SO256 - T1W4 - Lecture Notes and Required Readings

Critical Race Theory, Criminology, and Criminal Justice

• “CRT does not imagine that racism is the only social problem and thereby erase issues of class, gender, disability and other forms of discrimination” - Lander and Gillborn 2020)

• “Race and racism are so ingrained in teh fabric of society that they become normalised… or so invisible to most individuals” - (Ladson-Billings, 1998)

Race, a symbolic Category

• “… race is a symbolic category, based on phenotype or ancestry and constructed according to specific social and historical contexts, that is misrecognised as a natural category” (Emirbayer & Desmond 2012, p. 574)

• Physical - Lineage, skin colour etc.

• Biology - DNA, genetics etc.

• Consider phenotype, ethnicity, ancestry, nationality, biological difference, hierarchy of differences.

• Is race a social construct? Is race created in the context of power? Is race an identity marker?

• Blurred boundaries between culture and race

Bias, Race, and Racism

• The definitions of racism are complex - scholars take varying positions

• Racism equals power plus prejudice (see Lawson, 2020, Operario & Fiske, 1998). - This scholar argues that to be racist, you have to have an element of power. And therefore argues that those who do not have an element of power therefore cannot be racist.

• Systemic disadvantages/ institutions/ policies/ practices/ opportunities (or lack thereof)

• Systemic biases in policies (see Kendi, 2019, 2023)

• Bias in the beliefs and interactions of white persons with people of colour/ White fragility (DiAngelo, 2018) - is there an issue when white people come to talk about race/uncomfortability when people talk about race

• Racism and racial prejudice “Are not limited to individuals involved in hate groups suchb as Neo-Nazis or the KKK” (Faculty for Ignatian Pegagogy 2020, np).

Hierarchy of Value

• Those at the top ‘distinctly valued over those deemed inferior”.

• White Privilege - “… the notion that white subjects accrue advantages by virtue of being constructed as whites”. (Leonardo, 2009)

• Anti-essentialism - shared experience of oppression, however there are difference experiences/values/needs.

• Microaggresions - “… are correlated to multiple indicators of racism, including symbolic racism, colour-blind racial attitudes, modern racism, and explicit racial attitudes…” (see Williams, 2020).

Intersecting Levels of Power

• What does power refer to?

• Power can include more than one component

• Power can be linked to control, allocation and influence

• “Power operates at three levels:

  • Systemic/Institutional

  • Interpersonal

  • Individual

    • The above three levels of power are intersecting. - (Faculty Center for Ignatian Pegagogy. 2020)

Critical Race Theory

• Theoretical interpretative field of inquiry.

• Activist and scholars engaged in examining race, racism, power and anti-blackness across history, society, and cultural modes of expression (Lombardi-diop, 2020)

• Examines the relationship between race and power in the arena of law (see Bell, 1995, Crenshaw, 1995 & Delgado & Stefancic, 2001)

• Historical accounts of racism are imperative - Race is at the centre of analysis.

• Consider the culture perceptions of race and how thus affects everyday lives/encounters.

• Challenges the idea that legal scholarship is (and should be) neutral. - this is essentially going against the argument that when looking at criminality, we should only be looking at the crime itself. However, CRT scholars are arguing against this, and are arguing that criminology should not be colour blind.

“There are several branches of Critical Race Theory. For example, Disability Critical Race Theory (see Annamma et al., 2018), Critical Race Feminism (see Few, 2007) and Asian Critique (see walker & Daniel Anders, 2022).

Early Origins/contributors

• Alan Freeman

• Antonio Gramsci

• Derrick Bell

• Frederick Douglass

• Kimberle Crenshaw 

• MLK Jr

• ruchard Delgado

• Sojourner Truth

• W.E.B DuBois 

Critical Race Theory cont.

1960’s onwards, then evolved from critical legal studies:

• Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

• Racism is ordinary, not exceptional 

• There is little incentive to eradicate 

• ‘Colour-blindness’

• Race is socially constructed

CRT, Criminology, and Criminal Justice 

• Critical Criminology ‘reflects a commitment to punching upward at hegemonic forms of power that shape criminological and criminal justice phenomena’ (Leon, 2021)

• Stuart Hall et al., Policing the Crisis - Moral Panic/’folk devils’

• “The way we have defined certain behaviour as threatening and have made certain acts criminal or noncriminal convinces most of us incorrectly that Blacks and Latinos are, on average, more dangerous than Whites’ (See Delgado and Stefancic 1993, 2001, 2007)

Race and Colonial (In)justice

• The concept of ‘justice’ and the ‘rule of law’ were central to the colonising project. It legitimated the “swift and b loody” response to a slave rebellion in 1831 in Jamaica after which 312 slaves were hanged, their severed heads displayed on poles over a year and many more were shot without trial. In the 19th century in British India, courts regularly, following trials conducted scrupulously in line with the standards of British Justice, ordered Indians to be ‘blown away by canon’. This spectacular penalty was not only reserved for extraordinary events such as the 1857 Rebellion but seen as a legitimate response to political threats for decades afterwards. In colonial kenya, the british state’s response to the Mau Mau rebellion, in which 32 white settlers were killed, was both judicial and institutional. Courts ordered in excess of 1,000 hangings, including for offences such as “consorting with terrorists” and “supplying and aiding terrorists”. - (Moore, 2016)

US Incarceration and Slavery 

• “(M)ass imprisonment was employed as a means of coercing resistant freed slaves into becoming wage labourers. Prison populations soared during this period, enabling the state to play a critical role in mediating the brutal terms of negotiation between capitalism and the spectrum of unfree labour. The transition from slave-based agriculture to industrial economies thrusted ex-slaves and ‘unskilled’ labourers into new labour arrangements that left them vulnerable to depressed, resistant white workers or pushed them outside the labour market completely.” (Gilmore, 2000)

Jim Crow Laws

• ‘Jim crow laws touched every part of life. In South Carolina, black and white textile workers could not work in the same room, enter through the same door, or gaze out of the same window. Many industries wouldn’t hire blacks: Many unions passed rules to exclude them. In Richmond, one could not live on a street unless most of the residents were people one could marry. (one could not marry someone of a different race). In 1914, Texas had six entire towns in which blacks could not live. (One Area) passed a Jim Crow curfew: Blacks could not leave their homes after 10 pm. Signs marked “White Only” or “Coloured” hung over doors, ticket windows, and drinking fountains. Georgia had black and white parks. Oklahoma had black and white phone booths.’

The colour of Justice

• “The colour of justice: Racial ethnic disparity in state prisons’ 2021 reveal:

  • Black Americans make up 13% of the US population

  • Black Americans make up 40% of the people in prison

  • Black Americans are incarcerated 5x the rate of white Americans 

  • Latin Americans are incarcerated 1.3 times more than white americans

  • 1 in every 81 black adults is serving time in a state prison in the US

  • 48% of people serving life without parole, or ‘virtual life’ sentences are black

Race and Police Brutality, A UK context

Significant Cases

• Dalian Atkinson

• Jean Charles de Menezes

• Mark Duggan

• Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce 

• Chris Kaba

• Stephen Lawrence

• Yassar Yaqub

Stephen Lawrence

• Macpherson Report concluded that the Metropolitan Police was “institutionally racist.”

• This term does not mean that indivodual officers were racist (although it likely happened). Rather, it points to the police organisation as a whole.

• “The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes, and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.” Macpherson Report, 1999. p. 28(

Police Brutality & the Black Woman

• Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce - Died 28th September 1985

• Cynthia Jarrett - Died 5th October 1985

• Joy Gardner - Died 1st August 1993

• Kamyimsola Olatunjoye - Detained 9th May 2020

Lammy Review

• In January 2016, former prime minister David Cameron asked David Lammy to lead a review/report of the CJS in England and Wales, to investigate evidence of possible bias against black defendants and other ethnic minorities

• Theresa May (the then Prime Minister) said that: “If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the CJS than if you’re white.”

• In august 2016, the Prime Minister launched a government audit to tackle racial disparities in public service outcomes.

The Foundations of Critical Race Theory - A Critical Discussion

• The foundations of critical race theory are:

  • Racism is ordinary - “A permanent aspect of color’s experience’ -(Bell 1992, 1995)

  • Interests of convergence - “People of color’s interest in achieving racial equality advances only when those interests “converge” with the interests of those in power.” - (McCoy & Rodricks, 2015)

  • Social Constructionism - Race is a social construction/invention

  • Intersectionality - Identities are inseparable, identities are intertwined, forms of oppression exist which shape our lived experiences.

Revisionist History

• Is history presented accurately

• Consider counter-storytelling, one that focuses on minority/marginalised populations

• Storytelling that is more ‘objective’ and ‘accurate detailing racial oppression’ in the US.

• “Revisionist History is necessary in order to uncover the roots of systemic and institutional racism…” (Stauffer 2020, p. 453)

• To re-examine “America’s historical record, replacing comforting majoritarian interpretations of events with ones that square more accurately with minorities’ experiences” (Delgado & Stefancic 2001, p. 2)

Liberalism, A critique.

• The colour-blindness ideology posits that the most effective way to end discrimination is to treat individuals as equals. Without taking race, culture, ethnicity into consideration (Williams, 2011).

• Blind - “unable to see” or “to not be conscious of something or to refuse to notice something that is obvious to others”.

• The colour-blindness ideology a critique (see Blaisdell, 2021)

• It dismisses lived experiences

• Whilst suggesting that racism does not exist so long as we ‘ignore’ it and refuse to acknowledge it.

• The myth of colour-blindness (Asare, 2017)

Final Points

• Consider the main tenants of Critical Race Theory and the role of Activists/scholars/writers.

• To what extent is race a symbolic catgeory impacted by hierarchy of value

• How can systemic biases in policies impact the way people are viewed/treated

• There is ‘no such thing as an objective position in the leagal system’ how and why is this problematic 

• Is the colour blindness ideology beneficial for those who are oppressed or a tool for further oppression?

Seminar

• CRT was developed by scholars and activists (mainly African Americans that were pushing this)

• was created to challenge the power and authority that the white supremicists in the USA had.

• CRT is a theoretical frame, developed in the 80’s to help understand how structural and racial disparities endure in society and how this is then upheld in laws and social structures. Shows that racial gaps go further than mere individuals mistreating each other and how the laws are actually supporting racial disparities in society.

  • Raising knowledge of this in society helps to highlight how these disparities are upheld and what changes need to be made. It also highlights who is benefiting from these disparities and the economic roles this plays.

Questions:

1. What has been the imapct of CRT on criminology and criminal justice system

2. Historically, what do we know about the relationship between race, racism, crime and criminalisation

3. Whyat is the relevance of intersectionality to these debates?

4. Why are scholars, policy makers, state officers still ‘colour-blind’? Why si racism still denied? What are they afraid of?

5. To what extent does “Race Matter in Criminology”?

Using this lecture in an Essay

1⃣ Opening framing: knowledge, power, and criminology

Key claims / arguments

• Who produces knowledge shapes what questions are asked in criminology.

• Criminology is not neutral; it reflects the social positions of those who dominate the discipline.

• Dominant criminological theories marginalise race, class, and structural power.

Key theories or models

• Reflexive sociology

• Critical criminology

Key studies

• Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva (2008) – Knowledge production reflects racialised power relations.

• Leon (2021) – Whiteness shapes criminological inquiry and theory selection.

👉 Essay use:
Supports the claim that abandoning class (and race) weakens criminology’s explanatory power.

2⃣ CRT does NOT erase class (early clarification)

Key claims / arguments

• Critical Race Theory explicitly recognises class, gender, and disability alongside race.

• CRT is not a single-issue framework.

• Structural inequality is central to CRT analysis.

Key theories or models

• CRT as multi-structural framework

Key studies

• Lander & Gillborn (2020) – CRT does not treat racism as the only social problem.

👉 Essay use:
Crucial for your essay: CRT complements rather than replaces class analysis.

3⃣ Race as a social construction shaped by power

Key claims / arguments

• Race is a symbolic and social category, not a biological fact.

• Racial hierarchies are historically produced.

• Race is created and sustained within relations of power.

Key theories or models

• Social constructionism

• Race as symbolic category

Key studies

• Emirbayer & Desmond (2012) – Race is misrecognised as natural despite being socially constructed.

• Ladson-Billings (1998) – Racism is normalised and often invisible.

👉 Essay use:
Strengthens arguments that crime and justice are structurally produced, not natural outcomes.

4⃣ Racism as power + prejudice (structural framing)

Key claims / arguments

• Racism operates through institutions, policies, and opportunity structures.

• Individual prejudice alone cannot explain racial inequality.

• Bias is embedded in systems of governance.

Key theories or models

• Racism = prejudice + power

• Systemic racism

Key studies

• Operario & Fiske (1998) – Racism is a structural relation of power.

• Lawson (2020) – Power is central to understanding racism.

• Kendi (2019; 2023) – Policies, not attitudes, sustain racial inequality.

👉 Essay use:
Aligns strongly with class-based structural explanations of law and justice.

5⃣ Hierarchies of value and social worth

Key claims / arguments

• Society assigns differential value to groups.

• Privilege is accrued structurally, not individually.

• Hierarchies are internalised and reproduced.

Key theories or models

• Hierarchy of value

• White privilege

• Internalisation

Key studies

• Leonardo (2009) – Whiteness confers structural advantage.

• Williams (2020) – Microaggressions reflect broader systems of racism.

👉 Essay use:
Supports arguments that justice outcomes reflect social hierarchy, not equality before the law.

6⃣ Intersecting levels of power (very important)

Key claims / arguments

• Power operates simultaneously at:

  • institutional

  • interpersonal

  • individual levels

• These levels intersect and reinforce each other.

Key theories or models

• Multi-level power model

• Intersectionality (structural reading)

Key studies

• Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy (2020) – Power functions across intersecting levels.

👉 Essay use:
Allows you to argue that class is foundational, even when analysing race and identity.

7⃣ Foundations of Critical Race Theory

Key claims / arguments

• Racism is ordinary, not exceptional.

• Progress occurs only when it aligns with elite interests.

• Claims of legal neutrality are false.

Key theories or models

• CRT core tenets:

  • Racism is ordinary

  • Interest convergence

  • Social constructionism

  • Intersectionality

Key studies

• Bell (1992; 1995) – Racism is a permanent feature of society.

• McCoy & Rodricks (2015) – Interest convergence limits reform.

👉 Essay use:
Interest convergence pairs perfectly with class-based political economy arguments.

8⃣ CRT, criminology, and moral panics

Key claims / arguments

• Criminalisation produces racialised “folk devils.”

• Crime definitions shape public fear and justify control.

• Criminology often reproduces racial myths.

Key theories or models

• Moral panic theory

• State-media-crime nexus

Key studies

• Hall et al. (1978) – Policing crises are socially constructed.

• Delgado & Stefancic (1993; 2001; 2007) – Criminalisation reinforces racial hierarchy.

👉 Essay use:
Use to show how law and crime control serve power, not justice.

9⃣ Critique of “white criminology” (direct hit)

Key claims / arguments

• Dominant criminology avoids race and class explanations.

• Individualised theories replace structural critique.

• This leads to theoretical stagnation.

Key theories or models

• Critique of positivist criminology

• Structural omission thesis

Key studies

• Leon (2021) – White criminology cycles through individual explanations.

• Ward (2015) – Criminology historically failed to “see” race as social control.

👉 Essay use:
This directly supports the essay claim that the death of class analysis is the death of criminology.

🔟 Race, colonialism, and the origins of justice systems

Key claims / arguments

• Law and justice were tools of colonial domination.

• “Rule of law” legitimated extreme violence.

• Criminal justice systems emerged alongside capitalism and empire.

Key theories or models

• Colonial criminology

• Law as instrument of domination

Key studies

• Moore (2016) – Criminal justice institutions were built for inequality.

• Gilmore (2000) – Mass incarceration mediated labour relations after slavery.

👉 Essay use:
This is core evidence linking class, race, capitalism, and law.

1⃣1⃣ Contemporary outcomes: incarceration & policing

Key claims / arguments

• Racialised incarceration reflects historical and economic inequality.

• Policing reproduces structural disadvantage.

• Reform without structural change fails.

Key theories or models

• Institutional racism

• Carceral state

Key studies

• The Color of Justice (2021) – Racial disproportionality in US prisons.

• Macpherson Report (1999) – Institutional racism in UK policing.

• Elliott-Cooper (2021) – Resistance exposes state power.

👉 Essay use:
Strong empirical support for structural injustice, not individual bias.

1⃣2⃣ Colour-blindness as ideological failure (closing critique)

Key claims / arguments

• Colour-blind ideology denies lived experience.

• Neutrality reproduces inequality.

• Ignoring race and class sustains oppression.

Key theories or models

• Colour-blind racism

• Liberal legalism critique

Key studies

• Bonilla-Silva (2010) – Colour-blindness perpetuates racial inequality.

• Blaisdell (2006) – Neutrality obscures power.

• Asare (2017) – Colour-blindness is a myth.

👉 Essay use:
Perfect for arguing that abandoning class (and race) leads to false neutrality.