Race

Question 1

Race and the American CJS

Answer 1

• black males are more at risk for incarceration than other races
• there are no racial differences in using or selling drugs but blacks are sent to prison more often and for longer sentences
• blacks are more involved in serious violent offences
• violent crime is not distributed across neighbourhoods

Question 2

Race and theory

Answer 2

• most treat race as a control variable in micro theories
  –> argue for general as opposed to race-specific theories
• more attention paid to race in macro theories
  –>racial invariance thesis - race holds no credibility as a cause of violence
• reason for lack of attention to race can be traced to the view that the causes of crime are the same regardless of race
  –> argues that people engage in crime because of exposure to criminogenic social factors

Question 3

Problem with the generality approach

Answer 3

• can lead to race being ignored

Question 4

What is ethnic heterogeneity

Answer 4

leads to the breakdown of norms and social control and cultural transmission of criminal behaviour

Question 5

Social disharmony and racial injustice

Answer 5

legacies of slavery and failed reconstruction, urbanization and migration to cities, social environment of exclusion
–>
poor housing conditions, economic exclusion, racial prejudice
–> structural strain and rebellion

Question 6

What are three major scholars that pay attention to race

Answer 6

1. structural theory
2. cultural theory
   - such as the code of the streets
3. perceived discrimination theory

Question 7

what are two types of economic inequality

Answer 7

1. achieved - based on educational attainment, etc., and seen as just
2. Ascribed - based on race, gender, etc., and seen as unjust
   - ascribed inequality leads to frustration, resentment, and higher rates of violence

Question 8

What did Blau and Blau find

Answer 8

• support for the effect of economic inequality on overall violent crime rates in US Stanford metropolitan statistical areas
• but recent research found little evidence that the degree of economic inequality between races is related to black rates of violent crime

Question 9

What does William Julius wilson suggest

Answer 9

• that beyond economic deprivation the spatial arrangement of black communities in relation to white communities is critical