Racial invariance

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In criminology, racial invariance refers to a hypothesis that the effects of structural disadvantage on rates of violent crime are the same for all racial groups. [1] This hypothesis is a major component of structural perspectives on the causes of crime, such as social disorganization theory and anomie. [2] [3] It can be traced back to William Julius Wilson's 1987 book The Truly Disadvantaged , which argued that racial differences in crime rates are due to differences in the communities in which American whites and blacks live. [4] Since then, it has become a major component of the general theory of crime. [5]

Related Research Articles

In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups; however, academic research indicates that the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system can in part be explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, exposure to poor neighborhoods, poor access to public and early education, and exposure to harmful chemicals and pollution. Racial housing segregation has also been linked to racial disparities in crime rates, as black Americans have historically and to the present been prevented from moving into prosperous low-crime areas through actions of the government and private actors. Various explanations within criminology have been proposed for racial disparities in crime rates, including conflict theory, strain theory, general strain theory, social disorganization theory, macrostructural opportunity theory, social control theory, and subcultural theory.

Sex differences in crime are differences between men and women as the perpetrators or victims of crime. Such studies may belong to fields such as criminology, sociobiology, or feminist studies. Despite the difficulty of interpreting them, crime statistics may provide a way to investigate such a relationship from a gender differences perspective. An observable difference in crime rates between men and women might be due to social and cultural factors, crimes going unreported, or to biological factors. The nature or motive of the crime itself may also require consideration as a factor. Gendered profiling might affect the reported crime rates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Critical criminology</span> School of criminology

Critical criminology applies critical theory to criminology. Critical criminology examines the genesis of crime and the nature of justice in relation to factors such as class and status, Law and the penal system are viewed as founded on social inequality and meant to perpetuate such inequality. Critical criminology also looks for possible biases in criminological research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marxist criminology</span> School of criminology

Marxist criminology is one of the schools of criminology. It parallels the work of the structural functionalism school which focuses on what produces stability and continuity in society but, unlike the functionalists, it adopts a predefined political philosophy. As in conflict criminology, it focuses on why things change, identifying the disruptive forces in industrialized societies, and describing how society is divided by power, wealth, prestige, and the perceptions of the world. It is concerned with the causal relationships between society and crime, i.e. to establish a critical understanding of how the immediate and structural social environment gives rise to crime and criminogenic conditions. William Chambliss and Robert Seidman explain that "the shape and character of the legal system in complex societies can be understood as deriving from the conflicts inherent in the structure of these societies which are stratified economically and politically".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist school of criminology</span> School of criminology

The feminist school of criminology is a school of criminology developed in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as a reaction to the general disregard and discrimination of women in the traditional study of crime. It is the view of the feminist school of criminology that a majority of criminological theories were developed through studies on male subjects and focused on male criminality, and that criminologists often would "add women and stir" rather than develop separate theories on female criminality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strain theory (sociology)</span> Theory that social structures within society may pressure citizens to commit crime

In the fields of sociology and criminology, strain theory is a theoretical perspective that aims to explain the relationship between social structure, social values or goals, and crime. Strain theory was originally introduced by Robert King Merton (1938), and argues that society's dominant cultural values and social structure causes strain, which may encourage citizens to commit crimes. Following on the work of Émile Durkheim's theory of anomie, strain theory has been advanced by Robert King Merton (1938), Albert K. Cohen (1955), Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin (1960), Neil Smelser (1963), Robert Agnew (1992), Steven Messner, Richard Rosenfeld (1994) and Jie Zhang (2012).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Routine activity theory</span> Theory in criminology

Routine activity theory is a sub-field of crime opportunity theory that focuses on situations of crimes. It was first proposed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen in their explanation of crime rate changes in the United States between 1947 and 1974. The theory has been extensively applied and has become one of the most cited theories in criminology. Unlike criminological theories of criminality, routine activity theory studies crime as an event, closely relates crime to its environment and emphasizes its ecological process, thereby diverting academic attention away from mere offenders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Race in the United States criminal justice system</span>

Race in the United States criminal justice system refers to the unique experiences and disparities in the United States in regard to the policing and prosecuting of various races. There have been different outcomes for different racial groups in convicting and sentencing felons in the United States criminal justice system. Although prior arrests and criminal history is also a factor. Experts and analysts have debated the relative importance of different factors that have led to these disparities.

Race is one of the correlates of crime receiving attention in academic studies, government surveys, media coverage, and public concern. Research has found that social status, poverty, and childhood exposure to violent behavior are causes of the racial disparities in crime. Research conducted in Europe and the United States on the matter has been widely published, particularly in relation to discrimination by criminal justice systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biosocial criminology</span> Psychosocial examination of crime

Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to explain crime and antisocial behavior by exploring biocultural factors. While contemporary criminology has been dominated by sociological theories, biosocial criminology also recognizes the potential contributions of fields such as behavioral genetics, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology.

The self-control theory of crime, often referred to as the general theory of crime, is a criminological theory about the lack of individual self-control as the main factor behind criminal behavior. The self-control theory of crime suggests that individuals who were ineffectually parented before the age of ten develop less self-control than individuals of approximately the same age who were raised with better parenting. Research has also found that low levels of self-control are correlated with criminal and impulsive conduct.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Correlates of crime</span> Things associated with unlawful behavior

The correlates of crime explore the associations of specific non-criminal factors with specific crimes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criminology</span> Study of crime and criminal actions/behavior

Criminology is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, legal sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, scholars of law and jurisprudence, as well as the processes that define administration of justice and the criminal justice system.

Anthony Allan Braga is an American criminologist and the Jerry Lee Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. Braga is also the Director of the Crime and Justice Policy Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously held faculty and senior research positions at Harvard University, Northeastern University, Rutgers University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Braga is a member of the federal monitor team overseeing the reforms to New York City Police Department (NYPD) policies, training, supervision, auditing, and handling of complaints and discipline regarding stops and frisks and trespass enforcement.

In criminal justice, the liberation hypothesis proposes that extra-legal factors affect sentencing outcomes more in regards to less serious offenses compared to more serious ones, ostensibly because juries and judges will feel less able to follow their personal sentiments with regard to more serious crimes. The hypothesis also proposes that the extent to which extra-legal factors sentencing outcomes is dependent on the strength of the evidence in the case. The hypothesis was first proposed by Harry Kalven and Hans Zeisel in their 1966 book "The American Jury". Since then, multiple studies have found support for it.

Broadly speaking, the term racial threat refers to how people react to those of a different race. More specifically, the racial threat hypothesis or racial threat theory proposes that a higher population of members of a minority race results in the dominant race imposing higher levels of social control on the subordinate race, which, according to this hypothesis, occurs as a result of the dominant race fearing the subordinate race's political, economic, or criminal threat. Racial threat theory is also known as minority group threat theory. In his 1949 book, political scientist V. O. Key found that white voters in the U.S. South turned out at higher rates and voted more for conservative politicians in areas with high levels of African-Americans; Key argued that whites felt threatened by African-Americans, thus becoming more politically motivated.

In criminology, brutalization refers to a hypothesized cause-and-effect relationship between executions and an increase in the homicide rate. This hypothesis proposes this relationship occurs because executions diminish the public's respect for life. Such an effect represents the opposite of a deterrent effect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime drop</span> Criminological pattern

The crime drop or crime decline is a pattern observed in many countries whereby rates of many types of crime declined by 50% or more beginning in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal cynicism</span> A negative perception of law enforcement

Legal cynicism is a domain of legal socialization defined by a perception that the legal system and law enforcement agents are "illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill equipped to ensure public safety." It is related to police legitimacy, and the two serve as important ways for researchers to study citizens' perceptions of law enforcement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evolutionary neuroandrogenic theory</span>

The evolutionary neuroandrogenic (ENA) theory is a conceptual framework which seeks to explain trends in violent and criminal behavior from an evolutionary and biological perspective. It was first proposed by the sociologist Lee Ellis in 2005 in his paper "A Theory Explaining Biological Correlates of Criminality" published in the European Journal of Criminology. Since then, it has expanded into an interdisciplinary field that intersects biology, psychology, and sociology. The theory rests on two propositions. The first is that in human mating behavior, females prefer males that appear to be more competent providers of resources, and so males exhibit increased competitive behavior than females to obtain access to those resources. The second is that biological mechanisms lead to differential development in the male brain which then mediates the increased competitive behaviors that cause criminality. Though it was originally intended to explain high rates of criminality in young men, it has since been used as a framework to explain gang behavior, terrorism, and the rise of the criminal justice system.

References

  1. Laurence, James (2015). "Community Disadvantage and Race-Specific Rates of Violent Crime: An Investigation into the "Racial Invariance" Hypothesis in the United Kingdom" (PDF). Deviant Behavior. 36 (12): 974–995. doi:10.1080/01639625.2014.982749.
  2. Hannon, Lance; DeFina, Robert (2005). "Violent Crime in African American and White Neighborhoods: Is Poverty's Detrimental Effect Race-Specific?". Journal of Poverty. 9 (3): 49–67. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.587.5383 . doi:10.1300/j134v09n03_03.
  3. Ousey, Graham C. (1999-05-01). "Homicide, Structural Factors, and the Racial Invariance Assumption*". Criminology. 37 (2): 405–426. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1999.tb00491.x. ISSN   1745-9125.
  4. Steffensmeier, Darrell; Ulmer, Jeffery T.; Feldmeyer, Ben; Harris, Casey T. (2010-11-01). "Scope and Conceptual Issues in Testing the Race–Crime Invariance Thesis: Black, White, and Hispanic Comparisons*". Criminology. 48 (4): 1133–1169. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00214.x. ISSN   1745-9125. PMC   4233132 . PMID   25408558.
  5. Unnever, James D.; Barnes, J. C.; Cullen, Francis T. (2016). "The Racial Invariance Thesis Revisited". Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. 32 (1): 7–26. doi:10.1177/1043986215607254.