Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Race and Crime: Geographies of Injustice examines how and why racialized mass incarceration emerged as the newest racial management strategy in the U.S. and its impact on criminal justice institutions. Few books examine just how this came to be and even fewer take race as anything more than just a series of outcomes in the system. Using a macrostructural perspective, students will contextualize issues of race and crime in society today by being introduced to the history of colonial conquest and the emergence of the idea of race. They then consider how this idea transforms throughout history and impacts the creation of state power, the emergence of new state institutions, and geographies of racial segregation.
Topics include:
- how "coloniality" explains the practices that reproduce racial hierarchies today
- how geography plays a critical and necessary role in the continuation of mass incarceration and how ideas of space and place are critical forces within practices of racialization
- the emergence of the logics of crime control, the war on drugs, the redefinition of federal law enforcement, and the reallocation of state resources towards prison building, policing, and incarceration
- the role of courts in continuing the colonial order through practices of public defense, inadequate counsel, and tactics of spatial governmentality
Through
Race and Crime, students will understand how contemporary everyday practices of surveillance are employed in and through police, courts, and punishment, and how it shapes the geographical expression of injustice in the U.S. today.
Synopsis
Criminal justice practices such as policing and imprisonment are integral to creating racialized experience in U.S. society. Race as an important category of difference, however, did not arise with the criminal justice system but rather with the advent of European colonial conquest and the birth of the U.S. state.
Race and Crime examines how race became a defining feature of the system and why mass incarceration emerged as a new racial management strategy. This book reviews the history of race and criminology and explores the impact of racist colonial legacies on the organization of criminal justice institutions. Using a macrostructural perspective, students will learn to contextualize issues of race, crime, and criminal justice.
Topics include:
- How "coloniality" explains the practices that reproduce racial hierarchies
- The birth of social science and social programs from the legacies of racial science
- The defining role of geography and geographical conquest in the continuation of mass incarceration
- The emergence of the logics of crime control, the war on drugs, the redefinition of federal law enforcement, and the reallocation of state resources toward prison building, policing, and incarceration
- How policing, courts, and punishment perpetuate the colonial order through their institutional structures and everyday practices
Race and Crime will help students understand how everyday practices of punishment and surveillance are employed in and through the police, courts, and community to create and shape the geographies of injustice in the United States today.