A Theory of African American Offending

Race, Racism, and Crime

James D. Unnever, Shaun L. Gabbidon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136809200
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Criminologia

A little more than a century ago, the famous social scientist W.E.B. Du Bois asserted that a true understanding of African American offending must be grounded in the "real conditions" of what it means to be black living in a racial stratified society. Today and according to official statistics, African American men – about six percent of the population of the United States – account for nearly sixty percent of the robbery arrests in the United States. To the authors of this book, this and many other glaring racial disparities in offending centered on African Americans is clearly related to their unique history and to their past and present racial subordination. Inexplicably, however, no criminological theory exists that fully articulates the nuances of the African American experience and how they relate to their offending. In readable fashion for undergraduate students, the general public, and criminologists alike, this book for the first time presents the foundations for the development of an African American theory of offending.

1

AFRICAN AMERICAN OFFENDING

Introduction

In this book, we present a theory of African American offending. Our basic assumption is that a theory of African American offending must be derived from the lived experiences of blacks as they negotiate living within a conflicted racially stratified society. We further assume that the past and present lived experiences of African Americans have created a shared worldview that is unlike those that inform whites or other minorities. Put most simply, this book presents a theory of offending grounded in the lived experiences of African Americans that enriches our understanding of why, for example, approximately 6 percent of the United States population—black men—account for 56 percent of the official arrests for robbery.¹

African Americans and the Criminal Justice System

For more than a century, there has been concern about the nature and extent of crime in the African American community (Du Bois, 1898). This concern has generated numerous media stories, community and state-level commissions/panels, and various grassroots efforts to ameliorate the problem. Despite these notable efforts, recent figures from a variety of data sources paint a grim portrait of the state of crime and victimization in the African American community. For example, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) annually provides figures on the leading causes of death among Americans. Disturbingly, these data show that homicide is a leading cause of death among young African Americans (Heron, 2010). Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) also point to the acute victimization trends among African Americans. In 2008, African Americans experienced higher rates of victimization than whites for every violent crime measured by the NCVS, except simple assault. In addition, the NCVS data reveal that African Americans had higher rates of overall violence than other minorities, including Hispanics (Rand, 2009).

Arrest statistics tallied by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) program and reported in their annual Crime in the United States publication provide another barometer of the offending levels among African Americans. We present these statistics with caution, recognizing that they reflect possible racial bias in laws and the arrest patterns of the police (Donzinger, 1996; Miller, 1997; Russell-Brown, 2009; Schlesinger, 2011; Tonry, 1995).² Nonetheless, these statistics reveal that African Americans account for 28 percent of all arrests, yet, blacks make up only 13 percent of the American population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009; Crime in the United States, 2008). Even more striking, blacks were over-represented in every UCR arrest category (there are 29) except driving under the influence (Crime in the United States, 2008). The most alarming numbers are for arrests for robbery and homicide. In 2008, blacks represented 56.7 percent of those arrested for robbery and 50.1 percent of those arrested for murder and non-negligent manslaughter (Crime in the United States, 2008). Thus, these data indicate that African Americans are four times more likely to be arrested for murder and robbery than they should be based on their proportion of the U.S. population. But these data do not paint the true picture of violent crime. Both robbery and homicide are overwhelmingly committed by men. Therefore, the data reveal that 6 percent of the population—black men—are arrested for approximately half of the robberies and homicides committed each year in the U.S.

While some scholars have made a strong argument against using UCR data to estimate rates of offending (see Young, 1994)—especially since stereotypes that pathologize African Americans might emerge from such an analysis (Young, 2006; Russell-Brown, 2009)—the fact remains that, by any metric used, African Americans are disproportionately more likely to engage in street-related crimes, especially violent crimes. Alarmingly, this quagmire of over-representation extends to black youth. Here, the picture is even bleaker, although black youth are 16 percent of the youth population ages 10–17, in 2008 they accounted for 52 percent of the juvenile violent crime index arrests and 33 percent of the juvenile property crime index arrests. Moreover, statistics reveal that blacks accounted for 58.5 percent of the youth-related arrests for homicide and 67 percent of the arrests for robbery (Puzzanchera, 2009). This over-representation continues across all UCR offense arrest categories except three (i.e., driving under the influence, liquor laws, and drunkenness).³ The problem, however, is not limited to black men or African American youth; it also extends to black women. For example, black women represent approximately 7 percent of the United States population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009; Crime in the United States, 2008), yet, in 2008, they were arrested for approximately 40 percent of the homicides committed by women.

These racial disparities are reflected throughout the criminal justice system. Incarceration figures for 2008 show that there were more than 1.4 million inmates in state and federal prisons. Of these, 528,200, or 37 percent, were black. The gender split reveals that black males represented 37 percent of the male inmates and African American women were 52 percent of the female inmates. These figures translate into pronounced imprisonment rates among African Americans. For example, the incarceration rate was six and a half times higher for 28 black males than white males (3,161 per 100,000 residents versus 487 per 100,000). Though the incarceration rate for black females was lower than that of African American men, it was still nearly three times higher than the rate for white women (Sabol, West, and Cooper, 2009).

Given these indisputable racial disparities, we are perplexed why so few scholars have devoted time to pursuing theoretical formulations exclusively devoted to African American offending (Hawkins, 1990, 1995). We are not alone. Scholars for the last 20 years have been calling for a “black criminology” that centers the explanation of African American offending in their unique lived experiences—similar to how feminist criminologists center their explanation of female offending in the unique lived experiences of women in a gender stratified society (Belknap, 2007; Chesney-Lind and Pasko, 2004; Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988). Until now, this clarion call has largely fallen on deaf ears. It is our contention that, because of their unique American experience, there are salient reasons why African Americans offend that are not shared by whites and other minority groups (e.g., Hispanics, Asians). Below, we discuss why a theory of African American offending is warranted and then review how prevailing general theories of crime attempt to explain black offending.

The Uniqueness of Being Black in America: The
Need for a Black Criminology

The African American Heritage

Blacks in America have had and continue to have unique lived experiences that are not shared by whites or by other minorities. After being forcefully brought to the United States, they suffered through chattel slavery for more than 200 years (Franklin and Higginbotham, 2010). The brutal slave system was followed by a Jim Crow system—based on white supremacy—that reduced blacks to second class citizens. Faced with pervasive systemic discrimination that was legally condoned, blacks were largely restricted to a segregated existence in American society. This unprecedented isolated and segregated existence continues to this day despite extensive civil rights victories including the landmark 1954 Brown decision.

Scholars have documented the painful specifics of the inimitable peerless racial oppression of African Americans within the U.S.⁴ King (1997), for example, states the obvious; that is, no other racial or ethnic group (i.e., whites, Hispanics) experienced centuries of being brutally forcefully enslaved. Treated no better than and often times worse than farm animals, black slaves were only valued for their potential to increase the wealth of whites. The torturous treatment of black male slaves is also unparalleled. This included “unmerciful beatings, lynchings, and the mutilation of various body parts, particularly the male genitalia, were all routine disciplinary measures used to punish enslaved African males” (King, 1997:83). Black females, too, were also targeted for brutal treatment. Their treatment, however, came not only in the form of beatings and mutilations but also in the form of repeated rapes by white masters who did not view such acts as criminal since slaves were considered property not citizens (Russell-Brown, 2009).

The brutal and violent subordination of African Americans continued after the abolition of slavery.⁵ The Reconstruction period saw resentful whites brutalizing African Americans through collective acts of domestic terrorism that resulted in countless deaths—lynchings—in the late 1800s (e.g., carried out by white terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan) (Gabbidon and Greene, 2009). Most notably, from the very beginning law enforcement officials were either directly involved in or turned a blind eye to these terrorist activities carried out against innocent African Americans (King, 1997). The first half of the 20th century proved to be no different than previous centuries with police brutality against blacks remaining commonplace and the use of capital punishment in rape cases being almost exclusively reserved for blacks who were alleged to have raped white women.⁶ In short, the criminal justice system has a long documented history of being violently involved in the racial oppression of blacks.

The brutal oppression of African Americans was not limited to the south—that is, states that legally condoned slavery and enacted Jim Crow laws. African Americans encountered vile overt racial hatred that was systemic as they fled the Jim Crow south and migrated north “to the promised land.” Northern whites responded to the “great migration” of blacks in the early 19th century with their own brand of white collective terrorism. Illustrative of this trend was the murder of more than 500 African Americans by whites during “riots” that occurred from 1915 to 1919 (King, 1997). The data show that this unprecedented level of violence laid the groundwork for what scholars now refer to as “American apartheid” (Massey, 1990). That is, “residential segregation is the institutional apparatus that supports other racially discriminatory processes and binds them together into a coherent and uniquely effective system of racial subordination” (Massey and Denton, 1993:8). We argue that the foundation for the continued racial subordination of African Americans—American apartheid—is the inimitable dislike that whites have toward African Americans. The data show that Americans hierarchically rank their preferences among minorities. They rank blacks as the least attractive minority they want as a neighbor (Charles, 2001, 2003; Sharkey, 2008).

This isolated concentration of African Americans into the most disadvantaged neighborhoods resulted in urban unrests—“race riots”—throughout the U.S. during the 1960s. As a result, African Americans witnessed the National Guard patrolling their neighborhoods, often with armed vehicles. A federal study of these urban unrests—the Kerner Commission—concluded that America was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal” (Kerner, 1968). Notably, the urban unrests resulted in the passage of major civil reforms specifically designed to ameliorate the multifaceted forms of discrimination that African Americans encounter, such as the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Despite these gains, the data indicate that severe racial segregation and its concomitant problems continue to disproportionately impact African Americans (Charles, 2001, 2003; Massey, 2005). A result of this continued racial subordination is the persistence of urban unrests as evidenced by the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest, the 2001 Cincinnati urban disorder, and the 2010 Oakland, CA unrest (see also Hacker, 2003). Consistent with the prior unrests, these urban disruptions were triggered by perceived criminal justice injustices—in LA the acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers who were accused of the beating of the African American motorist, Rodney King, in Cincinnati the fatal shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old black male—Timothy Thomas—by a white police officer during an on-foot pursuit, and in Oakland the sentencing of a white transit police officer for involuntary manslaughter for the murder of an unarmed 22-year-old African American male—Oscar Grant.

This unprecedented level of persistent racial subordination has caused African Americans to have a cultural heritage and unique lived experiences that are not shared by any other racial or ethnic group within the U.S. That is, while other racial and ethnic minorities have encountered some racial or ethnic barriers along the way, no group has endured the same experiences as African Americans. For example, Irish Americans were despised when they arrived in America. More specifically, the Irish were viewed negatively, including the stereotypes that they were dirty, stupid, and drunks (Feagin and Feagin, 2008). They were also subjected to considerable religious persecution because of their adherence to Catholicism. But, as noted by Hawkins (1990:158): “After being the target of religious and ethnic prejudice for many decades and being regarded as prone to criminality, they are now said to be model Americans.” In addition, research indicates that a significant proportion of the disadvantages some Latinos encounter (e.g., Puerto Ricans) is “clearly attributable to the persistence of a black racial identity among them” (Massey, 1990:354). Together, these studies highlight two salient issues. First, even though other groups (e.g., Irish Americans) were intensely despised, they were never enslaved, legally subordinated by Jim Crow laws, or persistently segregated in poor isolated neighborhoods. Second, the importance of skin color cannot be underestimated (Silberman, 1978). Having a light skin tone—white—and its corollary—a white racial identity—has advantages (Burton, Bonilla-Silva, Ray, Buckelew, and Freeman, 2010; Dixon and Maddox, 2005; Eberhardt, Davies, Purdie-Vaughns, and Johnson, 2006; Eberhardt, Goff, Purdie, and Davies, 2004; Keith and Herring, 1991; Williams, 2003).

A Black Criminology

We argue that any theory aimed at explaining criminal offending among African Americans must foundationally acknowledge that blacks share a unique worldview that has been shaped by their incomparable racial subordination; that is, their inimitable experiences with subtle and profound racial injustices. Our argument builds on the work of black criminologists who have long stated the need for a distinctive theory and body of research that is centered on African American offending. Among the first black scholars to identify the need for such a body of work was W.E.B. Du Bois. In the late 1890s, Du Bois (1898:16) took stock of the social science research that had been done on blacks and wrote, “it is extremely doubtful if any satisfactory study of Negro crime and lynching can be made for a generation or more, in the present condition of the public mind, which renders it almost impossible to get at the facts and real conditions.” In short, Du Bois argued that a true theory of African American offending will only be realized when the science of criminology elevates itself above the limiting constraints of racist beliefs and practices and examines the “real conditions” related to their offending.

Du Bois offered guidance as to what real conditions are specifically related to African American offending (Du Bois, 1899a, 1901; Du Bois and Dill, 1913; Hawkins, 1995; Gabbidon, 2007). One of Du Bois’s more complete articulations on African American offending was published in his well-known publication, The Philadelphia Negro (1899b). This work is significant for two reasons. First, it represents, in our view, one of the earliest scholarly works that could be considered as “doing black criminology.” Second, it also represents one of the earliest works that relates African American offending to their racial subordination. More specifically, Du Bois recognized that racial discrimination was a chief cause of African American offending. In fact, while he readily acknowledged that all African American offending in Philadelphia could not be attributed to race discrimination, Du Bois (1899b:351) writes that: “Certainly a great amount of crime can be without doubt traced to the discrimination against Negro boys and girls in the matter of employment.” But Du Bois (1899b:351) also recognized the complexity of the relationship between racial discrimination and offending by stating that:

The connection of crime and prejudice is, on the other hand, neither simple nor direct. The boy who is refused promotion in his job as a porter does not go out and snatch somebody’s pocketbook. Conversely, the loafers … and the thugs in the county prison are not usually graduates of high schools who have been refused work. The connections are much more subtle and dangerous; it is the atmosphere of rebellion and discontent that unrewarded merit and reasonable but unsatisfied ambition make.

Du Bois’s criminological work began an important dialogue on the salient and nuanced ways that racial discrimination is related to African American offending. His sophisticated insights recognize that there are multiple pathways through which racial subordination can impact African American offending, including the negative emotions of anger and defiance that flow from experiencing racial injustices.

Unfortunately and inexplicably, it was not until the 1990s that another scholar finally responded to Du Bois’s clarion call for an unveiling of the “real conditions” related to African American offending. In 1992, Russell declared that “the discipline of criminology has failed to provide a well-developed, vibrant and cohesive subfield that seeks to explain crime committed by blacks,” that is, scholars have failed to develop a “black criminology” (Russell, 1992:667). She argues that a holistic approach to explaining crime committed by African Americans has been ignored systematically by the discipline (Russell, 1992:679). She further asserts that this omission—that is, the absence of a black criminology—has placed the discipline of criminology in a “theoretical time warp” (Russell, 1992:675). Russell contends that a focus of black criminology should be on how African Americans have been treated in America and how they have internalized this treatment and, we add, how they externalize perceiving racial injustices. As part of this effort, she contends that researchers should develop, operationalize, and test perceived and objective measures of “racism” (Russell, 1992:673). She concludes that “the development of a black criminology would serve a function comparable to the development of feminist criminology: It would provide a framework for developing and testing new theories. The call for a black criminology is a call for criminologists to expand their theorizing and testing of the causes of crime committed by blacks” (Russell, 1992:681).

Subsequently, other scholars have recognized the poverty of criminology as it has failed to develop a black criminology that is grounded in their unique lived experiences (Onwudiwe and Lynch, 2000; Penn, 2003) or, in the British context, a more expansive approach that considers “minority perspectives” (Phillips and Bowling, 2003). Indeed, Noble (2006) calls much of the existing mainstream scholarly literature on race and crime “superficial.” He argues that the “general theories of crime” (which have been developed only by white men) fail to or only superficially acknowledge that African American offending is inextricably related to and grounded in their resistance to racial subordination. Noble (2006:9) concludes that a theor...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TITLE
• COPYRIGHT
• DEDICATION
• BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• 1. AFRICAN AMERICAN OFFENDING
• 2. AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WORLDVIEW
• 3. PERCEPTIONS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE INJUSTICES AND AFRICAN AMERICAN OFFENDING
• 4. RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES, STEREOTYPE THREATS, AND AFRICAN AMERICAN OFFENDING
• 5. RACIAL SOCIALIZATION AND AFRICAN AMERICAN OFFENDING
• 6. A THEORETICAL MODEL OF AFRICAN AMERICAN OFFENDING
• EPILOGUE: ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM AND AFRICAN AMERICAN OFFENDING
• NOTES
• REFERENCES
• INDEX