Anti-racism in Criminology: An Oxymoron or the way Forward?. (July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Palmer, Jane E.; Rajah, Valli; Wilson, Sean K.
• Is Part Of: Race and justice. Volume 12:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 531
• Page End: 547
• Publication Date: 2022-07
• Subjects: race -- critical criminology -- police brutality -- mass incarceration -- prison-industrial complex -- convict-lease system -- policing; Crime and race -- United States -- Periodicals; Discrimination in criminal justice administration -- Periodicals; United States -- Race relations -- Periodicals; 364.089
• DOI: 10.1177/21533687221101785
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2153-3687

Abstract

Since the uprisings of 2020 in the aftermath of the police-perpetrated the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, universities – and some departments – have expressed their commitments to anti-racism in public statements. While statements are laudable, what matters most is how anti-racism is actualized in our classrooms, our syllabi, our departmental policies and practices, our research, and the discipline of criminology. In this paper, we outline the racist history of "criminality, " policing, prisons, and criminology, along with current manifestations of systemic racism in the criminal legal system. Against this backdrop, we aim to start a conversation about whether it is possible for the discipline to be proactively anti-racist or if this transformation is impossible due to the discipline's historical - and ongoing - complicity with racism. We also offer questions for criminology departments to consider if they seek to actively uproot present day racism within the discipline and the criminal legal system.