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THE COLOUR OF CRIME;
POLICING “RACE”
© Dr. Francis Adu-Febiri, 2015
Presentation Contents
Introduction: Racial Risk & Racial Profiling
 Stories of Policing Race
 Consequences of Policing Race
 Sociological Claims of Policing Race
 Major Concepts of Race and Ethnic
Relations
 Theoretical Perspectives

Introduction: RACIAL RISK

“Racial Risk” is the particular
constellation of dangers associated with
being in a racialized group in society
(Adu-Febiri 2014).
Introduction: RACIAL RISK

According to a recent study of more than 1
million online daters in the US, white
people, for the most part, are likely to
receive messages from daters outside their
racial group, but white women in particular
tend to respond only to messages from
white men. Black daters, especially women,
tend to be ignored when they contact daters
from other racial groups. Lavalife, a
Toronto based dating site, conducted a poll
on race that produced similar findings (Lin
& Lundquist 2013, Tepperman 2015).
RACIAL RISK is High for People of Colour
than “Whitened” people
Labour Market:
Employment & Income
Educational
Access: Attainment
School Segregation
Criminal
Justice System
DISCRIMINATION
Residential
Segregation
Health Care System
Credit Markets
Housing:
Mortgage Market
Source: Reskin 2012, cited in Tepperman 2015, p. 266
Racial Profiling in the Criminal Justice System




“Racializing Crime While Criminalizing
Minorities”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAkDHu
imJRc
Racial profiling is the police targeting
physical appearance (usually non-whitened
bodies) rather than behavior of designated
groups in dealing with crime and potential
crime (David Tanovic. 2006. The Culture of
Justice: The Policing of Race).
http://www.upworthy.com/meet-the-17-yearold-who-blew-the-lid-off-racial-profilingwith-his-ipod
Racial Profiling in the Criminal Justice System

“BLACK AND TARGETED” (CNN,
November 17, 2014)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:
 STORIES
OF POLICING RACE
STRORIES OF POLICING RACE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7NvU
OUSKvU&feature=related
STRORIES OF POLICING RACE

In the USA and Canada compared to their
proportion of the population, “blacks” are
10 times more likely than “whites” to be
shot [or beaten up] at by the police (Wortley
2005)
STRORIES OF POLICING RACE

Using the evidence at the level of policing
in minority communities, the police have
been criticized for underpolicing (i.e., slow
response rates), for overpolicing (i.e.,
excessive and unnecessary coverage), and
for mispolicing (i.e., prejudicial and
discriminatory enforcement) (Holdaway
1996, Fridel eta al 2001, CRRF 2003,
MacDonald 2003, Tanovich 2006).
STRORIES OF POLICING RACE

Not surprisingly, according to the Manitoba
Human Rights Commission, both Black and
Aboriginal youth accuse the police of racist
and abusive treatment despite initiatives to
repair the breach (Friesen 2007).
STRORIES OF POLICING RACE

Latinos in the Lower Mainland feel they are
frequently stopped by the police when
driving, walking on the streets, and waiting
for public transit (Riano-Alcala 1999: 15).
STRORIES OF POLICING RACE

The consequences of this interactional
breakdown have had the effect of
racializing crime while criminalizing
minorities (Henry and Tator 2006).

CONSEQUENCES OF POLICING
RACE
NON-WHITE SKIN AND
CRIME IN CANADA

Because the police tend to police race
(Henry et al 2000, p. 302),
 There
is “disproportionate number of people
of colour in the court and prison system”
(Henry et al, 2000: 178).
 This social construction of crime contributes
to the fact that, in Canada “the image of
crime is dark” skin (Mann and Zatz 1998:
130-133)
Blacks in the Canada’s Justice System
% of Population
% of Federal Jails
2.5%
9.12%
% of Federal Jails
in Ontario
20.0%
Crawford, Alison, 2011, CBC News,
December 2011
 (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/20
11/12/14/crawford-black-prison.html)

Aboriginals in Canada’s
Justice System
% of Population
% of Provincial
Prisoner
Population
% of Federal
Prisoner
Population
5.4%
21%
18.5%
Source: Statistics Canada, 2006
Correctional Service Canada, 2006
ABORIGINALS IN
PROVINCIAL PRISONS
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Alberta
BC
% of Population
% of Prisoner
Population
14.9%
14.5%
5.8%
4.8%
80%
71%
39%
79%
Statistics Canada, 2006

SOCIOLOGICAL CLAIMS OF
POLICING RACE
Policing Race falls into the “PATTERNS OF
DOMINANT GROUPS’ INTERACTION WITH
MINORITY GROUPS” (Ravelli 2013, pp. 247- 253)
PATTERNS: Racialized groups are targeted
for:
 1. Genocide
 2. Expulsion
 3. Segregation & Separation
 4. Assimilation
 5. Multiculturalism
 6. Criminalization

 These
are mechanisms used to exclude, marginalize
or control racialized peoples (minorities).
THE CENTRALITY OF THE BODY IN
RACIALIZED STRATIFICATION

“…the body is central to race, gender, and
sexuality, but not so central to class and
ethnicity” (K. Anthony Appiah 2014, p. 432
in James Fearganis 2014. Readings in
Social Theory)
THE CENTRALITY OF THE BODY AS
IMAGE IN RACIALIZED STRATIFICATION

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM4Xe
6Dlp0Y
THE WHY & HOW OF RACIALIZATION
OF CRIME
1. Criminalized activities
as a major means of
survival for minorities. 2.
Overpolicing and
mispolicing of racialized
minorities
SOCIAL
STRATIFICATION
POLICE
MEDIA
“Racialization of crime is developed primarily by
the police but communicated and perpetuated by
the Canadian media” (Henry et al, 2000:
302).
CRIMINALS
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
Sociological Imagination: RACE/ETHNICITY
MATTERS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE
RACIALIZATION
“RACE”,
ETHNICITY,
MINORITY
UNEQUAL
SOCIO-ECONOMIC
STATUS & LIFE CHNACES
OF MINORITIES
RACISM
RACIAL
INJUSTICES
STRATIFIED
“RACES”
RACISTS,CRIME,
CRIMINALIZATION
& RACIAL CONFLICT
Changes
in “Race”
Relations

MAJOR CONCEPTS OF
RACE/ETHNIC RELATIONS
MAJOR CONCEPTS











Racialization
Racialism
Racialized Groups
Racial Groups
Race
Ethnicity
Racism
Racist
Racism and Racists
Visible Minority
Racialized Minority
 All these are representations of realities that are
SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED
Socially Constructed

When sociologists say something is
“socially constructed” they mean:
 The
characteristics deemed relevant to the
definitions of that thing is based on societal
values (Gallagher 2007, p. 2).

In this context, Race and Ethnicity are
social products based on cultural values, not
scientific facts (Gallagher 2007, p. 2.).
Socially Constructed

Race and Ethnicity are socially constructed
and used to produce and reproduce
racialization, racialism, racism, racists, and
minorities
1. RACIALIZATION
Simple Definition:
 The process of using the natural variation in
human skin color as a way to sort people
into groups, putting them in a hierarchy,
and justifying exploitation based on skin
color (Gallagher 2007, p. 5)

1. RACIALIZATION



Technical Definition:
A process of constructing people into inferior
or superior racial categories that block/limit or
facilitate their access to valued societal
resources (property, power, prestige, and
privilege).
The results or products of this social construction process are
 “RACE”
 ETHNICITY
 MINORITY
 RACISM
 RACISTS
 CRIMINALIZATION OF RACIALIZED GROUPS
2. RACIALISM

Differentiation or categorization of people
according to their race or ethnicity
(Tepperman portrays this process also as
racialization: 2015, p. 248)
3. RACIALIZED GROUPS

According to Majority Scholars’ perspective: Racialized groups are
people collectively constructed into superior and inferior racial categories
based on their phenotypes and/or genotypes:
“White”
 2nd: “Yellow”
 3rd: “Brown”
 4th: “Red”
 5th: “Black”
 1st:


“Mixed” usually ranked as part of the inferior groups
According to Minority Scholars’ perspective: Racialized groups are
people collectively constructed into inferior or devalued racial categories.
Sociologists call this RACIALIZED MINORITIES, an equivalent concept
is Statistics Canada’s MINORITIES:

Visible Minorities and Invisible Minorities
Non-whitened
groups of people.
4. RACIAL GROUPS

People grouped into categories based on
their phenotypes and/or genotypes, but not
rank-ordered into superior or inferior.
Negroid
Caucasoid
Americanus
Mongoloid
5. RACE

As Phil Bartle (2005) insightfully
concludes,
genetics cannot be used to determine
racial categories because there are no
genetic boundaries between what we
call “races”
5. RACE
RACE AND THE BODY:
 Although “race” is not a biological/genetic
phenomenon, the BODY is central to race,
in that “race” is ascribed to the body and the
body is made the focus of racial
identification (K. Anthony Appiah 2014, p.
432).

5. RACE

A FOCUS ON OUTSIDE THE BODY

From a sociological perspective, ‘RACE’, like culture,
is socially constructed and learned.
This perspective is well captured by Charles Cooley’s
Looking-Glass-Self Thesis or what is conventionally
referred to as Self-fulfilling Prophesy:


When people are defined as a ‘race’ and given
a role related to the ‘race’ by others, they
acquire a group identity and become oppressed
or privileged, and then use the idiom of ‘race’
in relation to themselves, their identities and
grievances (Miles and Brown 2003: 6).
6. RACISM

RACISM AS IDEOLOGY
 Beliefs,
doctrines, and theories that
suggest that human population groups
constitute races, and that some human
populations groups are biologically
superior or inferior to others (Miles
and Brown 2003: 51).
 OLD RACISM: Based on the BODY
6. RACISM


PREJUDICE, STEREOTYPE &
DISCRIMINATION
Specifically, RACISM is prejudice, stereotype
and/or discrimination constructed by a
dominant group around superficial physical
characteristics such as skin color perceived as
inferior in the context of human phenotypic
diversity with the objective to prevent
racialized minority from having access to
socially defined valued resources (Naiman
2000).
6. RACISM

DISCRIMINATION is “Treating someone
differently or unfairly because of a personal
characteristic or distinction, which, whether
intentional or not, has an effect of imposing
disadvantages not imposed on others or which
withholds or limits access to opportunities,
benefits and advantages available to other
individuals or classes of individuals in society”
(Courtesy Public Services Alliance of Canada
and Treasury Board Secretariat, January
2004).
7. RACIST



Since racism, like any “ism”, applies to acts of discrimination that
occur at the collective level (or when it occurs at the individual
level, are consistent with institutional patterns of discrimination)
and works in favour of dominant group members and against
minority groups (McIntyre 2006: 232), a racist could only be:
A person from a dominant group. That is, a person from a racialized
minority group could not be racist (against dominant group members),
but rather is a target of racism.
Therefore, reversed racism, as indicated in the statement below, is a
contradiction in terms:
 While we don’t notice systematic unfairness, we do observe
specific efforts to redress it — such as affirmative action, which
often strikes white men as profoundly unjust. Thus a majority of
white Americans surveyed in a 2011 study said that there is now
more racism against whites than against blacks (Nicholas Kristof,
Feb. 21, 2015).
.

(http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-straight-
8. RACISM and RACISTS

None of these examples (of systematic unfairness to
racialized people and females) mean exactly that society is
full of hard-core racists and misogynists. Eduardo BonillaSilva, a Duke University sociologist, aptly calls the present
situation “Racism without Racists” [racism without
racists]; it could equally be called “misogyny without
misogynists.” Of course, there are die-hard racists and
misogynists out there, but the bigger problem seems to be
well-meaning people who believe in equal rights yet make
decisions that inadvertently transmit both racism and
sexism (Nicholas Kristof, Feb. 21, 2015).

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristofstraight-talk-for-white-men.html?referrer&_r=1
9. ETHNICITY:
“New Racism”.

Like “Race”, Ethnicity is socially constructed, but the BODY is not
supposed so central to ethnicity:

It is a social phenomenon that represents a group
of people with a common identity based on
ancestry, nationality and/or culture (particularly
language, customs and religion).
However, because of the unnecessary conflation
of ancestry and culture, the BODY has been very
central to ethnicity too.
NEW RACISM: Based on CULTURE



THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
“RACE”, RACISM AND CRIME IN
CANADA: Theoretical Perspectives







FUNCTIONALIST PARADIGM: Homeostasis
Racialization of crime in Canada is functional
because it contributes to social cohesion and
stability:
Function #1: Contributes to job creation
Function #2: Rationalizes and facilitates assimilation
Function #3: Reinforces social solidarity in dominant
group
Function #4: Makes resources and opportunities
available to dominant group members
Function #5: Makes it difficult for minorities to successfully
challenge existing social conventions of the dominant group
“RACE”, RACISM AND CRIME IN
CANADA: Theoretical Perspectives

SOCIAL CONFLICT PARADIGM:
Competition and Power Inequality

Capitalist societies such as Canada create competition
for resources that results in the upper/middle Class
people having the economic and political power to
shape laws and criminal justice system that make the
police and the media process lower class people
(proportional majority of racialized minorities happen
to be in this class) as criminals to eliminate them from
the competition for resources.
“RACE”, RACISM AND CRIME IN
CANADA: Theoretical Perspectives
INTERACTIONIST PARADIGM:
Human Agency & Definition of crime:
 The police and the media subjectively
define and label minorities as
deviants/criminals and some of the
minorities define this label positively,
interact with it as such and internalize the
criminal label to become criminals—Selffulfilling prophesy!

“RACE”, RACISM AND CRIME IN
CANADA: Theoretical Perspectives

FEMINIST PARADIGM: Western Patriarchy

Feminization of Race:

The perception of non-white groups as “a feminine
race” or possessing “feminine racial characteristics”
(Pon 1996:50), and the fact that racism and gender
have the same root--socially constructed “natural
inferiority of minorities and women” (Allahar 1995:
186).

Feminization & Racialization of Poverty:

Sexism leads to inequality and oppression that render
women poor, and racist globalization aggravates this
poverty for racialized minority women. Some of these
impoverished racialized women resort to crime to
survive.
“RACE”, RACISM AND CRIME IN
CANADA: Theoretical Perspectives


Illustration #1: Aboriginal women make up over 20%
of Canada's female prison population, but only 2% of
the female population of Canada.
Illustration #2: “To become more competitive in
the global economy, countries cut social
services. For poor white women, women of colour
and Aboriginal women this can make criminalized
activities the only way to survive,” says Dr.
Sudbury.
CONCLUSION

[Racial] discrimination and prejudice remain
problematic in many Western societies, where
the majority of people claim to support the idea
of ethno-racial equality, and legislation that
would bring about that goal. Nonetheless,
research continues to find that ethno-racial
inequality is still evident in virtually all
societies—especially in the areas of
employment, housing, wealth, health, and
criminal justice (Tepperman 2015, p. 276).
 SAMPLE
FINAL EXAM
QUESTION:

The arrests and imprisonment of Blacks,
Aboriginals and Latinos is at rates above
Canadian average. What do you think is
the cause of this pattern and what
solution do you suggest to this problem?
Which of the criminological theories and
their corresponding sociological
paradigms would agree with your answer
and why?
REFERENCES
Aylward, Carol A. (1999). Canadian
Critical Race Theory: Racism and the Law.
Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
 Deroche, C. and John Deroche. (1991).
“Black and White: Racial Construction in
Television Police Drama”. Canadian Ethnic
Studies. 23(3): 69-91.

REFERENCES




Fleras, A. and Jean L. Elliott. (2010). Unequal Relations:
An Introduction to Race, Ethnic and Aboriginal Dynamics
in Canada. Scarborough: Prentice-Hall.
Gallagher, Charles A (ed.). 2007. Rethinking the Color
Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity. Third Edition.
Boston: McGraw Hill
Henry, F. (1994). The Caribbean Diaspora in Canada.
Toronto: U of Toronto Press.
Henry, F. (Forthcoming). The Racialization of Crime by
the Print Media. Toronto: School of Journalism, Ryerson
Polytechnic University.
REFERENCES



Henry, F., Carol Tator, Winston Mattis and Tim Rees.
(2000). The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian
Society. Second Edition. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.
James, Carl E. (1998). “‘Up to no Good’, Black on the
Streets and Encountering Police”. In Vic Satzewich (ed.).
Racism and Social Inequality in Canada: Concepts,
Controversies & Strategies for Resistance. Toronto: TEP.
Kristof, Nicholas, (2015). “Straight Talk for White Men”,
New York Times, February 21, 2015. The Opinion
Column.
REFERENCES






Li, Peter S. (ed.). (1999). Race and Ethnic Relations in Canada. Second
Edition. Don Mills: Oxford University Press.
Lin, Ken-Hou & Jennifer Lundquist. 2013. “Mate Selection in Cyberspace:
The Interaction of Race, Gender and Education”. American Journal of
Sociology 119, 1, 183-215.
McIntyre, Lisa. (2006). The Practical Skeptic: Core Concepts in Sociology,
Third Edition. Boston: McGraw Hill.
Mosher, C.L. (1998). Discrimination and Denial: Systemic Racism in
Ontario’s Legal and Criminal Justice Systems, 1892-1961. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press.
Tepperman, Lorne. 2015. Starting Points: A Sociological Journey. Second
Edition. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.
Thomas, Jennifer. 2000. “Adult Correctional Services in Canada 1989-99.”
Juristat. June 2000, pp. 1-16.
REFERENCES

Riano-Alcala, Pilar. (1999). The Impact of
the “Drug-War” on the Latin American
Community of Vancouver. Final Report.
Vancouver: Social Planning, City of
Vancouver, and the Latin American
Community Council (LACC).