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Coates, The Matrix of Race

SAGE Publishing, 2018

Lecture Notes

Chapter 7: Crime, Law, and Deviance

Learning Objectives

7-1 Examine the history of race, crime, and deviance

7-2 Analyze stock theories of race, crime, and deviance

7-3 Apply the matrix lens to the relationship between crime and deviance

7-4 Formulate transformative narratives of crime and deviance

I. A History of Race, Crime, and Punishment

A. Behavior may be criminal and/or deviant – there is a difference between the two

1. Deviance refers to all actions or behaviors that defy social norms

a. This includes from crimes to social expectations

1. For example, wearing the wrong colors to a football game or just

not wearing anything at all

b. When deviance violates ethical standards (like murder) it becomes a crime

II. Building a Foundation of Whiteness

A. Before they ventured to settle the Americas, Europeans were formulating the

foundations of whiteness

1. English colonists arrived with racist stereotypes in reference to Africans and

Native Americans

2. Elite European males institutionalized whiteness to control blacks, Native

Americans, women, and others

a. Laws affecting racial, ethnic, and class groups helped create and sustain

white privilege

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B. White privilege refers to laws, practices, and behaviors which preserve benefits

for only people identified as white

1. White normative structures are those norms and institutions that obscure the

racial intent of such laws

III. Legislating White Privilege

A. Racial consciousness refers to the awareness of race shared by members of both a

group and the wider society

1. Racial consciousness normalized racial hierarchies by making the notions of

white privilege real at the expense of people of color

2. White racial consciousness linked to notions of normalcy was first engraved

into our national laws as early as 1790 with the passage of the U.S.

Naturalization Law

a. This law limited citizenship to those immigrants who were “free white

persons of good character”

1. Children born abroad, only those whose fathers were U.S. residents,

were granted citizenship

B. White privilege originated as a set of rules created and preserved through a series

of laws, mores, and beliefs that guaranteed white personal privilege over blacks,

Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and others

1. Only blacks could be whipped naked; slave women could be raped, and any

offspring that resulted would be slaves

2. Any white or free woman of color that elected to have sex with, or marry a

male slave, could be forced into slavery themselves

a. These laws were codified into Slave Codes

1. Under this, white males were further empowers when they joined

slave patrols

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C. Slave patrols were organized groups of white men with police powers used to

regulate a specific population by enforcing the Slave Codes

1. The first patrols began in 1757 in Georgia, where the white landowners and

residents were required to serve in slave patrols

a. Patrols would consist of no more than 7 members and would ride

throughout the night, challenging any slaves they encountered and

demanding that they prove they were not engaging in unlawful activities

(Cooper 2015)

1. These patrols were active throughout the south until the end

of the Civil War

D. With the end of the Civil War came new laws aimed at controlling freed blacks

1. Jim Crow laws held sway in the United States from the 1880s into the 1960s

a. These laws were used for white social control and the construction of

deviance

IV. Defining Whiteness in the West

A. During the latter half of the 19th century, whiteness was being defined on the

Western Frontier at the expense of Native Americans

1. Hundreds of Native Americans were held as prisoners and subjected to

military trials

a. Most adult males were found guilty and sentenced to death

1. The presumption of guilt had nothing to do with whether or not they

were actually warriors, but whether they were merely present at the

scene of fighting

B. In the largest mass execution in U.S. history, 38 Dakota Indians were hanged in

1862 in Mankato, Minnesota on orders of the President of the United States,

Abraham Lincoln

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1. They were accused of killing 490 white settlers during the Santee Sioux

uprising

2. The Sioux were actually angered by repeated broken treaties and the failure of

the United States to live up to its promises

a. Enraged and starving, the Native Americans attempted to take back their

lands by force

b. After the execution, and under executive orders, the remaining Native

Americans were resettled on “reservations”

1. From this period, and for the next few decades, Native Americans

were consistently vilified as criminals

c. The consolidation of Native American lands, along with the end of the

Civil War, marshaled a new period of whiteness and social control

V. The Effects of Immigration

A. During the California Gold Rush of 1848–52, the Chinese began to migrate into

the United States to labor on large construction projects

1. Their efforts helped construct the First Transcontinental Railroad and they

were quite successful at mining

a. As gold became scarce, job competition increased, and anti-Chinese

bigotry intensified

2. As early as 1862, the state of California passed “An Act to Protect Free white

Labor against Competition with Chinese Coolie Labor, and to Discourage the

Immigration of the Chinese into the State of California”

a. This act was a reaction by white labor that feared competition with

Chinese immigrants

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1. It imposed special taxes on Chinese miners, restrictions on

immigration, and led to the forced segregation and creation

of what came to be known as China Town

B. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a massive immigration of Southern

Europeans

1. A new set of white fears were launched

2. Southern Europeans including the Irish, Italians, and Jews, now joined blacks,

Native Americans, and Asians as collectively perceived as the principal

source of criminality

VI. A Legacy of Racial Profiling

A. Crime, laws, and perceptions of deviance create, (re)produce, and reinforce status

hierarchies based on race and ethnicity

1. At the intersections of these racial hierarchies are both gender and class

a. When we look at how deviance is constructed and enforced, we find that

people of color are most likely to be racially profiled by police

B. Racial profiling is the use of law enforcement and private security to target

people of color

1. It is based upon the perception that certain racial, ethnic, religious, or national

origin groups are guilty until proven innocent

a. While it violates U.S. Constitution guarantees of equal protection and

freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, it continues to be utilized

2. Racial profiling has been a law enforcement tool since slave patrols

a. Today, Blacks, Hispanics, the Roma, Moslems, and Native Americans

experience the most profiling

C. New York Police Department stop-and-frisk policies demonstrate the dangers of

racial profiling

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1. Stop and frisk began in 2004 and has involved as many as 4 million citizens

a. At least 83% of these have been black and Latino, while 9 out of 10 are

completely innocent (Bergner 2014)

2. Differential policing and enforcement not only stigmatize marginalize people

of color, it socially constructs them as deviants

VII. Sociological Stock Theories of Crime and Deviance

A. The disciplines of sociology and criminology have been concerned with crime

and deviance

1. These concerns have mirrored society’s attempts to justify racial, gendered,

and class hierarchies

a. As such, the standard theories within sociology and criminology may be

considered stock stories

1. Most of the theoretical orientations of these stock stories fall into

two broad categories: biosocial theories of deviance and ecological

perspectives

VIII. Biosocial Theories of Deviance

A. Our earliest and most systematic attempts to understand deviance linked it to

biology

1. Cesare Lombroso ascribed crime and deviance to ethnicity and race

a. He held that Africans, Asians, and American Indians were prone to

crime and deviance (Green and Gabbidon 2012: 96)

b. He held that biological indicators (such as body type and brain size)

were associated with a more primitive form of human being

1.These were signs that someone was likely a criminal

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2. Lombroso asserted that all non-Europeans were likely to be criminals

because they were lower on the evolutionary scale

B. Biological determinism holds that behavior is innately impacted by

physiology

1. By the time his work reached the United States at the turn of the 20th

century, biological determinism was the dominant explanation for crime

and deviance

a. Within the United States, the overrepresentation of African Americans

(and some immigrants) in crime statistics caused many to link race and

ethnicity to crime and deviance (Gould 1981)

2. While some scholars have revived the discourse linking crime and biology,

they have stressed that a person’s behavior is influenced by both their

biology and environment

a. Critiques of this approach have quickly pointed out the implicit racial,

gendered, and class biases inherent in it

b. Opponents say it also fails to take into consideration social

environment, which can lead quickly to the biological and social

determinism of previous periods (Gould 1981)

VIIII. Ecological Perspectives on Crime

A. The ecological approach situated human behavior within the social

structure external to the individual

1. The cause of crime is found in the community structure in which

people live and interact

a. Community members interact to (re)create the conditions that

account for criminal and non-criminal behavior

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B. Several theoretical strands derive from the ecological approach to crime

and deviance

1. Social disorganization

a. Social disorganization links crime to neighborhood ecological

patterns

b. Place matters and differences in crime rates are explained by

structural and cultural factors in communities

1. For example, large levels of immigration and migrations

often produce rapid community changes

2. These rapid changes may then lead to either the disruption

or the breakdown of the structure of social relations and

values resulting in the loss of social controls over

individual and group behavior

3. During the period of stress, social disorganization prevails

and crime (which is thus situational and not group-specific)

develops and persists

2. Culture of poverty

a. Rather than the community, some theorists began to conceive the

culture as the nexus for deviance

1. Different levels of crime among groups arose from

differences in morality (Wirth 1931)

b. Differential association theory elaborated on this perspective by

proposing that differences in criminal involvement among groups

resulted from their different definitions of criminality

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c. The culture of poverty approach views poverty as a set of choices

made by unwed mothers that perpetuate a crime, deviance, and

other pathologies across generations

1. The process produces children who are both morally

deficient and more apt to commit crime, produce more

unwed mothers, and unwanted children

2. This perspective ignores the structural inequities that

underlie poverty

3. The broken windows theory

a. The broken windows theory (Wilson and Kelling 1982) argued

that a significant way of decreasing serious crime was to halt

vandalism

1. Police may be a means of controlling crime, but it does not

eliminate or curtail it

b. Abandoned properties, vandalism, litter, and filth not only

demoralize community residents, but also produce a form of

nihilism (an extreme form of fatalism where people feel

overwhelmed by life and circumstances) that leaves people feeling

hopeless

1. While fixing broken windows may lead to increasing sources

of pride in a community, it does not explain lower levels of

crime and deviance

IX. Applying the Matrix to Crime and Deviance

A. The matrix approach posits that powerful elites construct and enforce laws that

protect their interests

1. Du Bois (1904) was the first to theorize and document the intersectional or

matrix approach to crime and deviance

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a. He dismisses the biological basis of crime and points out how social

structures influence crime and deviance

B. The matrix perspective helps us interrogate our assumptions associated with what

is deviant and normal, or between what is criminal and noncriminal

X. The Spaces and Places of Crime and Deviance

A. One of the seminal theoretical approaches observes that spaces and places where

stress were greatest were also more likely to have higher levels of deviance

1. General strain theory (Agnew 1992) proposes that racism produces stressful

events and environments which can lead to crime

a. It is suggested that African Americans view the United States from a

perspective where race matters because it significantly alters their life and

chances for success (Unnever and Gabbidon 2011)

2. Systemic racism occurs when a system of inequality based on race, often

within institutional settings such as police, prisons, or court systems, are often

associated with differential outcomes in crime and deviance

a. Because of systemic racism, people of color are more likely to be victims

of police abuse, racial profiling, and differential criminal sanctioning

B. Racialization, gender, and disempowerment interact within communities

1. They produce increased surveillance, criminalization, and incarceration

2. Inner city black males find their lives more difficult as police assume they are

neighborhood problems that should be “fixed”

3. The increased prevalence of non-white males in the criminal justice system is

more about this increase in surveillance than an actual increase in

criminalization

4. Inner-city communities are surrounded by forces beyond residents’ control

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a. Challenges to identify “manhood” only intensify perceived problems

b. The only thing of value many young men can control is their “rep”

1.Losing rep means losing credibility

C. The “Code of the Street” enforces respect, justice, and rights

1. While the Code puts a check on wholesale violence, it actually perpetuates a

climate of violence (Anderson 1994, 1999)

a. At the intersection of race, class, gender, and age, young men of color

face a double bind where, thwarted in their efforts to be identified as

“hardworking men,” they choose “hypermasculinity” and deviance as a

means of demonstrating their manhood (Rios 2006, 54)

1. This hypermasculinity has been romanticized and glorified

in hip-hop and is linked to increasing levels of interpersonal

conflicts, group violence and gang violence, and sexual

exploitation of young women of color (Nettleton 2011:140)

b. Those who internalize the code of the street and live by it are more

likely to be involved later in reported acts of violence

XI. The Structure and Context of Crime and Deviance

A. Sociologists have pointed to structural inequities (such as racism and social

isolation) as the causal link to understanding differential outcomes in crime and

deviance (Massey and Sampson 2009)

1. Racism, differential education funding, and the lack of opportunities may lead

to a culture of poverty (not the other way around)

a. All of these factors are structural

B. The matrix informs us that crime and deviance are situational and contextually

specific

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1. For example, spaces and places like urban centers will produce different types

of deviance possibilities than spaces and places such as corporations

XII. The Prison Industrial Complex

A. The prison industrial complex refers to the policies that target and greatly

expand the U.S. inmate population

1. It describes a system which merges government and industry use of

surveillance, policing, and imprisonment to solve economic, social, and

political problems

a. Political support for these policies is influenced by private prison

companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government

prison entities

B. Richard Nixon made “law and order” significant in his 1968 bid for the

presidency

1. He asserted that “we must declare and win the war against the criminal

elements which increasingly threaten our cities, our homes, and our lives”

a. In his call for action, the “war on drugs” became the most visible

outcome (Soss, Fording, and Schram 2011: 32–5)

C. The key force driving mass incarceration in the United States is the war on drugs

1. Its policies have resulted in the disproportionate increase in the

criminalization of poor, non-white offenders (Alexander 2011; Mauer 2006;

Provine 2007)

2. Blacks and Latino males are disproportionately targeted by police in many

major municipalities

a. Many states’ anti-immigration laws are thinly disguised racial profiling

laws (targeted law enforcement which purposefully single out select

individuals due to their race or ethnic group membership)

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XIII. The Poverty Link

A. Poverty (aggravated by racial isolation and coupled with inadequate funding of

schools, lack of employment, and aggressive policing) has both immediate and

lasting effects

1. Racial gapes in income, already evidenced between various groups, are

reflected in less than obvious ways

a. When we compare incarcerated with non-incarcerated people aged 27–

42, stark differences are apparent

b. While the racial gaps remain, males see the greatest declines in average

income

c. This reflects that males, and white males, start off with the highest

earnings to begin with

1. Considering this, it is not a surprise that white males see the

greatest income loss after incarceration

d. The smallest income losses are observed among Hispanic women, who

have the lowest wages to start with

B. Among black males without college degrees, about 12% born after World War II

were incarcerated (compared to 36% of those reaching their thirties) in 2005

1. Even higher incarceration rates were observed among black males born in the

mid-1960s who dropped out of school

a. Among this group between 60% and 70% were incarcerated

b. During this period, while the rate of incarceration for those without

college more than tripled, it less than doubled among those with college

degrees

1. A black male dropping out of high school has an incarceration rate

almost 50 times greater than the national average (Western

2006:18)

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2. Ultimately, it is the community that bears the cost of so much imprisonment

a. As reported by Gonnerman (2004), this has produced “million dollar

blocks” on which some urban areas spend $1 million or more to

incarcerate their residents

XIV. Different Sentencing Outcomes

A. Race, ethnicity, gender, and class disparities in sentencing outcomes has

also been identified

1. Men are 15 times more likely to be convicted than women, and on

average receive about 63% longer sentences than women

a. Women are twice as likely as men to avoid incarceration, even

when convicted

2. The girlfriend theory suggests that women are minor players caught

up in the criminal acts of their boyfriends, which might explain

how/why women are more likely to avoid incarceration

a. It is also suggested that women commit less severe crimes, and

thus warrant less severe punishment

b. In addition, prosecutors might be lenient to female defendants

because of their family status

c. Women may also be more likely to cooperate, and thus be

granted plea deals (Starr 2012)

3. Black women are three times more likely, while Hispanic women are

69% more likely than their white female counterparts to be

incarcerated (The Prison Project 2005)

B. Drug use among middle class youths is often ignored

1. Drug abuse among the middle class is typically more hidden, more

likely to be in prescriptions, and thus less likely to be criminalized

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2. Middle and upper class are more likely to have access to health

insurance and consequently prescription medication

a. Drugs such as oxycodone and codeine are now outpacing heroin

and cocaine combined

b. Death rates from prescription drug overdoses nearly tripled

between 1998 and 2006

1. White males, aged 35–54, constituted the highest

proportion of deaths (Warner, Chen, and Makuc 2009)

C. Depending on type of offence, most research finds greater leniency when

the victim is black or Hispanic

1. This is particularly true in sexual assault cases when the victim is a

racial minority

a. Whites are more likely to receive lower bail, suggesting a higher

likelihood of prison time for blacks or Hispanics

2. Hispanics, followed by blacks, were more likely to be denied release

options

a. Blacks in the south are least likely to have felony cases

dismissed

b. White males are more likely to have charges reduced compared

to Hispanics or blacks (Warner, Chen, and Makuc 2009)

c. Those with less income and education are most disadvantaged

(Mustard 2001)

XV. Capital Punishment

A. The United States is the only industrialized Western democracy that still allows

capital punishment

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1. Hispanics have constituted almost 20% of the new admissions to death row

since 2009 (Snell 2009)

2. Phillips (2008) documents that blacks are 1.75 times more likely than whites

to face the death penalty, and 1.5 times more likely than whites to actually be

sentenced to death

a. Currently, 54% of those on death row are either black or Latino, yet they

make up only 27.9% of the total U.S. population (CIA World Fact Book

2011)

B. Disparities in the application of the death penalty are obvious indicators of more

deeply engrained inequalities across institutional structures

XVI. Identifying Types of Crime

A. Some types of crime, victims, and criminals have become closely associated with

race, class, and gender

B. Differential labeling occurs when some individuals and groups are systematically

singled out and declare deviant by virtue of being in that particular group

1. It derives from social constructions of crime and deviance

2. Differential labeling is a belief within the United States that blacks, Hispanics,

and other disadvantaged groups are more prone to crime, violence, disorder,

and welfare

a. The persistent stereotypes may lead members of these groups to respond

in ways that confirm the beliefs

b. Women, particularly of color, bear the historic scars of being labeled

whores, gold-diggers, and dykes (Farrell and Swigert 1988:3)

3. It makes us more likely to associate racial minorities with crime

a. This can lead to police brutality and unlawful use of force

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C. Hate crimes are defined as the use of violence and intimidation to further

stigmatize and marginalized disenfranchised individuals and groups

1. In 2014, the FBI reported that law enforcement agencies across the country

reported a total of 5,479 hate crimes

a. About half (47%) were racially motivated

1. Others included sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, gender

identity, disability, and gender

D. Throughout history, race, class, and gender have provided a rationale for targeting

select groups for victimization

1. Among women of color, sexual abuse has been used as a means of social

control

2. The most common violent crime on college campuses involves the rape of

women (Sampson 2002)

a. One in six women report that they have been either victims of attempted

or completed rape

1. Of the 17.7 million women that fall into these categories, Native

American and Mixed race women are the largest group (34.1% and

24.4% respectively)

2. Since many rapes go unreported, the figure could be much higher

b. Among all groups, persons in the poorest households have more than

double the rate of violent victimizations than persons in higher income

households (Harrell and Langton 2014)

3. Domestic farm workers (particularly undocumented workers) may be hidden

victims of sexual abuse

a. These victims, isolated physically, legally, or both, are least likely to

report or be able to prove the charge of rape or abuse

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b. In 2006, 33% of domestic workers experienced verbal or physical abuse

or were made to feel uncomfortable by their employers

1. A third felt their race/ethnicity or immigration status contributed to

their employer’s behavior (Domestic Workers United and Data

Center 2006)

E. Gangs range from the more or less informal groups who frequently commit

crimes to more formal groups with clear hierarchies, histories, and culture

1. The latter groups participate in what can be classified as organized crime

2. Urban gangs associated with organized crime have expanded their operations

to include alien smuggling, human trafficking, and prostitution

a. Today, four major gang regions can be identified

1. U.S.-based gangs operate behind prison walls (where they also

recruit), in the military (where there are at least 53 separate

gangs), and internationally in Central America, Mexico, Africa,

Europe, China, and the Middle East

b. 3 of 5 gang members are adults (Howell and Moore 2010)

c. Most gang members are male

d. Latinos and African Americans dominate gang membership

1. White gangs are more prevalent in rural areas (National Gang

Center 2012)

3. Gangs are associated with poorer, urban communities

a. Their resistance is seen as a response to unemployment and other services

(Egley, Howel, and Harris 2014)

b. Racial and ethnic gangs serve many purposes

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1. They provide a sense of belonging, order, purpose, community,

defense, and resources (status, drugs, and money) (Howell and

Moore 2010)

F. White-collar crime is referred to as crime committed by a person of

respectability and high social status in the course of his (or her) occupation

(Sutherland 1939)

1. African Americans and other disadvantaged groups are extremely unlikely to

engage in corporate-level white-collar crimes like antitrust activities

a. Women are also less likely to participate in white-collar crime

1. These differences manifest the clear structural opportunities that

coincide with race, class, and gender

2. In contrast, a particular form of white collar crime, welfare fraud (the illegal

use of state welfare systems to knowingly withhold or make false statements

for the purposes of obtaining more funds than allowed) has been historically

linked to poor women, especially of color

3. White-collar crime is often a crime of opportunity and not deviousness

4. Sentencing judges tend to be more persuaded toward leniency by highly

respectable and privately compensated counsel

a. Judges are also more likely to be swayed by histories of philanthropy and

community service (Shover and Hochstetler 2006: 98)

5. Among prominent white-collar offenders are large corporations such as Rite

Aid, Xerox, and K-Mart (Simon 2006)

XVII. Transforming the Narrative of Race, Crime, and Deviance

A. How people perceive themselves (particularly youth) is often framed by

the media

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1. We do not often see positive portrayals of youth or their communities

(Waymer 2009)

a. The effect of a steady stream of negative reporting on crime and

violence associated with inner-city areas is rarely considered

1. Without counter-stories, the pictures many youths have of

themselves (and the pictures others form) are negative,

deviant, and violent

B. The matrix lens alerts us to the reality that groups and individuals

throughout the American narrative have been quite effective at both

resisting and surviving oppressive systems

1. Resistance is the conscious and unconscious attempts by individuals

and groups to challenge the dominant values of society

XVIII. Scientific Advances

A. DNA evidence is being used to exonerate innocent people falsely convicted of

crimes

B. A group entitled the Innocence Project has been tracking cases associated with

exoneration after DNA evidence is assessed

1. Over the 17 years the Innocence Project has been tracking cases, a total of 344

convictions have been overturned

a. Among 344 cases, 20 were on death row

b. On average, they served 14 years

c. Of these, 215 were African Americans; 105 were Whites; 25 were Latinos;

2 were Asian Americans (Innocence Project 2016)

XIX. Alternatives to Incarceration

A. Some state legislators are now proposing alternatives to incarceration

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1. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that sentencing juveniles in

homicide cases to life without parole was both cruel and unusual

punishment

2. Judges are looking for more creative ways to both hold youth responsible

while at the same time diverting them from prisons

a. Community service has replaced incarceration for many youth

1. This allows youth to evaluate their behavior and gain a better

understanding of how their actions impact others

B. The next part of the solution requires us to invest in alternatives to detention and

incarceration

1. Most criminal acts are drug related and tend to be non-violent

a. We term these as victimless crimes

2. Many states, such as Maryland, have begun to explore cost-effective

approaches that divert offenders from prison

a. Their program provided by community based drug treatment, life skills

training, literacy training, education, and job skills training have been

highly successful

1. Many believe that investing in this human capital will

produce a higher return to society than incarceration

(McVey, Schiraldi, and Ziedenberg 2004)

XX. Emphasizing Choice

A. Any remedy must take into consideration individual agency

1. People make choices, including the choice to commit crime

B. Neither crime nor deviance is caused by race, ethnicity, gender, or class

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1. These choices are circumscribed by environments, histories, and structural

inequities

C. The prevalence of one specific type of crime and/or deviance are determined by

the kind of resources available within a particular community, institution, or

situation and the kinds of choices people make

1. While society cannot force individuals to make difference choices, it can hold

them accountable and provide effect alternatives to deviance

2. Even for those currently caught up in deviance, alternatives to detention have

been demonstrated to effectively deter further criminality

a. These include suspended sentences, probation, fines, restitution, and

community service

XXI. Adjusting the Narrative of Race and Deviance

A. We must shift away from an individualistic approach that defines specific

individuals and communities as in need of “fixing”

1. Using the matrix lens, we must understand that some differences in life

outcomes are rooted in structural inequities

B. The matrix lens does not present people, communities, and groups as victims,

though they might have been victimized

1. It projects them as agents, who see not only what is available but also what

obstacles they must overcome to achieve it