inception. American law permitted nonwhites to be brutalized, dehumanized, and killed. It is Within this cuntradietion— the simultaneous extension of liberty and the retrenchment of justice, the exalta- tion of freedom for most but at the expense of some—that the AmeriC7n justice system was forged, The Lynch Mob and the Prison Labor Camp After the fall of slavery, two important institutions arose to control and confine nonwhites, and African Americans in particular. The first was the lynch mob. Some- times the lynch mob operated in cahoots with local law enforcemenu other times its rabid masses simply overpowered sheriff's deputies attempting to protect their captives long that they might receive a fait trial. The would break into the jail Cell, dragging the trembling black man Outside, and with impunity Between 1880 and 1930. lynch mobs murdered over 2.300 black men. wornen. and children that Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: him to death. Between 1880 and 1930, lynch mobs murdered over 2,300 black men (and women and children) whom we know of-I The broader white public justified the practice of lynching in a number uf ways, une of which was by arguing that it kept white women safe from the black male rapist. "There is only one crime that warrants lynching," Bill Tillman uf South Carolina, Governor as am, I would lead a mob to lynch the negro who ravishes a white The majority of black men accused of rape, castrated and hung from dogwood limbs, were innocent. A good number of accusations were brought forth, not by the supposed victim of rape, but by her husband or brother or someone in the community. Indeed. many white Women, emtstrained by manners, Were told keep quiet as Others used these women's bodies as a pretext for leveling a scourge against black men. Although many whites believed lynch mobs were carrying forth swift and ef- fective justice on the body of a rapist, most lynch mobs were not motivated by this crime. Or. to put it another way. the southern white man's definition of "rape." as it applied tn black hardly could have been broader. As W. J. has observed, Southerners felt was that any assertion of any kind an the part of the Negro G'nstituted in a perfectly real manner an attack on the Southern woman. What they saw. more less in the conditions Of Reconstruction was a passage toward a for her as degrading, in their view, as rape itself."' Accordingly, when Ida B. Wells, a black woman who defiantly and indefatiga- bly stood up against the institution of the lynch mob. researched southern lynchings, she found that most black were not they had cused of rape but because they had been found to be too "uppity." They refused to take their hat in front of a white woman: they winked at her: they laughed behind Nonetheless, the thrived on the widespread fear that black men were violent, lecherous predators, a fear that spread during Recon- structian and is with us still, The lynch mob upheld white supremacy by letting blacks know they could not find refuge in the law. And it upheld white patriarchy by cultivating within white women dread of the black male rapist, a dread that increased white women's dependency on their white male protectors.' Alowside the lynch mob, a second important institution arose after emancipation: the prison. Although prisons long had been a feature Of American society, they took on a function after the fall of slavery, namely, to reenslave thousands of black work- ers recently released from bondage. New laws were drafted to target poor blacks, ensuring the,' would be segregated from white society. laws were Photograph of a ivwhir.g made into a postcard that one vhlite mailed home his 33 rents, The Rise Cf the American Prison ZOS Machine generated alternative text: adopted in state after state after the Civil These laws outlawed begging and loitering, In short, they transformed the poor into the criminal, who, for simply panhandling—or even Icwking for work—could be sent to jail or a hard labor camp. Under many vagabond laws. a panhandler could be imprisoned for six months and was Offered the right a jury Formerly institutions that warehoused mostly white offenders, prisons began teeming with black ex-slaves, many of whom were arrested under vagabond laws.' To meet the labor shortage once filled by enslaved workers and poor whites (many of whom perished in the Civil War), and to uphold an economic system built on racial domination. southern prisons in- trodueed leasing" programs. Which forced prisoners to work for pay. Once again, black men returned in shackles to the cotton fields, the and the roadsides, sometimes chained to white prisoners. Historians have found that prison labor camps were just as inhumane as were conditions under slavery. At Mississippi's Parchman Prison Farm. for instance. one out of every six prisoners died under the cruel work conditions; in fact, historian David Oshinsky, "not a single leased convict lived long enough to Serve a sentence of ten years or more,"" Such harsh conditions were remembered in Johnny Cash's song "Going to Memphis": Well I In-ought me a little a Mr. But mn caught me dmkin' It, I my hand; boy him out: IA me on his to see wlut the slwutin's atmt. The Prison Boom As the twentieth century rumbled forward, lynching and racialized terrorism died down and convict labor was curtailed, mainly because of protests by unions, Juvenile convicts at walk in the felds in a Southern chain gang. which could not compete with prisoners' cheap labor. Race relations in America were improving. Then Japanese fighter pilots bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. causing prejudice and paranoia directed at Japanese to boil over. Japanese Americans Were seen as "the enemy within our borders," as spies and traitors. A year later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the internment of all Japanese Americans living on the Pacific Coast. In the years that followed, over people of Japanese most of them American citizens, were made to leave their communities and workplaces and to live in "exclu- sionary zones." which resembled modern-day refugee camps, often in desolate areas. Among the detained Were over 80,000 children. Aecwrding to one repart from 1943, the internment camps were made of "tar- paper covered barracks of simple frame construc- tion without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind." In January the internment order was re- sciltded. and the Japanese families held in 206 Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: the Gimps were given $25 and a bus ticket home. In the years that followed, the U.S. government would officially apologize for the policy, distributing over billion in reparations to Japanese Americans who had Suffered internment their Children).'" Internment camps were bulldozed, The chain gang, meanwhile, became a relic of yore, Lynching was criminalized. But the prison remained. In the 1970s, experts began to question incarceration as an effective Way uf fighting crime and reducing recidi- vism (repeat offending). A growing consensus among experts in the legal field was that more rehabilitative measures needed to be put in place—and that an ef- fective anticrime strategy must attack the problem at its focusing conditions that faster deviant behavior, Such as poverty and institutional racism." The prison was coming under strict criti- cism as an expensive, unhelpful, and inherently racist institution. It is curious, then, that during that same time, America's prison population did shrink but grew—amt by leaps and bounds _ In fact, the rapid ex- pansion of American incarceration, whirh in A Japanese American man speaks to tellm•• internees at a reloca• tion camp in Puyallup, Washington. the early 1970s and continues to this day, can only be described as a prison boom, The numbers are unprecedented. Between 1925 and the prison population remained the same, fluctuating between 100.000 and 200,000 prisoners. But around 1975, the prison to Skyrocket and by 2000 had From to 2003, moreover, the number of state and federal prisons did not double ar triple or even quadruple; it grew sevenfold (see Figure 6, 1), In 2003, over 7 million people—what amounts to the entire population of Switzerland—were under the supervision of the criminal justice system (an probation or parole, or in jail or prison)." Although America dues not suffer from higher crime rates than other indus- trialized countries, it was the only country to experience a prison boom of this magnitude. Between 1983 and 2001, the prison population in several other indus- trialized countries grew only marginally. The United Kingdom's prison popula- tiun per 100,000 Citizens increased frum 87 to 126; in Italy it increased from 65 to 95; in Sweden fram 65 to 6K In countries, such Germany, Denmark, and Austria, the prison population decreased. In the United States, however, the prison population grew from 275 per 100, 000 citizens in 1983 to 686 per 100,000 in 2001. California alone houses mure inmates than France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan. Singapore. and the N combined. " Today, With a prison population Of almost 2.3 million, if one also includes people in County jails and juvenile detention rate of roughly person per behind bars), the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation on earth." China has the second-highest num- ber of people incarcerated (1.65 million). But compared to the United States' prison population, China's is smaller by roughly 650,000, even though its general popula- tion exceeds Ours by more billion." The Rise Cf the American Prison 207 Machine generated alternative text: FIGURE6_1 INCARCERATION RATES Rates by CO untry Orgentia Russia u n i ted Per Ico.ooo people State and Federal prison population in the United States, 1925—2013 20102013 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: The Color Of America's Incarcerated By international standards, American women are incarcerated at a very steep rate. In fact, between 1980 and 2011, the number of women behind bars jumped from 15.118 to 111.387, a 587 percent increase! In 2011, black women were incarcerated at 2.5 times the rate Of White Women. and Hispanic Women Were incarcerated at times the rate of white women _ The majority af in state prisons are mathers. One in twenty-five women is pregnant when admitted tn a state prison," Although women are being incarcerated at historically high rates, they still ac- count for only 6.7 percent of the nation's prison population." The vast majority Of those behind bars are men. Relative to Other countries, America's White male is incarcerated at steep rate, one that exceeds the total incarceration rates of most industrialized countries. But the brunt of the prison boom has been borne by America's nonwhite male populations—specifically, by its poor, under- educated black and Hispanic men. Blacks and Hispanics account for approximately 25 percent Of the U.S. population but 58 Of all prisoners. Hispanic men are three times—and black men nearly eight times—mare likely than white men to be in prison. If African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rate as whites, America's prison and jail population would be cut in half, One in six black men has been incarcerated as of 2011. For poor, young black men. the prison cell has become an all-too-familiar institution—just as familiar, in fact, as the college campus, the military base, Or the factory floor_•• The imprisonment rate for young men of color who drop out of high school is especially high, In 1980, 2 percent of all white mate dropouts between the ages of twenty and forty were in prison jail: in 2000. that number jumped to 7 percent. For Hispanics, percent of male high school dropouts between the ages of twenty forty were in prison Or jail in 1980, 6 were in 2000. For African Americans, the percent increase is breathtaking: In 1980, one of ten high school dropouts between the ages of twenty and forty was in jail or prison. In 2000, one three black male dropouts that age was behind bars. The incarceration rate of young black men who dropped out of high school was nearly fifty times the national The majority of all state prisoners—roughly 70 percent—have not finished high school-n According to a study by sociologist Becky Pettit, if you are a black man without a high school diploma, on any given day you have a higher likelihood of being in prison or jail than of working.n By the end of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of America's poor had passed through the prison system. A white man barn after World War Il is, around 1945—1949) who later dropped out of high school had a 4 percent chance of sewing time in prison sometime in his life; however, a white man born after the Civil Rights Movement (that is, around Iq65—1969) who later dropped out of high school had an percent chance of doing time. By contrast. a black man burn after World Il who later dropped out of high school had a 17 percent Chance of serving time in prison, whereas a black man born after the Civil Rights Mcwement who later dropped out of high school had nothing short of a 60 percent chance of being locked up at some point in his life.r• If these statistics have not alarmed you. we suggest you go back and read them again. The Rise Cf the American Prison z 09 Machine generated alternative text: FIGURE 6.2 LIFETIME LIKELIHOOD OF IMPRISONMENT White Mon wen eeoo 000 lini7 White Thec are large racial disparities in America's prison population Severe Sentencing Latin o M on lie 1 in 45 210 Why did America's prison population multiply so quickly and by such an enormous measure? Rising crime rates certainly are part of the answer. Between 1965 and 1980. the homicide rate in America before generally following a downward trend between 1981 and 2000.2' mast of the prison cannot be explained by rising crime rates, First, most people inaurcerated during the prison boom were non- violent offenders (e.g., people who dealt drws). Although there was a spike in murder rates after 1965. the prison boom is not a reflection of a significant increase of convict- ed murderers. for the most part. crime rates remained the Same. even during the prison youth from were not committing more crime in 2000 than they were in 1980. In a 1980 survey, 18.5 percent of poor white male teenagers and 17,5 percent of poor black teenagers confessed to having attacked someone with the intention of seriously injuring or kill- ing them that year. In 2000. 17 percent Of White teenagers and 14 of black teenagers confessed to doing so. In the same way, people were stealing, selling drugs, and damaging property at lower rates in 2000 than in 1980 even though more people were being locked up in newly erected prisons." And the chances ofbeing murdered were far greater during several points in the nineteenth century than at the height Of the prison One Study concluded that 12 percent Of the rise Of rate; between 1980 was by increases in the Crime rate; the other 88 percent was caused by changes in sentencing What changed during the prison boom was not so much the crime rate but the way crime was punished: namely, it was punished more harshly. Arrest rates climbed at a record pace. and sentences grew more severe. Although Violent crime Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: fell between 1990 and 2001, the chances a suspect would be arrested for a violent crime doubled. Between 1465 and 2001, drug arrests quadrupled, hitting black and Puerto Rican men especially Does this mean that drug use increased between 1965 and 2001 and that black men were more likely to use and sell drups? The leads us answer no 10 questions. Between 1979 and 2000, drug use among adults declined by a O percent, and according to surveys af high seniors, white students during this time reported using more drugs than black students. In fact, scholars who have analyzed emergency room records have dis- covered that. compared to blacks. whites were two to three times more likely to be rushed tu the for drug-related problems." Not only did arrest rates, especially for drug-related offenses, shoot upward during the prison boom, but several other cynnges were put intu effect tu harshen criminal sentencing. Parole was limited severely or abolished entirely, Mandatory minimum sentences—including for those convicted of nonviolent crimes—were During the 1970s, several laws Were passed attaching a life Sentence to those found guilty of selling hard drugs, as well us to those possessing mare than an ounce of cenine or heroin, Draconian sentencing policies continued through the 1990s, most notably with three-strikes laws, Three-strikes laws intensified punish- ment far repeat offenses. with many such laws imposing a life sentence for the third offense. California's three-strikes law doubled the Sentence far the second Of- fenge and life in priscm for the third, even fur crimes Such minor fraud and drug possession, By 2000, twenty-four states had adopted three- strikes laws similar to California 's? Why did criminal sentencing take such a mean turn? The answer lies in the rise of the "law and order" politician. The Rise Of the "Law and Order" Politician Opinion from the mid-1960s show that most Americans did not list crime as among the nation's most pressing concerns. The Vietnam War and civil rights were what occupied most Americans' minds at the time. Nevertheless. the Republi- can Party, beginning with Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential bid, started to focus a central issuc_ "Tonight there is violence in our streets." Coldwater on cnme as during his acceptance speech as the Republican nominee, "History shows us that nothing preL_mres the way for tyranny more than the failure of public officials to keep the streets safe from bullies and marauders."n Although Goldwater was de- feated, he planted a seed among Republicans, a seed that would SOOA into a new kind of Richard Nixon launched a "war on crime" to protect Americans from those who "increasingly threaten our cities, our homes, and our lives." Ronald Reagan followed by initiating a "war on druw introducing harsher penalties for those found guilty Of possessing and selling drugs. And George ll. W. Bush Won the White I louse after exposing his Michael Dukakis, as "snft Crime," marshaling the infa- mous Willie Horton ase to drive home his point. Republicans governed states with the steepest growth in prison populations. To take but one example: when Repub- lican John Ashcroft was governor of Missouri between 1985 and 1993, the state's prison population increased by 80 percent. Ashcroft slashed state services by over $1 billitm, while allocating $100 million to prison The Rise Cf the American Prison Machine generated alternative text: FIGURE 6.3 DRUG ARREST RATE VS. REPORTED DRUG USE Black and White Drug Arrest Rates High School Seniors Reporting Use 300 1994 2000 African Americans drug use than White Americans, but are likely to he tot drug crimes. Rapidly, the terms of political debate were altered in such a way that "tough on crime" stances, which called for repressive punishments, were counterposed to more rehabilitative stances, which on the wet causes of crime. In fact, many conser- vative politiciarr; argued that social welfare programs actually helped to cause crime. Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: "The solution to the crime problem," Nixon would declare, "is not the quadrupling of funds for any governmental war on poverty but more convictions."" America's concern with rehabilitation and the war un poverty became eclipsed by a war un crime and an ardent pursuit of punitive meæ;ures. Once this frame took root in public thought and debate, il virtually impossible for in-eluded—lu gel elected to public office without promising to crack clown on crime. president Clinton beame an avid supporter of three-strikes laws, and his Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act uf 1994 allocated nearly SIO billion fur the construction of new prisons and mandated life sentences for third-time offenders* Prisons have transformed regional by employing thousands Of rectional officers, wardens, and other workers They also have expanded America's cheap labor force, as inmates are put to work at third world wages, making everything from clothing to he sold at Nordstrom department stores to graduation caps and gowns." Indeed. entire prisons naw are operated by private companies. Although the government operates most prisons, private prisons have been the rise Since the Today, over half the states rely on for-profit prisons, where roughly 128,000 inmates are housed each year.•• Mare than any ather set af policies, those introduced by the war an drugs helped to fuel the prison boom and wreak devastation on African American communities. Between 1981 2001, national drug spending increased less than $2 billion to $18 billion. More more police officers were dispatched to poor, nonwhite communities to arrest street -level dope slingers—despite the fact that drug use declined during the 1980s and nonwhites were nnt using dru&S at drastically higher rates than whites. Thousands of young nonwhites from poor communities were arrest- ed for drug-related offenses. Law enforcement officers targeted ghetto t•æighborhaods a of including because their drug often took place in public areas—street corners, parks—and were easier to spot than drug transactions in mare affluent neighborhoods, since these often occurred in private settings. Nonwhite neighborhoods also were targeted because of America's established tradition of linking nonwhites with drug use. As Michael Tonry writes in Malign Neglect, "Through twentieth in periods of high intolerance of drug use, minority group hue been associated with deviant drug use. Early in this century, even though mainstream women were the model category of opiate users, Chinese opium smokers and opium dens were among the images invoked by opponents of drug use.... In the 1920s, it was blacks and cocaine. In the 1930s, images of Mexicans and marijuana Were in the movements that culminated in the Marijuana Tax Art of and the many states prohibiting marijuana use. In the antidrug hysteria of the 1980s, crack cocaine, the emblematic drug of the latest 'war,' is associated in public imagery with disadvantaged minority residents of the inner cities."" Repressing the Civil Rights Movement Why did politicians focus on crime as the main problem plaguing America when mast Americans did not view it as a major problem? And why did the focus on crime resonate witli so many Americans once it was introduced? The answer to both Of these questions lies in with the white backlash against the Civil Rights The Rise Cf the American Prison Machine generated alternative text: 214 Movement. It is no coincidence that the prison boom began shortly after the main thrust of the Civil Rights Movement came to an end. tn fact, the former fact helps explain the latter. Often, when politicians mentioned "violence in the streets." they were nut speaking Of mugging and assault (which had increased but were using coded language to decry civil disobedience tactics of civil rights activists. Since the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, politicians criticized protesters as "criminals," "huodlums," and "troublemakers."" In a real sense, such labels were accurate, for activists often got their point across by breaking laws, such as by refus- ing to follow segregation regulations. By dismantling racist SYStet1tS that had Struc— tured American society for years, the Civil Rights made many whites uneasy. This unease intensified as legalized racial segregation fell, causing whites to cross paths more frequently with nonwhites, and peaked during the racial uprisings of the late 1960s. Unlike many African Americans. most white Americans did nat understand the uprisings as political arts against demoralizing ghetto conditions, but as criminal acts of vandalism and violence_» As a result, when politicians began speaking against crime in the streets, many whites knew prnrisely to what they were referring and endorsed platforms promising to "punish criminals" and "restore order to our troubled society." Many racial uprisings began as a to police brutality and unfair treat— and the police responded in kind. Expenditures for "riot Control" tic surveillance programs expanded onre the uprisings got underway. Studies have shown that during the 1970s, police funding increased dramatically in cities with large black populations and in those that had hosted major uprisings and strongly supported the Civil Rights Movement." To suppress the uprisings, law enforcement officers began to treat poor, black communities as "danger subjecting those neighborhnc«ls to a high level of surveillance, However, after the riots were quelled, police presence did not die down, but remained steady and even increased. Instead of arresting rioters. police officers began arresting potential rioters: young black men." Perhaps the primary, if unsvwken. intent uf law and order policies was to repress the Civil Rights Movement, especially rioters. On these had their desired effect, As for their more overt motives—to decrease crime and the distribution of drugs—law and order policies had a more marginal effect.o The war on crime and on drugs. it seems. defeated something—but not criminal activity or drug trafficking. FEAR Although crime rates fell during the 1990s. six out of ten Americans believed they Were rising. And although drug use dropped among high Students during that decade, most listed drugs the greatest danger threateming the country's youth. And with a rampant fear of crime came a call for harsher pen- alties, Acaorcling to a national survey, 85 percent of Americans feel that current sentencing guidelines do not deal "harshly enough with criminals," and 70 percent feel that the country should spend more money on the crime problem." In 1998, four in ten Americans reported they would be afniid to walk by themselves within Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: A man backs away as law enforcement officials close in on him during protests mer the death ot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. a mile radius of their home. In 2010, that rate was still four in ten, even though violent crime had fallen steadily in the intervening years." This section explores some of the and eonsequences of America's fear of erime, analyzing how these fears are informed by race and, by marshaling reeent social-scientific evi- dence, holding these fears up to the light of rational assessment. Criminalizing Darkness Numerous Studies have that fear Of Crime is to racial identity, one's racial attitudes, and the racial makeup of one's neighborhood. After surveying undergraduate students at two Midwestern universities, one crim- inologist concluded tlvmt, compared to their nonwhite counterparts, white students were more likely to list crime among the nation's most serious problems and to fear being victimized by a And time and again, Studies have produced convincing evidence of a robust link between the proportion of blacks and Hispanics in a neigh- borhocd and fear of crime." In fact, social scientists I-awe found that the racial com- pc*ition of a neighborhood—as well as the perceived composition of a neighborhood (that is, how many nonwhites people think live nearby, regardless of how many actu- ally powerful predictors Of fear Of crime than actual crime rates. After comparing neighborhoods with identical crime rates, sociologists Lincoln Quillian and Devah Pager concluded that people who live in areas with a higher proportion of young black men think their neighborhood is plagued with more crime than those who live in majority-white areas." Another study demonstrat- ed that Whites living in a multicultural section Of the Country Hispzmies liv- ing in a predominantly white section are more likely to fear being by a fear Machine generated alternative text: crime when they think blacks and Hispanics live This study reminds us that a racialized fear of crime does not affect whites alone. Members belonging to racial groups feared by the larger white society can adopt the attitudes of their host society and come to fear members of their own group. Besides America's racial his100', what explains these fears? The media is a pop- ular answer—and for good reason. When asked why they felt America had crime problem, over 75 percent of survey respondents referred to stories they had seen in the media. 1990 and 1908, America's murder rate fell by 20 percent, but during this time. the number of stories about murder airing on network newscasts increased by 600 And although young black are far likely to be victims of murder than members of other groups are, the media focused a dispro- portionate amount of attention on white and female victims." Although the media certainly bear some responsibility for promoting a fear of blacks and Hispanics. the media also have played a large role in debunking such fears. What is the media are in the business Of spreading all kinds Of fears (the obesity epidemic, deadly bacteria strains, poisoned Halloween candy), but only a tundful stick.•9 Why are some fears fleeting while others are stuhbornly durable? Mary Douglas, the British anthropologist, points out that all societies have at their disposal a vast array of threats on which to focus, and in most cases, the threats to Which a society directs its attention do not necessarily carry the highest degree of objective danger. (AftCT all, Americans their hzmds over avizm which has killed a total of zero Americans, hut worry little about the common flu, which kills an average of 36,000 Americans each year—so little, in fact, that many forget to get their annual vaccination.)" Certain threats are overlooked. while others re- ceive a great deal of attention. either because they offend the fundamental values of society because they facilitate the stigmatizatimt and of marginalized grnupsy The fear of being victimized by nonwhite men fulfills broth those requirements. The stigmatizing of Hispanics and. especially, of blacks as criminals is deeply en- trenched in America's collective consciousness. so much so that Americans' fear of crime has more to do with blackness than with crime itself. Survey data that Americans, whites and nonwhites alike, believe blacks tn be more prone to via- lence than nonblacks,• Because Americans so often comprehend crime through black- ness. and blackness through crime, blackness, as conceived by nonblack America. is in a Sense itself a erillte—not in the metaphorical sense but in the Very literal Sense of that "offends strang and definite states of the to borrow Émile Durkheim's definition." Richard Wright, the great American novelist, understood this. Of America's black men, the novelist wrote, "Excluded from, and un- assimilated in our society . every sunrise and sunset makes him guilty of subversive actions. Every movement Of his body protest. Every glance Of the eye is a threat. His very existence is crime against the Might this help explain why many whites, especially those who harbor anti- black and anti-Hispanic prejudices, are avid supporters of law am-I order policies? Compared to their nonwhite peers, white undergraduates are more likely to support harsher punishments for criminals. According to one study, only half of white stu- dents felt that rehabilitation Should be a main goal Of the criminal justice System, Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: but tw&thirds of nonwhite students felt this way, The same study reported that 50 percent of white students support the death penalty, whereas only 29 percent of their nonwhite peers do." And several studies have concluded that, as whites' interpersonal racism against blacks and Hispanics grows. so too does their support Of punitive policies. Holding Constant Other ItteaSureS, whites' prejudice has been linked to their support of the death penalty, excessive force used by police officers, longer prison sentences, warrantless searches of young men of color, and spending tax dollars to fight crime.'" DO Immigrants Increase Crime? On the morning of April 16, 2007, students at Virginia Tech awoke to the sound of gunfire. Seung-Hui Cho, a twenty-three-year-old English major armed with a .22-caIiber semiautomatic handgun and a "-millimeter Clock, marched onto cam- pus and began a shooting rampage. When it was over, thirty-three people lay dead, as did Cho, having committed suicide as the police approached. SO far, this massacre is the deadliest school shooting in American history. G Almost six yews later to the day, on April 15, 2013, homemade bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injur- ing over 260 others. Chechen immigrants, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Were identified as the bombing Suspects. While the the brothers allegedly killed one police officer injured in a Shootout that left Tamerlzm dead. Dzhokhar, twenty years old, would be found and arrested the next day- Mast school shootings in the United States are carried out by young white men, as are many acts of domestic terrorism (e.g.. the Oklahoma City Bombing and lynchings by the KKK). But in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting and the Maratmt Some Americans attempted to make Sense of these seemingly senseless events by focusing not only on Cho's or the Tsarnaev brothers' access to firearms and explosives or their mental state but also on their immigrant status. Some conservative politicians reacted to the Boston Marathon bombings by calling for a freeze on immigration reform.'" And after the Virginia Tech mas- sacre, observers noted that Cho had emigrated from South Korea at the age of eight and asked, "Would the Virginia Tech killings have occurred if America's immigration laws were stricter?" Patrick Buchamn, a conservative spokesperson, drew a direct twnnectiun between the Virginia Tech shooting and immigration: "Cho Was among the 864,000 Koreans here as a result Of the Immigration Act Of 1965, which threw the nation's open ta the greatest invasion in history, an invasion opposed by a majority of our people, Thirty-six million, almost all from countries whose peoples have never fully assimilated in any Western country, now live in our midst. Chu was one of them.... What happened in Blacksburg [Virginia] cannot be divorced from what's been happening to America since the immigration act brought tens of millions of StrimgerS to these Shores, as the Old bends of national community began to disintegrate and dissolve in the social revolutions of the 1960s. 'In our diversity is our strength!' So we are endlessly lectured. But are we really a better, safer, freer, happier, more united and caring country than before, against our will, we became what Theodore Roosevelt called 'a polyglot boarding house for the fear Machine generated alternative text: Although Buchanan's views are extreme, they resonate with a question that Americans have been asking for over a century: Do immigrants make the country less safe? Many seem to think so. According tu a recent poll, 73 percent uf Americans believe that immigrants are "somewhat" or ftjery likelV to increase crime. 6" President George W. gush, considered liberal issues Of immigration by his peers, declared in a 2006 speech that illegal immigration "strains state and local budgets and brings crime to our Just as they helped to create a "crime problem," politicians recently have fash- ioned an "immigration problem," intensifying anti-immigrant sentiment that dis- proportionately targets those front Latin American, Asian. and Middle Eastern countries. Driven by the "tough on crime" logic applied to the criminal justice sys - tem, U.S. immigration policies have grown more punitive in recent years. Social rights and benefits have been withdrawn from undocumented immigrants, and immigration authorities have relied mare heavily on the use of detention, just as juridical authorities increased their dependence incarceration. Immigration raids, detentions, and deportations increased sixfold between 2000 and 2010.62 president Obama has deported more undocumented immigrants than any other president. Over 2 million people have been deported under this administration—more than all deportations prior to Some of the most extreme immigrant raids have taken place in southwestern cities. 2008, for example, Maricopa County sheriffs, along with volunteer of the Sheriffs' high-profile immigrant raids in Phoenix and its neighboring townships, arresting dozens of people at their homes and workplaces. One raid began at 2 A.M., when strike force members, armed with semiautomatic weapons and police cloys, stormed local businesses and gov- buildings, including the public library and the City Hall of Mesa, Arizona, looking fCH as janitors.N Punishments for violating immigration law have grown more severe, The 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act broadened the list of criminal acts that warranted deportation for noncitizens: the 1996 Welfare Reform Act denied even legal immigrants many public benefits; and the 2001 PATRIOT Act. discussed in detail in the ensuing section, denied noncitizens many basic civil rights. Today, those who reenter the United States after being deported are subject tn years' imprisonment, those who reenter after being deported for breaking the law are subject to ten years in prison, and those who have been convicted of an aggravated tetuny who reenter after being deported can be imprisoned for twenty years." Many of these shifts have been driven by the fear that immigrants, docu• mented and undocumented, increase AmeriG's crime Gate. However, social- scientific research has arrived at the opposite conclusion, Ending that immigrants make America safer. After searching through homicide records in cities with large immigrant popu- lations, criminologist Ramiro Martinez found that border Cities, as El Paso Diego, Some of the Safest in the CO'antry. Despite their high levels of poverty, many immigrant communities in large cities—Haitian neighbor- hoods in Miami, Mexican barrios in Houston—have strikingly low crime rates." Other studies have found that cities that experienced the largest increases in immigra- tion between 1990 and 2000 experienced the largest decreases in violent crime during that time and that urban neighborhoods with a proportion Of immigrants had lower crime rates after controlling for Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: FIGURE 6.4 IMMIGRATION RATES AND HOMICIDE TRENDS U.S Totals 3.Year Averages As immigration rates soared during the IggDs. crime rates plummeted. It is true that violence in Mexico has increased in recent years. Gangs and violent crime plague some border communities. But the problem uf powerful drug and escalating violence in Mexico is distinct from the question of the relationship between crime and immigration in the United States. Although violence sometimes spills over the border, much of it remains in Mexico. The majority uf immigrants to the United States are not working fur drug cartels, but are striking out in search uf new opportunities for themselves and their children. In fact, rcccnt studies concluded that youth or Mexican descent far less violent crime than do white or black youth, and analysts have attributed this gap to immigrants from Mexico. One study found that first-generation immigrants (that is, immigrants who were born in another country and who came to the United States) were percent less likely to participate in a violent Crime than were Americans born in the United States to parents who are U.S. citizens). Comparing immigrants to whites and blacks of similar class backgrounds, researchers also found that immigrants are less likely to participate in many different kinds of criminal behavior, from gang fights and selling drugs to arson and mugging. In fact. those who live in immigrant neighborhoods, regardless Of racial identity or immigrant status, are less likely 10 commit crimes than those who do fear Machine generated alternative text: Smugglers frequently use cars bring illegal immigrants into the US. because of increased efforts to stop illegal crossings foal, Noting these trends, some social scientists have argued that a sizable proportion of the crime drop that occurred in the 1990s can be attributed to the swelling immigrant population. As immigration rates soared during the 1990s. Crime rates Violent Crime fell by percent _ As sociologist Robert Sampson has observed, "Consid- er that immigration rose sharply in the 1990s, especially from Mexico and especially to immigrant enclaves in large cities. Overall. the foreign-born population increased by in 10 years, tu million people in 2000.. Immigration grew most significantly in the middle of the 90s and hit its peak at the end of the decade, when the national homicide rate plunged to levels not seen since the 1960s. Immigrant flows have receded since 2001, while the national homicide rate leveled Off and seems NOW to be creeping up. _ _ _ perhaps the lesson is that if we want to continue to crack down on crime, closing the nation's doors is not the answer." 0" To explain why immigrants commit so little crime, sociol - ogists have pointed to their high rates Of marriage and the presence of professionals in neighborhoods, both factors negatively associated with crime- They also have observed that immigrant neighborhoods often operate under a code of informal social control, which encourages neighbors to watch out for one another and to be mindful of criminal activity.w [n other words. members of immigrant neighborhoods have accepted as part of their civic duty the shared task of keeping their sideualks safe. By casting "eyes the street," participate in what Jane Jacobs believed ta be the best strategy for upholding safety in an urban en- vironment. "The first thing to understand," wrote Jacobs, "is that the public peace—the sidewalk and street peace—of cities is not kept pnmarily by the police. necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate. almost unconscious, netqwrk of volun- controls and the people enforced by the themselves". Since so much evidence points to the conclusion that immigrants, documented and undocumented. make America safer, one must wonder why so many Americans fear an invasion" and Why politicians continue to draft laws designed to make immigrants' lives harder. Like blackness, foreignness (and ethnic markers connected to foreignness, sach as speaking Spanish) has become intertwined with our notions of criminality, so much so that immigration itself is conceived as a crim- inal act. as something that offends the American consciousness. It is small wonder. that just and anti-I lispanic• prejudices are Strongly associated With support of punitive policies, racism directed at nonwhites, and at Mexicans in particular, is strongly associated with anti-immigration policies-a The Arabization of Terrorism America. like many countries. has been the victim of numerous terrorist attacks. In 1993, terrorists attacked the Warld Trade Center, killing 6 people and wounding Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: 1,000 mare; in 1995, terrorists bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people; and in 1998, the U.S. embassies in and Tanzania were firebombed, leaving 4,000 injured and over 200 dead. But for many Americans, the threat of ter- rurism became much more imminent and terrifying after the attacks on September 2001, which Sent twin Of the World Trade Center crashing to the ground in a cloud of grey ash and smoke, Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives, including 343 firefighters and 23 police officers-n Anyone who has watched the footage of the September 11 attacks knows that terrorism is something to fear. The terrorists' prime objective, after all. is to draw blood. And immediately after the events, fear coursed quickly through the American body Arab Americans suffered from a double helping of fear, because not only did they join all Americans in worrying about repeat attacks; they also dread- repression from the American government as well as assaults from their fellow non-Arab citizens. Their fears were justified. In the weeks following the attacks. men and Women Of Arab descent—as well those perceived to be Arabs (Indian American Hindu Sikhs, for victims of workplace discrimination, racist threats, assaults, and even murder. In 2001, the FBI reported that crimes directed at Muslims increased seventeenfold, while Arab groups registered over 2,000 events where Americans lashed out at "Arab-looking" people after September The American-Arab Antidiscrimination reported that in the nine weeks after September attacks directed at Arab Amerißlns took place. Of those events, 66 percent involved physiGTI or psychological attacks, 27 percent consisted of acts of arson or vandalism, 22 m•rrent included hate mail and bomb threats. 16 percent were beatings, and percent entailed hate-motivated murder. (Many of the 700 total attacks included more than one of these which is why the percentages add up to than 100.) There was, for instance, Mark Stoman uf Dallas, who walked intu a line of convenience stores and shot clerks from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, There was James Herrick of Salt Lake City. who set ablaze a Pakistani restaurant. There was Patrick Cunningham Of Seattle, Who opened fire Ott people worshipping in a In the weeks following September 11, America was not safe for its Arab citizens. Despite these violent outbursts, many Americans, according tu opinion poll data, Viewed Arab Americans with a fair degree of tolerance and understanding, knowledging that an entire group of people could not be blamed for the actions of a few wrapped in lcmking skin who lived un the opposite end uf the earth. And many continue actively to deny anti-Arab prejudice: 51 have "favorable" views af Muslim and as many as 80 percent believe that "AraWAmericans, Muslims, and immigrants from the Middle East are being singled out unfairly by people in this countryæ How- ever. in the months and years following September mm -Arab racism Arab In a very real sense. Arab Americans are invisible in discussions "war terrorism," Machine generated alternative text: Americans grew, and today, the average American is more likely to harbor anti-Arab prejudices than in 2001. According to recent polls, percent of Americans harbor "unfavorable" views uf Muslim Americans; percent beheve that Arab Americans are "mure to terrorists": and 44 pervent confess to having less trust in Arab Americans after September These views break sharply along political lines. to a 2012 poll, 48 percent of Republicans harbor "unfavorable" views toward Arab Americans, compared to 20 percent of Democrats.n For a good number of Americans, the face of a "terrorist" is the face of an Arab, and that anti-Arab prejudice has risen since the September n attacks. Why did anti-Arab prejudice increase. rather thaa decrease, iti the following the attacks? The answer lies in the ways Arabs have been depicted in the political field as well as in the press. The categories of Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern have been rendered synonymous, a maneuver that overlooks the fact that most Muslims around the world are neither Arab nor Middle Eastern (but reside in Southeast Asia) and that the historical and differences between Middle Easterners who do not consider themselves Arab (such as Turks or Persians) and Middle lhsterners who do (such as Scholars have ronrluded that Arabs often are portrayed in films as bestial, violent villains. One study analyzed more than 900 films and found that. with few exceptions, Arabs were represented as "Public Enemy brutal. heartless, uncivilized religious fanatics and as money-mad Cultural 'others' on civilized Westenwrs, especially Christians and Jews.'%o And politicians, for their part, often saddle Arabs with negative qualities-O As a result, since September 11 a bipolar discursive frame has calcified, one that pits America against "the Arab world." Positive qualities are attached to the American Side Of the frame, White negative characteristics are assigned to the Arab side. In fact, in this way of thinking, the positive qualities set against (and gain their essena from) their mirror images, such that if the Arab world is vio- lent, America is peaceful; if the Arab world is irrational, America is rational; if"they" are freedom-hating. "we" are freedom-loving." Where, then, do Arab Americans fall in this schema? Are they • 'we" or "they"? In a Very real sense, Arab Americans are invisible in discussions of the "war on terrorism One hears of Americans and much of Arabs, but very little attention has been devoted to the nation's million Arab American Because of this —and because racial identities are so eriul that thev often trump other identities (such as those based on nationality)— Arab Americans Often are stripped Of their and associated With the Arab/terrorist side of the bipolar discursive frame." One final thought deserves mention. Today, Americans are told that the events of September 11 ajnstitute the first time in history that a terrorist attack of that magnitude was Visited upon American soil. Having surveyed the history cf racial domination in America, We better. 's indigenous peoples Were brought mercilessly under the heel of Western forces. The Mexican Repatriation Programs could accurately be classified as organized kidnapping. Black Ameria has been plagued by a most brutal and bloody terrorism, which has included the Middle Passage, slavery, and lynch mobs. The Ku Klux Klan resembles a terrorist orga- nization much as al-Qaeda does. Post-September America is set apart not by the prescncc Of terrorism but by the Victims Of it. AS applied to times, the Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: term "age of terror" is historically inaccurate, for terrorism in America is anything but a modern development." Perhaps the African American comedian Earthquake put it best when he remarked, "Many people wonder why I'm nut tripping after the terrorist attacks in New York and D.C. I'm a niggah—l've been dealing with terrorists all my CRIME Having reviewed racialized fear of crime in America, we turn now to examining crime itself. We begin by discussing drug trafficking and Street gangs. We then examine offenses often overlooked in public discussions of crime: white-collar crimes and crimes of corporations, Finally, we turn our attention tu more violent crimes, includ- ing violence against women and homicide. Along the way, we offer explanations for crime by employing. as always, sociological analysis grounded in current research. Drug Trafficking The comhined forms of enterprise classified as criminal under current law he said to constitute the underground economy, By some estimates, each year four rwat of five Americans buy something through the underground economy." Without a doubt, the largest and highest-yielding industry Within the economy is the drug It is estimated that illegal drugs account for roughly S percent of worldwide trade, grossing between $300 billion and $400 billion year, more than the combined global revenues of textiles, clothing, iron, and steel," According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. in 2012 about 24 million Americans over the age of twelve used drugs each Of those, 62.8 percent and percent took An additimal million people used cocaine, million took hallucinogens, and roughly 670,000 shot heroin into their veins. American Indians had the highest rates of drug use, with 12.7 percent using drugs at least once a month. Blacks and whites had the second-highest rate percent and 9.2 percent). followed by Hispanics (8.3 percent) and Asian (3-7 Many Americans associate drug trafficking with urban street gangs, the mem- bers of which are vital players in the underground economy, Because many gangs are based in racially segregated urban neighborhoods. they mobilize race as a prin- eiple for forming group boundaries and identities. Across America, find white gangs (including skinheads and biker gangs), black gangs (including those that gained wide recognition in the 1980s, such as Los Angeles's Bloods and Crips), Latino gangs (including Chicago's Latin Kings), Asian gangs (including the Chinese Mafia), and others. Modern cities are populated with equal numbers Uf black and White gangs. "u Because immigrant youth Often rely gangs as through which to Out an identity, we alga find gangs in including Salvadoran enclaves in San Fernando, Vietnamese communities in South- ern California, the Kurdish section of Nashville, and the Italian and Irish sections of New York City.00 There are a number Of reasons Why people join gangs. Far some, like the Sons and daughters Of the gang is an institution in which they ground their Machine generated alternative text: 224 identity. For others, the gang offers economic opportunity, namely, through the drug trade. Most gangs, however, avoid the drug trade, as well as other entrepreneur- ial opportunities within the underground economy. For the must part, gang-driven drug trafficking operations are unorganized. small- scale ventures that rarely expatul beyond the Of a neighborhood."' also dn pay well _ After combing the books of Chicago drug gang, pair of scholars discovered that the average low-level dope slinger worked approximately twenty hours a week for $200 a week, a pay rate below the federal minimum wage.n Still, for impoverished ghetto residents, the underground economy offers a Viable Way to earn a living, however meager, Where few opportunities exist. Just as down-and-out Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants of the early twentieth cen- tury sold drugs and bootlegged alcohol to get by, some of today's most marginal- ized citizens earn a burk the same wav The underground drug economy provides economic livelihood in the desolate ghetto, an area abandoned by steady jobs and disowned by State services, and enables its employees to avoid the tedious (and often humiliating) work found in the licit low-wage service The American ghetto has created a form of economic —of which selling drugs and gang activity are only a small part. "The demands of the ghetto require an economy utterly different from what most of America can imag- ine." writes sociologist St_ldhir Venkatesh in Of the "The rent his back room to a prostitute; the works out of an alley; the gets donations from a gang leader; and everyone has a hand in keeping the streets toler- able and keeping the goods and services flowing, , With few well-paying full-time jabs available in the neighborhocni and with access only to the most menial jobs elsewhere in the city, [the ghetto] resident may turn to hustling as a temporary to keep food the table, Clothes a Child'S back, rent paid White-Collar Crime Of course. illegal entrepreneurship is nut specific tu the ghetto. Technological crimes, such as computer hacking, fraud, identity theft. environmental law viola- lions, evasion, bribery, counterfeiting, laundering, and embezzling are found in affluent communities and wealthy corporations. Endwin Sutherland coined the term "white-collar crime" to refer to these illegal acts, "White collar crime," wrote Sutherland, is "crime committed by a person uf respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.... Persons of the upper socioeconomic class engage in much criminal behavior; this criminal behavior differs (rom the criminal behavior of the lower socioeconomic class principally in the administrative procedures which are used in dealing with the offenders,"" Sutherland advanced this definition to focus our attention on the upper echelons of the criminal world. illegal acts committed by privileged members Of society. Just as drug traf— ficking is nut specific to the inner City, Crime does not only in the suburbs; however, because many white-collar crimes require a certain degree of expertise and education, must are committed by middle-class citizens. Relative to thcvse who participate in street-level criminal behavior. white-collar criminals are three times more likely to have steady employment, five times more likely to awn a home, eight times more likely to have more than $10,000 in Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: White-collar crime has increased over the last thirty years. In 1970, crimes of fraud cost AmeriQns around $5 billion; in 1990, they cost them around $100 billion," It is estimated that the white-collar crime industry grosses between $300 billion and $660 billion each year. far outpacing revenue gleaned from America's street crime." Most people arrested fur white-collar crimes are white. In fact, Seem associate white-collar crime with whites and street-level crime with blacks and His- Imnics. In studies simulating derisions made by jurors, psychologists have found that people presented with different criminal scenarios are more likely to favor harsher sentences for whites convicted of embezzlement than blacks convicted of the same crime but mare likely tn prefer the Sentence for convicted Of than for whites convicted of the crime '00 In other wards, when our categories dividing crimes of privilege from crimes of poverty correspond to our racial categories separating racially privileged from racially dominated groups, we are more likely to punish crimes we understand to be "racially typical." Thinking about White -eollar brings to mind various acts perpetrated in corporate America that, although they inflict harm, remain perfectly legal or do not result in stiff penalties. Financial crimes, for example, were committed in the lead- up to the financial collapse of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed—and those crimes still have not been prosecuted and punished. Carporatians. meantime. have been allowed to toxic Waste in some communities and to emit toxic POI- lutantS that Can Cause Serious diseases. Drug Companies are allowed market pills whose side effects include stroke and loss of breath, but the possession of marijuana can fetch a prison term. Our energies expended on worrying about the murderer lurking in the night might be better directed at evaluating aur workplace condi- tiOES, since Americans are three times likely to die Of occupational hazards than Of homicide. Indeed, every hour, two Americans will be killed by murder- er, whereas three will be slain by their job. Why, we might ask. is the corporate supervisor who. by ignor- ing safety precautions in the name of profit. directly is responsible for a mine caving in and killing ten men merely fined or fired, hut the crazed man who guns down ten people in a shopping mall receives the death penalty? Both actions, after all, resulted In the death of ten innocent people. Is corporate oversight that re- sults in deadly consequences that different from first-degree homicide? No cur poration intentionally desires to kill its workers, of course, but organizations that bypass safety regulations know full well they are playing with people's lives. Accordingly. is not the cor- poraticm's Wager pitting profit against people akin to the murderer'S intent of inflicting We rommit these questions to you, As you grap- ple with them, we encourage yau to call into question criminalization processes and their relation to systems Of exploitation and racial domination. There Family and friends of the 29 men killed in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion view the granite monument in Whitesville. West Virginia. Machine generated alternative text: is great pmver in the act of defining the crime, of labeling certain things criminal while overlooking others that are just as harmful. In recent years, social thinkers have dtu-umented the ascendancy of neoliberalism, a form uf social organization in which the dynamics of the market are given priority over other In a society governed by all Of dehumanizing, harmful, deadly gets Can masquerade us legitimate or normal, hiding behind phrases such as "It's not personal; it's just business" or "the bottom line." Not everything tl-h•t harms is criminalized. Violence against Women In recent years. Americans Often have pointed out abuses against Women in Other countries (especially those in the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia), thereby giving the impression that women in the United States rarely are victimized by violence. Violence against women, howuer, is one of our nation's most pervasive crimes. Domestic abuse is among America's most comman forms of violence. More than 6 million Women abused by their partners each year, and in Some Studies as many as one in four women report being recently beaten. Every day, three women are killed by their hustmlds or boyfriends.•o» American women continue to be terrorized by rape. Over 600 women are raped each day. It is estimated that one in five women will be raped sometime in her life. and We have reason to believe that this ratio is underestimated, since as many as 60 percent of sexual assaults Me not reported the half of all rape victims are assaulted before their eighteenth birthday.'0• College women especially are at risk, with 25 percent of all rapes taking place on college campuses. Far from being perpetrated by strangers. most rapes are committed by persons whom the victims know—their friends. boyfriends. husbands, or relatives.'m Although women throughout society suffer from violent attacks—and although researchers have found that, after accounting for income, race is not significantly correlated with rates of domestic abuse—poor women, immigrants, and women of color are victimized at disproportionately high Native American vmmen are abused at twice the rate uf black and white women. And between 40 percent and 60 percent of Asian women are beaten at some during their lives. to black women, white women are nearly twice as likely to be killed by an intimate partner; however, the leading cause of death for black women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four is partner homicide.'" A woman's risk Of abuse increases the isolated She is from the wider society, and immigrant are perhaps the mast isolated in America. Often living thousands of miles away from their families, unfamiliar with American laws and customs, coping with limited English proficiency, and sometimes connected to their communities only through their husbands. abused immigrant women have few places to turn for help. (Indeed, some cultural traditions. like purdah—the Strict Segregation Of the Sexes that is in Some immigrant and Muslim American communities and that, in some cases, inhibits women from leaving the house— further isolates immigrant women.) Many cannot seek help from their in-laws, who tend to side with the husband or, worse, to perpetrate violence themselves. Sociol- ogist Margaret Abraham has observed that. in South Asian immigrant communi- ties, Older are delegated the Of young Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: As such, wives are sometimes abused not only by their husbands but also by their mothers-in-law and other relatives.'é If they are undocumented immigrants, women may refuse to report their abuse tu the authorities. because they fear that doing would lead to their deportation. American immigration law helps trap in abusive relationships women who come to the United States to marry. To guard against fraudulent marriages, where an immigrant marries a U.S. citizen or permanent resident only to obtain citizenship, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) dues nut alluw immigrants even to apply for permanent residency until they have been married for a minimum of years. Although this stipulation is waived for Women Who Can prove their husbands are abusing them, many immigrant do not access to the kind of evidence required hy the INS, such as police affidavits or reports from social And some domestic violence shelters, for their part, make matters worse by turning away abused women who cannot speak English. The fact that many shelters are located in White neighborhoods makes it that much harder for immigrant many of whom do not have driver's licenses (let alone a car), to seek refuge there.no Like immigrant women, many physinlly and sexually abused American women of calor do not have equal access to protection or justice. As we learned earlier in this chapter, the widespread fear of the black male rapist with the white female victim has resulted in black being looked on as Violent threats. However, that same trope al so has facilitated the Systematic black female rape victims _ Law who have sifted through sentencing records have found that men rape black women are punished less severely than those who victimize Latina and white women. One study that evaluated sentencing decisions for rape eases found that black men convicted of raping white women received the harshest sentences, while black men convicted of raping black the lightest. According to study, while nonwhite and white alike, found guilty of raping Latina women served an average term of five years, and men convicted af raping white women served an average of ten years, men convicted of raping black women served an average sentence of only two years.nz In these sentencing discrepancies. We observe the American racial hierarchy and the systematic devaluation of l*tina and especially black victims. We notice this, too, in the heightened media coverage white victims of rape re- ceive, especially if their assailant is black, as compared to the relatively skimpy coverage uf black victims. We might ask. fur example. why the brutal beating and rape of a white female jogger in New York City's Central Park allegedly by a group af young black was national news, but the equally brutal gang rape of young black woman who, in the same week, was assaulted on top of a four-story building before being thrown off the roof received little attention.m Moreover, even when cataloguing black-on-black violence. the meniia tend to highlight only the vio- Visited black males and hence again tn the abuses Of This blindness despite the fact that in a Signifi- cant proportion of cases, the victims of young men convicted of homicide actually happen to be men who had beaten the assailants' mothers."4 Not only are black women victims devalued In the courts and ignored by the media: they often are silenced by other members of the black community. Because women are abused more Often than not by those they most black women victimized by 227 Machine generated alternative text: black men, just as most white women are victimized white men, and Asian women by Asian men. Accordingly, black women often are fared with a diffrult decision after being raped or beaten: Should I speak out against my attacker and risk reinforcing the stereotype of violent black men. risk him being carted off by the police, or should I remain Silent and risk being abused again, while Itty attacker goes all of their lives in America," writes Nellie McKay, "black women have felt between the loyalties that bind them to race on the one hard and sex on the other. Choosing one or the other, of course, means taking sides against the self, yet they have almost alwavs chosen rm•e over the other: a sacrifice of their self-hood as women and of full humanity, in favor Of the Such atT the workings not only Of physical Violence but also of the Symbolic violence of which we spoke in Chapter In many cases, when a black man is charged with violating a black woman, mem- bers of the black community rally around the black man under the banner of "racial in the words of Katheryn Russell-grown, "black protectionism"— drowning out the voice Of the Victim With Shouts decrying racial biases in the criminal justice System." 0 VVhen boxer Mike Tyson accused of raping Desiree Washington, a young black woman, many prominent African Americans, eager to quash the "black male rapist" trope, rushed to Tyson's side. Althcnagh black men continue to be falsely accused of rape. black women are far more likely to be raped than black are ta Come false allegations. Why, then, did so few voice Sup- ftK Washington or, that, Speak out against the Systematic opprc»-ion of of color?' 5 Cornet West has argued that "the idea of black people closing ranks against hostile white Americans reinforces black male power exercised over black . in order to preserve the black social order under circumstances of quite literal attack and symbolic Homicide Although the United States' crime rate is not dramatically higher than that of other industrialized countries, its murder rate is. Between 16,000 and 17.000 Americans are murdered each year—that's around forty-five murders every Russia and Brazil higher murder rates, as do Mexico and Estonia, but when it comes to der, the United States heats out almost all other developed nations. In fact, when it comes to gun-related murder, the United States tops the list of developed countries. Switzerland and Turkey are tied for third on the list. But the United States has four times as gun-related homicides per capita as Switzerland and When we compare murder rates by the differences are unset• tling, Between and 2008, victimization rates for white adults (between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four) decreased steadily, By 2008, the victimization ratio per 100,000 people was 4-5 for whites. That rate was 27.8 per 100,000 for African American adults, whose Victimization rates decreased in the early 1980s, increased between 1985 and decreased until 2003, when they to rise again. m Comparisons among young people Lvges ten through twenty-four) reveal even starker differences, Today, roughly white male youth per 100,000 are murdered; the same is true of Asian American male youth. That ratio is per 100,000 for Hispanic male youth. and 18 per 100.000 for Native American male youth. The homicide rate for black male youth, towers over that Of all groups. Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: Almost 52 black male youth in 100,000 are murdered every year.mln other words, black male youth are over 17 times more likely to be murdered than white or Asian male youth; times more likely than Hispanic male youth; 2.8 times more likely Native American male youth, Murder is the leading cause of death among black male According to one study, "the murder rate for black men is double that of American soldiers in World War Il." 1" Why? Popular answers abound. Many people fear that violence in the media—on television, music, and video games—is directly linked to murder rates. They have good reason to be concerned, By the age of eighteen, the average American has viewed mer 40.000 mur- ders acted out the television sereen_ But She also has been to an equal number of kind and gen- emus acts, as sitcom and movie characters constantly are involved in good deeds. Given this, shall we argue that the media encourage acts of benevolence? There is not much evidence that media Violence causes actual Memorial mural to a dead triendon the Lower East Side of New York City. violence. Nor Can blood-soaked television video help explain racial dis- parities in murder rates (since there is no reason to believe that black youth watch more violent programming than nonblack youth) or, for that matter, the murh high- er homicide rate in the United States as compared with other countries, which air equally violent movies and television shows.'" Perha'" lies in the fact that Americans own roughly a quarter of a billion guns and have more guns stolen each year (around 300,000) than many other industrialized countries have gun owners.zn With the introduction of semiauto- matic and automatic weapons. as well as high-caliber bullets. guns have grown more deadly in recent years, and firearm dealers are found in every corner of the nation. In fact, America, nation of automobiles, has more licensed firearm dealers than gas stations-uv There is little doubt that America's homicide rate would be lower if its citizens were not so well armed. In seven out of ten homicides, guns are used as the murder weapon. and 70 percent of victims are killed by a single gunshot. Which Suggests that had the murderer been to a less lethal Weapon, many victims still be alive today. The proliferation of guns might help explain why America's murder rate is high by international standards, but because there is little reason to believe that guns are more in black neighborhoods, access to tirearms does little to explain racial disparities in murder rates.'" TO understand Why ynt_ith fall Victim to murder at such high rates, social scientists convincingly have that we must the brutal inequalities and overlapping hardships that define the African AmeriGn ghetto- The evidence points to a single, clear conclusion: violent crime thrives in neighborhoods wracked by com- pounding structural disadvantages. What matters is not so much individual-level disadvantage—we gain little by comparing ane poor individual with another. or nne individual from a broken home with Structural disadvantage Machine generated alternative text: at the neighborhood level.'m Structural disadvantage refers to the concentrated accumulation of overlapping and mutually reinforcing social problems in a single residential area. These problems include a disproportionate number of jobless adults, poor schools. and single-parent households. as well as high degrees of social isolation. racial and poverty. If the rate of murder is unparalleled within black communities, it is because so, too, is the level of structural disadvantage. Studies comparing black and Hispanic neighborhoods have shown that the latter are located closer to moue prosperous white neighborhoods. have better relations With law enforcement officials. have single-family households, and overall lower levels Of Structural disad— vantage Similarly, when researchers have compared black and white neighbor- hoods with equal levels uf structural disadvantage, they have found no significant difference in homicide rates. And because the discrepancies in homicide rates across race largely are explained by examining neighborhcwKI-IeveI differences— ecological dissimilarity, We might eall it—we Should hardly be surprised to learn that black youth who live outside majority•blark neighborhoods have the same rates of offending as white youth,' O "The combination of urban poverty and family disruption is so strong," write Robert Sampson and Lydia Bean. "that the 'worst' urban neighborhoods in which Whites reside are considerably better off than those Of the average Racial segregation exposes African-American youth t" neighborhoods with risk factors fenæer protective factors for violence than neighborhoods where youth from other groups live-me As a result, many poor whites who come from broken homes or who are unemployed (factors associated with violent crime) live in areas with steady levels of family stability and employment. The same is not true Of poor blacks living in urban areas. AS We have leMned, black pcmerty is not the same as white poverty. Crime-ridden streets have bred a spirit of fear and distrust in many black neigh- borhoods, a spirit that dissolves community relationships and modes of informal social control. Recall that informal social control can effectively attenuate violent crime by ensuring that little problems do not bail up into bigger ones and by encour- aging neighbors to for ane another. Although researchers have documented a high degree of social control in other poor neighborhocds, especially those of im- migrants, they have observed that poor black inner-city dwellers often are isolated from one another, primarily because of a widespread fear of victimization" TO adapt to the extreme Structural disadvantage found Within the ghetto, many young black teenagers develop cultural and attitudes that promote (and even normalize) violent crime. According to sociologist Elijah black youth living in poor inner-city neighborhoods operate under a "code of the street," which requires them to present themselves as aggressive. hard menaces who are not to be tri- fled With Who, at a second's notice, Will "act a fool ' ' and resort to Young people abiding by Such a code respect from their peers through acts Of and aggression. To the man who hits on a rival's girlfriend, throws the first punch, or pulls the trigger go "the props," "the juice." Disrespected, in the fullest sense of the term. by mainstream white society. poor black youth create their ways of allocat - ing respect and honor, but these ways serve to breed only violence and to reproduce the canditions Of their domination—again, violence _ That said, we Should Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: bear in mind that the code of the street is not endorsed solely by black youth. "The im- portant thing to note about the subculture that ensnares [young black men] is that it is not disconnected from the mainstream culture," writes sociologist Orlando Patterson. "To the contrary. it has powerful support from some of America's largest corporations. Hip-hop, basketball, and fashions are as American as Cherry pie. Young white Americans are very much inta these things, but selectively; they know when it is time to turn off Fifty Cent and get out the SAT prep book"'" The code of the street and the dissolution of informal social control both help explain why blacks, and young blacks especially, have such high rates of homicide, but both these factors must be understood, above all. as induced by the extreme structural disadvantage that makes the black ghetto distinct from other poor neigh - hot-hoods in America- Years of research have yielded the firm conclusion that social problems related to homicide are rooted in enduring systems of inequality: notably, economic marginality and racial segregation. For example. people who '*ere abused as Children are far more likely to a Violent crime than those Who Were but child abuse is prevalent in reeling from chronic poverty and endemic unemployment.u America—and blark America, in LMrticuIar—has a violent crime problem. And because the problem is environmental, nnt individual. in nature, so, too, must be the solution. A weed will spring up again and again unless it is pulled up by the roots. PUNISHMENT The last major section of this chapter takes up punishment. the nation's reactions to crime and its methods of Combating it. The ensuing discussions follow the pru- cess of punishment through the criminal justice beginning with policing strategies and with profiling and racial disparities in arrest rates and then moving into sentencing decisions, The section ends where the chapter began, namely, with prisons. exploring the high costs of mass incarceration and evaluating how effective prisons are when it comes tu decreasing crime. American police State Most people arrested in the United States are white, In 2010, million white people were arrested. compared to 3.6 million black people."" But Hispanics and African Americans are arrested at higher rates than Whites. According to statistics released by the FBI, 13 blacks in 100 are arrested annually, whereiLS only 5 whites in 100 are. In some states, the difference is much more exagger- ated. In Wisconsin, for example, where only 6 whites out of 100 are arrested each year. that ratio shoots up to 41 out of 100 for blacks.•u Racial disparities in arrest rates Vary Widely by criminal offense as well. Federal data released in 2013 Show that blacks nearly four times ag likely as whites to be for marijuana possession, even though blacks and whites use the drug at similar rates. What explains these wide discrepancies? Although some of the difference in arrest rates undoubtedly is attributed to the high rates of violent crime found in distressed nonwhite neighborhoods, a good proportion is caused by institutional racism operating at multiple levels Punishment Machine generated alternative text: of the criminal justice Ever since the racial uprisings of the 1960s, poor, nonwhite urban neighborhoods have been subjected to heightened sut= veillance and police repression. What held true for cities that experienced major uprisings around the middle of the twentieth century remains true today: metropolitan areas with sizable black populations have larger police forces and bigger crime-fighting budgets than cities with fewer black residents. More de • tailed analyses have demonstrated that on a national level, police forces grow in proportion to cities' level of racial residential segregation as well as to whites' fear of crime.'" Sociologist Alice Goffman conducted an in-depth ethnography, beginning in 2002. Of ghetto neighborhood in Philadelphia. Although this was not even among the poorest or most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the city, she reports that, nonetheless, "by 2002, police curfews had been estab- lished around the area for those under age eighteen, and police video cameras been placed on major streets. In the first eighteen months that I spent in the at least once a day I watched the police Stop pedestrians or peo- ple in cars, search them, run their names for warrants, ask them to come in for questioning, ur make an arrest. In that same eighteen-month period, I watched the police break down doors, search houses, and question, arrest, or chase people through houses fifty-two times. Nine times, police helicopters circled overhead and beamed searchlights onto Streets. I noted blocks taped Off and traf— fic redirected as police for in police language, 'secured a crime scene' —seventeen times. Fourteen times during my first eighteen months of near daily observation, I watched the police punch, choke, kick, stomp on, or beat young men with their nightsticks."'" Owing to the criminalization of dark Skin. blacks, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans are singled out criminals at a much higher rate than Asians and whites. One study found that whites are six times less likely than blacks and four times less likely than Hispanics to be stopped by the police. Consider New York City's controversial "stop and frisk" policy The policy allows police officers to stop pedestrimls and search them for weapons and drugs. Over half a million people are stopped and frisked by the police each year in New York City, and a dispro- portionate number are African American or Latino. In 2011. blacks and Latinos accounted for over so per- cent those stopped in of seventy-six of New York City's Lw,lice precincts. In thirty-three pre- cirxts, they accounted for more than go percent of stops—and this was not always because those pre- cincts were located in minority neighborlwods. Blacks and l*tinos make 8 of the in the 6th Precinct, but they accounted for 77 percent of police stops in 2011. Less than 2 percent of all stops resulted in a weapon being African Americans have grown so used to be- ing pulled Over by the police that many speak Of Policemen stop and frisk a groupot young men who were loitering in a drug selling in New Jersey, Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: being stopped on account of DWB: "driving while black.""" Perhaps more dis- concerting is the fact that once pulled over, black and Hispanic drivers are more likely than are their white counterparts to be searched, fined, and ar- rested. A New Jersey—lhßed study found that the majority of cars searched during traffic Stops belonged drivers (70 percent), a high percentage of drivers searched subsequently were arrested. Many police affi- cers, the study went on to say, intentionally targeted blacks and Latinos because, statistically, they have higher arrest rates.'" Thus, through a self-reinforcing cycle of disadvantage, racial profiling results in more nonwhites being arrested, and high levels Of nonwhite arrest rates are marshaled as evidence to justify racial profiling What some white people have a difficult time understanding is that for many people of color, the police are anything but guardians. As African American come- dian Dave Chappelle has observed. "The premise of reasonable doubt for a Black person and for a White person are separate things. For a White person, the idea that the police planted evidence is ridiculous: 'The police are here to serve and pro• tect us!' Yeah you, But to a Black person, it's not ridiculous, The FBI followed Martin Luther King around! Was he a threat to America? "ad Many nonwhite Americans, especially those brought up in poor communities, are taught from childhood that the police—tint to mention judges, lawyers. parole officers, Social work-CTS, prison guards, and all others in the legal field—bring vio- lence and harm, unfair treatment and repression. The police, after all, historically have served as the primary guardians Of white supremacy, called an to track dawn runaway slaves, to kill Native Americans who refused to stay cooped up in their reservations, to enforce Jim Crow segregation, and to unleash attack dogs on civil rights marchers. So, African Americans and Latinos desire the protection of the police just as much as anyone else. A recent survey asked respondents if they would call the police and file a report had their house been burglarized and if they believed their complaint would be taken seriously. The vast majority of both white and black respondents—go and percent. respectively—said they would call the police. However, only 35 of blacks expected to be taken seriously, compared with percent of According to the Bureau of Justice, police officers are more likely to use force on black and Hispanic citizens than on their white counterparts."" Police brutality has been inflicted and Hispanics—sometimes in lethal doses. 1992, Green, black man, beaten to death by white police officers after he resisted arrest. In 1997, Abner Louirna, an immigrant from Haiti, was arrested outside a Brooklyn nightclub and taken to a police station, where he was beaten, tortured. and sodomized with a broomstick by New York City police officers. In 1999. four plainclothes police officers fired forty-one Shots at Amadou DiallO, a twenty-three-year-old West African immigrant, who they believed to be lwlding gun. When they apprcuached Diallo's bullet-ridden, dead body, officers discovered he had been gripping his wallet. In 2003, Ousmane Zongo, another unarmed young West African immigrant, stumbled upon a CD pirating sting operation and was shot four times—twice in the back—by a New York City police officer. And in 2006, police Officers unleashed a barrage Of gunfire at Sean Bell, a Punishment Machine generated alternative text: twenty-three-year-old African American man, and two of his friends. The officers sprayed bullets into Bell's car and surrounding houses. Bell and his two friends, none uf whom were armed, were leaving a strip club (one the police had been in- vestigating), celebrating Bell's final hours uf bachelorhood. Sean Bell newer made it to the church His bride-turned-widow accepted Bell'S surname days after she laid him in the On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, a city of roughly 50,000 residents. Martin, a seventeen-year-old black high school student, was walking alone to his father's house, a dark hoodie and carrying a bag Of Skittles and a Of Arizona Tea he had just bought at a convenience Zimmerman, a twenty-eight-year- old volunteer neighborhood watch coordinator and light-skinned Hispanic (his father is white and his mother Peruvian), spotted Martin and began following him. "VVe&e had some break-ins in my neighborhood. and there's a real suspicious guy." Zimmerman told a 911 dispatcher. "This guy Innks like he is up to he is oa drugs or something." When the dispatcher learned that Zimmerman was trailing Martin, she replied, "We don't need you to do that,"What happened next is a matter of dispute. But here is what is known: Zimmerman ignored the dispatcher's request and continued ta follow Martin. At some point. Zimmerman got out of his car and approached the Martin, weighed pounds, Was Zimmerman, who weighed 185 pounds, wag a Semiautomatic pigtOl_ The two engaged in a violent encounter that ended with Zimmerman shooting Martin point-blank in the chest. Police soon arrived at the scene. Zimmerman was treated for head injuries, ques- tianed far five hours. and released. The police did nnt arrest Zimmerman. who was licensed to Carry a firearm, because they thought he had a right and kill Martin under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, an amped-up self-defense statute. Traditional self-defense law mandates the obligation to flee to safety, if able, before using deadly force against an attacker: this is known as the "duty to retreat." Stand Your Ground laws take this duty off the table. After massive and Widespread protest calling for Zimmerman's arrest, he Was finally charged with Although Zimmerman originally avoided arrest based on Stand Your GrourKI, his defense team did not rely on this statute during his trial, presumably because that would open up the possibility that Trayvon Martin had a right tn "stand his grout-RI" as well. Zimmerman's defense team argued he had a right to Shoot and kill Martin based on conventional self-defense protections. A jury lacking a single black juror acquitted Zimmerman of all charges Aa-ording to the law, when Zimmerman pleaded self-defense, the burden of proof rested on him. It was up to him to prove he shot Martin because he reasonably feared for his life. even though Martin Was almost thirty pounds lighter, a Child. But never took the This raises the question, why did people believe him? Why did the police and the jury think Zimmerman was right in seeing Martin as a dangerous threat? To acquit Zimmerman was, in effect. to convict Martin in death; to find him not innocent or victimized, but menacing and threatening ta such a degree that Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: killing him "as not against the law. How is it possible that someone who is wholly innocent is blamed for his awn death by law enforcers, judges, and a jury? Given the history of antiblack racism in the United States in general—and the history uf typing young black as criminals in particular—Zimmerman did not have to do much to convince others that a young black man was a threat. There are many details of the confrontation be- Martin and Zimmerman that We Will never fully know. Who threw the first punch? Was Martin getting the best of Zimmerman in a scuffle? But, as sociologist Lawrence Bobo obsewed, "The most ele- mental facts of this case will never change. A teenager Went out to buy Skittles and iced tea. At Some point, he confronted by a with a gun who killed him. There is no universe I understand where this can be declared a noncriminal act. Not in a sane, just and racism-free universe."'" FOR • 'VON AYVOf AYVOV NO p Protesters hold 'Jwstice Irayvon• signs during a march and rally fat Martin in Sanford. After such killings, it is tempting to shovel blame on the shoul- ders of the police officers—or, in Case, a neighborhood watch volunteer—calling them "racist" or "incompetent" and demanding their res- ignation. But focusing nnly on the officers permits us to avoid examin- ing the circumstances in all their complexity. Millions of people play a part in criminalizing darkness—from the elderly White Woman terrified Of her black neighbors to the young black teenager refers to himself as a "thug" —and this contributes to racial disparities in arrest rates and the killing of innocent men and boys of color. To blame "racist hot heads" is to blat out the many ways in which our complicity maintains a system that facilitates racially motivated brutality. Likewise, to paint our fingers solely at the victims. assuming they have done Something wrong," is to misidentify the wrongdoer, to crimi- nalize the innocent. Unjust Sentencing Scythian, an ancient Greek philosopher, likened laws to spider webs, as "they catch the weak and the but the strong and powerful break through Indeed, as it stands now, the Ameritmm legal system is biased by design, heavily tilted against the poor. Because nonwhites from disadvantaged communities are arrested et higher rates relative to whites. and because most of these accused people are flat broke. they are forced to rely on public defenders, tend to be OveTwurked, underpaid, and to afford potentially useful resources Such as DNA tests or expert witnesses, Public defenders have very poor records: whereas private attorneys win over hatf their cases, public defenders achieve a not guilty verdict only percent of the time: while private attorneys force the courts to dis- miss 48 percent of their eases, public defenders get only n percent of their eases Punishment Machine generated alternative text: dropped."' Some public defenders, burdened by their G#eloads, hastily push for plea deals, to which many defendants, seeing no better option, reluctantly agree. These facts remain even land especially) in capital cases, forcing one journalist to quip. "Some people go to traffic court with better prepared lawyers than many murder defendants The strong arm of the law often reserves its harshest blows for nonwhite offenders, Consider Georgia law, which allows courts to hand down a life sen- tence for repeat drug offenses, even if both offenses are minor ones (such as simple possession). Between 1990 and repeat offenders were sentenced to life under this law, but Of them Were White. Fifteen percent "f black re- peat offenders but only percent of white repeat offenders were put away for life. Compared to whites who commit similar crimes, nonwhite juvenile offenders are mure likely to be tried as adults, are more likely to receive tougher punishments, and are more likely to be viewed as "inherently criminal" by their parole officers. Blacks arrested far aggravated assault are jailed nearly a third longer than Whites arrested for the exact offense—a brought to the nation's atten• tion during the triat of six young black teenagers arrested for assaulting a white teenager in Jena, Inuisiana.M Outside the local high school in Jena (population 3,000), a tree once stood that Was known as the "White tree," so because according to convention, only white were allowed Sit under it. The day after a black Student defied the unspoken law in September 2007, white students hung three nooses on the tree, sending a threatening message tn black students, ane that harkened back to the days of the lynch mob. Tension between whites and blacks mounted. and, later in the school year, when a young white high school student taunt- ed black Students with racial epithets jeers, a group of black Students beat him unconscious, The victim of the assault was tak- en tn the hospital and released a few hours later. Six black male students were arrested and charged—not with assault but with atternpted murder. a sentence grievously disproportional the Thousands of people descended on the little Louisiana town to protest, marching an behalf of "the Jena 6," as they came to be known. As a result, charges were scaled back to aggravated second-degree battery and con- spiracy to aggravated second-degree battery. According to Louisiana law, what distinguishes "ag- gravated" battery fram simply battery is employment of a weapon. The prosecutor in the Jena 6 case argued that the tennis shoes worn by one of the black assail- ants Were dangerous weapons, and the jury accepted this After the case received national attention that sparked weeks of protests. charges against five of the Jena 6 were reduced to simply battery. The five Jena, Louisiana's High School's "white tree" was so named because only white students were allowed to sit un&l it. Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: defendants entered pleas of no contest, and each had to pay a $500 fine. The remaining defendant, M3ThaI Bell, who was sixteen at the time of his arrest, pled guilty to a reduced battery charge and served eighteen months in a juvenile facility. The white students who hung the nooses on the tree were punished with only a few days' suspension. ' Q The events Of Jena, represent but a small piece of a larger problem: justice, far from being blind, systematically disadvantages poor nonwhites, especially young black men, Nowhere is institutional racism within the criminal justice system more cruel than in death penalty sentencing. After taking into account dozens of other factors (including previous Offenses and the heinousness Of the crime), studies have concluded that of people accused of committing capital offenses, blacks are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites. Moreover, people accused of killing whites are four times more likely to receive the death sentence than those accused 01 killing blacks."' Since 1973, people have been found innocent and released from death row. Of those, 60 are are White, and 18 are Hispanic. This pattern mirrors that of all exonerations. Since people have been found innocent based on DNA evidenre, including the five marks orig- inally charged in the infamous Central Park jogger case, discussed earlier, Of the 193 are black. 94 are white, and 22 are Hispanic."' These figures suggest that America is imprisoning—and even killing—innocent men and Women, a dispro- portiomte of whom are black. Because racial domination systematically tilts the scales of justice against people of cnlnr, many blacks and Hispanics, especially those living in poor neighborhoods. have tittle faith in the criminal justice system.'0 It is clear how nonwhites' views of the criminal justice system are affected by racial inequality. But does racial domination affect whites' views? Ahsalutely. The very fact that many whites view the criminal justice system as unbiased and fair reflects their racial privilege, the privilege of knowing that in no time in American history has the system been used as a machine of oppression against people with their skin color: that people who look like them are nut racially profiled; that whiteness is nat riveted to images of Violence and criminality, s blwkness; that police officers are white and have good relationships with white communities; tymt, should they stand trial, their whiteness will not result in a harsher sentence; and that, in a jury trial, they can rest assured they will be judged by "a panel of their peers." The Many Costs Of Mass Incarceration We began this chapter by discussing the prison boom and the racial imbalance of America's prison population. and we explored the social mechanisms that help for this discrepancy. It is fitting, therefore, to this Chapter by examining the Of imprisonment, for Offenders ex-offenders, as well as for society as a whole, For over fifty years, researchers have wamed us about the negative psychologi- cal effects of incarcw•ration. The experience of confinement. of caging. ran exert very powerful effects on ane's mental state. This is especially true of the 25,000 inmates Punishment 237 Machine generated alternative text: According to recent statistics. America is imprisoning a dispropor- tionate number Of black men, imprisoned in supermaxill•.unl Living in a concrete seven-by-fourteen-foot cell, the inmate held in supermax spends twenty-three hours a day locked down. He or she eats all meals in solitude and. although may be dimmed, his her cell lights are never Shut off. Such mnditions often drive prisoners to suicide or insanity, Medical researchers have demonstrated that prisoners subjected to solitaøy confinement can become delirious and hallucinatory in as little as forty-eight hours. Historian Alfred MCCOY solitary ment • •no-touch torture," saying, "it sends prisoners in one of two directions: catatonia or rage." If they survive prison, offenders are met with a whole host of problems once released. There are, first, political consequences, as no longer are allowed to participate in the most fundamental right of citizen• ship, the right to vote (as we discussed in Chapter There also are severe economic costs of being branded with a criminal record. Many licensed or professional occupations in health care or the public Sector disqualify applicants With crim- inal and a good number Of employers Simply refuse to hire ex-cemvicts, especially men of color with felony convictions- One study found that a criminal record reduces one's chances of landing a job by so percent to 60 percent.& Because budgets for educational and vocational training have been rolled back in recent years, prisoners have little hope uf gaining job skills While doing time. And because prisoners are Cut off from the larger society, their to stably employed friends and family members, people who could connect them to job opportunities, diminish the longer they are behind bars. As a result, many women and men with criminal records have a very difficult time securing well-paying, full-time jobs. Add to this the fact that ex-offenders are denied types of Social services, such as stamps, public housing, Medicaid, and government-based financial aid for college, and we can begin to understand how difficult it can be for someone recently released from prison to turn her or his life around. We can thereby begin to grasp the direct connection between incarceration and chronic poverty.'" Compared to those who have never been incarcerated, ex-convicts have lower vages, employment rates, and annual incomes. results in a percent reduction in hourly wage rates across the board, and those who have been incarcerated work an average of eight fewer weeks a year than if they had been convicted. An ex-convict earns 30 percent to 40 percent less each year than a perScm with the job Skills and education. A black who dropped out of high school earns roughly $9,000 a year, but a black man who dropped out of high school and I-his a criminal record earns roughly $5,700 a year. Since the majority of black male dropouts will be incarcerated at some point in their lives, the economic consequences of incarceration are intimately linked Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: to the persistence of racialized pcwerty. In fact, if no African Americans were incarcerated, no fewer than one-fifth of all poor blacks would be lifted out of Incarceration also wreaks havoc on the family. as wives must cope with- Out their husbands, children their mothers. Incarcerated parents miss out on key events in children's lives—their first steps, major holidays, soccer games, graduations—which erodes the bond between parent and child. If it is the father who is incarcerated, the newly single mother often is forced to make ends meet by working several jobs and cannot afford to spend extended amounts of time supervising Children helping them With AS a result, many children from single-parent homes fare worse in school and are at a higher risk of developing behavioral problems than their peers from two-parent households. If it is the single mother who is incarcerated, her parental rights may be revoked and her children may become wards of the state. shuffled through the foster Care SYSt Incarceration often tears families apart _ Although the divorce rate for men in • side and outside prison is the (50 percent), most marriages involving an in- carcerated partner end in less than seven years, a full decade before the mtional rate of seventeen years. Couples with children are at a high risk of splitting if the father is locked By estimate. America would enjoy 20 percent to 30 more if it did not incarcerate a Single And men with Criminal records seem to have a difficult time getting married after their sentence expires. Just as they are "marked" by employers who refuse to hire them, they are "marked" by potential mates who refuse to marry them. By the age of thirty-five, roughly 80 percent of men who have nuer been incarcerated are married; the same is true Of only 40 percent Of with a Incarceration also comes with a hefty price tag, It costs approximately $30,000 a year to incarcerate one person. In a nation with a prison population exceeding 2 million. this amounts to over $60 billion a year. If we add in the costs of polic- ing. legal processing, euurt fees, and all the other expenses of the criminal jus- tire system, we are met with the realization that America spends an extravagant $110 billion a year to fight crime."0 This money could otherwise be directed at building schools, decreasing pollution, raising teachers' salaries, or funding job skill programs in the inner city. Indeed, as the prison system has swelled. the States has rolled back social spending. In States Spent 2 percent of their on police and corrections and S.S percent an assistance to the poor; in 2013, cash assistance programs accounted for a little more than 1 percent of state expenditures, and police and corrections accounted for roughly 4-5 percentF DO Prisons Make Us Safer? However devastating the effects of incarceration on the lives and families of offenders, and however much damage the criminal justice system does to our strivings toward racial justice, and however high a price we all pay for having the world's largest prison population, many Americans still would approve of Punishment Machine generated alternative text: 240 incarcerating thousands of people each year if that kept them safer. So, the million-dollar question is, do prisons decrease crime? The crime drop America has been enjoying fur the last twenty-five years coincided with the prison boom. Did the boom cause the drop? AS sociologist Bruce Western has argued, there are ways prisons may reduce crime. " who participate in prison education or treatment programs might be relvlbilitated, and turn away from crime after they are released. Prisons might simply incapacitate offenders, lucking them away to prevent crime in so- ciety. Finally, prisons might deter those who would commit crime were it not for the threat Of SO, prisons Will make us safer if they eff&tively rehabilitate offenders, incapacitate lawbreakers, or deter people from committing crime, Let us examine each in turn. Since the rise of "law and order" politics and the implementation of harsher sen- tences, prisons have abandoned their original mission—to rehabilitate those who have crimes—and instead have punishing and warehousing institutions. Evidence suggests that rehabilitation programs reduce recidivism; however, since funding for such programs has been scaled back, there is little proof that prisons decrease crime by rehabilitating offenders."' In fact, some have argued that prisons produce more crime. If an ex-offender cannot find steady work after his release, he might resort 10 Stealing appliances or selling drugs to get by. If an ex-offender'S mMriage digM)lved while he was in the pen, he might find Community in the friends he sorialized with before his arrest, friends perhaps involved in the criminal underworld. The criminal justice system spends far less money and effort reintegrating ex-offenders into society than it does punishing them. The result is that a good number of the hundreds af thousands of people released from pris- on each year to their old After all, they just left a parallel society filled with offenders, a place where first-time offenders were intrcrluced to areer criminals, where friendships between gang members and drug dealers were forged and solidified. A person might enter prison as a man who committed a single crime and leave it as a hardened criminal, as if being released frum prison were akin to graduating from crime If prisons do not rehabilitate offenders, perhaps they decrease crime simply by taking criminals off the streets—that is, by incapacitating them. This line of reasoning would make sense if most people behind bars were career criminals re- spunsible fur multiple offenses. Although many prisoners have carried out dozens of crimes, a goad number are first-time offenders. What is more, street -level drug dealers easily are replaced after they are arrested, resulting in a diminished inca- pacitation effect. As Western puts it, "locking up drug offenders does not avert serious It appears that incapacitation decreases the crime rate only by a modest Lastly, we might argue that prisons function ag a Strong deterrent for would- be criminals. If prisons are to have a deterrent effect, someone contemplating a crime must weigh the rewards of the crime (say, $5,000 for stealing a car) against the punishment (say. three years in prison for grand theft auto) and decide Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: against committing the crime specifically because the punishment outweighs the reward. There is no denying that prisons deter some people from committing a crime. But how strong is the effect? It appears not as strong as many people tend to think. Surveys of prisoners reveal that one in three convicted of a felony confesses 10 having never considered punishment when commit ling the crime. Indeed, many offenders literally were af their minds when they broke the law: go percent of state convicts confess to having been on drugs when they committed their crimes, and another 17 percent committed the offenses in order to get money for drugs.m For all these the effect Of mass incarceration on the crime drup is much more modest than many Americans believe It is difficult to parse out the effect of incarceration on crime from the effect of crime on incarceration. But if evidence indicates that the three mechanisms by which incarceration is sup- posed to lower crime are less effective than originally thought. we might suspect the effect Of incarceration the crime drop to be modest. And indeed the best available evidence indicates that the prison boom can account for only percent to 5 percent of the crime drop.ln other words, "more than nine- tenths of the decline in serious crime through the logos would have happened even vnthout the prison boom."'" THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM A rational assessment of race and crime, one that marshals the usefulness of social science to judge the validity of popular claims. often leads to surprising discoveries. By holding in abeyance the emotional reactions unleashed during discussimls of Crime and punishment, Ch(H'sing instead to the thing eare• fully and objectively, we are presented with facts that flip conventional wisdom on its head, Crime is not forever on the rise; immigrants do not cause crirne, but make the streets safer: we have more to fear from unsafe working conditions than from the crazed murderer lurking in the darkness. prisons may du mure harm than good When it e.omes to decreasing Perhaps Gaston Bachelard right in saying, "The first impression is not a fundamental If many things believed to be threatening (for example, immigrants) actually make us safer. and if many things believed tu be protective (for instance. prisons) actually increase risks Of harm, then, as critically minded sociological thinkers, we are obliged to rethink the crime problem and its solutions. This requires, first, reconsidering the dangers to which our minds and money should be devoted, The high homicide rates in poor urban neighborhoods certainly deserve attention, but so, do rampant violence against women and offenses carried out by cup poratioms. Indeed. the sociological thinker must be willing to question the very definition of "Crime" itself Second, we must rethink conventional solutions to fighting crime, solutions, as we have just seen, that may bring about harmful unintended consequences. We must denaturalize incarceration as the one and only means of punishment.•o Things Are Nat What They Seem Machine generated alternative text: 242 This precisely has been the goal of the anti-incarceration movement. Thoroughly multiracial and made up of citizens of all ages, this movement has criticized America's reliance on the prison as the primary method thwugh which punish- ments are dealt. Finally, we must examine Our racialized fears the hope Of a multicul— tural democracy rooted in interracial alliances. The more we fear one another, look- ing on each other as potential threats, enemies, and terrorists, the slimmer are our chances of reaching out to one another to help build the society in which we wish to live. Fear causes us to lock our doors: it keeps us from walking across the block and introducing ourselves to our neighbors. It causes us to divert our eyes, to our purses, to change seats on an airplane when confronted with people whose very skin tone marks them as criminals. Psychologists have shown that we pay a high price for racialized fear, the price of walking through life filled with unhealthy doses of guilt, shame. anxiety. and depression."' The nation as a whole pays a high price as well—for racialized fear Withers away the promise Of American community, it makes a mockery of justice. Chapter 6 Crime and Punishment Machine generated alternative text: THE BIG PICTURE Chapter 6: Crime and Punishment think h group vo MAIN POINTS t+ role of the ie p : 180n in of the stark why large by for techniques that pee: KEY TERMS ton page acn 23 FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE Think Write down five you m. Having that, t how yc•ar info d by c 's racial Reflect. infon-n«i In this in the aæ in abl_wt crime. tOse conceming r.pe_ Refecting on public How is this group Why do thjü this is might fully this gnup m public }Ylp new Think of that is Eut rot c (for actions out by state Offer a infornwS for why ue CTirnirÄiaed. doing so. who is by yo•mg is guilty of is eligible to serve of in This is his off—. role of with aby:lute pretending a by m an alternative is, what p might