Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons^™

Public Perceptions Of Police Use Of Force: Does Officer Race Matter?, Diamond G. Pilgrim

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of police officer as well as suspect race on U.S.residents’ perceptions of police use of force.

Method: Participants were randomly assigned one of four vignettes describing an encounter between either a Black or White police officer and a Black or White robbery suspect. Suspect race and officer race were manipulated so that participants received a vignette involving pairings of a White officer with a Black suspect; a White officer with a White suspect; a Black officer, White suspect or a Black officer and suspect. Participants were then surveyed …

Crime Pays: How Black Americans Became Central To The Carceral State, Will Brooks

Honors Theses

Over the course of American history, Black Americans have been intentionally criminalized at moments of ostensible social progress. This legacy of intentional criminalization of minority communities has both created the perception that African Americans are innately criminal and given rise to a prison-industrial complex that now depends on Black bodies. Now, predictive policing technology reinforces perceptions of Black criminality necessary for the justification of the carceral state and the survival and expansion of the prison-industrial complex.

Beyond Choice: An Intersectional Analysis Of Identity And Labor In Online Sex Work, Shawna F. Felkins

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

This intersectional project seeks to understand the complex labor, social lives, and community building of online sex workers. Building on the work of foundational sex work researchers, this project utilizes in-depth interviews, a survey, social media posts, and published writing and research from online sex workers to understand how marginalization and identity impacts participation and success in online sex work. Providing analysis on how race, gender, class, and ability intersect in the digital sexual marketplace, this project critiques the rise of neoliberal feminism in sex work spaces that stems from the centering of white and otherwise privileged sex workers using …

The Formation Of Identity Narratives Within Racialized Space, Eva Alphonse

Departmental Honors Projects

Evelyn Alphonse and Dr. Ryan LeCount, Department of Sociology, Hamline University 1536 Hewitt Ave, St Paul, MN, 55104

Previous research has made it clear that neighborhoods shape individuals’ experiences, perceptions, and identities. Past studies on neighborhood stigma focused primarily on the perception that communities of color and their residents are dangerous or disadvantaged. Another smaller body of work explored how living in criminalized spaces affects residents themselves. This research primarily looked at how neighborhood stigma has materially affected residents, such as through decreased job opportunities. The present study expanded on the previous literature by investigating how living in stigmatized spaces …

Are Opinions On Abortion Based On Racial Attitudes?, Ashley Mueller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

My specific research question that I will be addressing through my Honors Research Project is; Does one’s race influence their opinions and criminalization of abortion in the United States? In addition to this question I will be discussing if these views have changed over time depending on race, and how their backgrounds, due to their race, may differentiate these views.

Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms Of Capital” In Fitzgerald’S Gatsby And Watts’ No One Is Coming To Save Us, Allie Harrison Vernon

English (MA) Theses

Looking primarily at two critically acclaimed texts that concern themselves with American citizenship—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Stephanie Powell Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us—I analyze the claims made about citizenship identities, rights, and consequential access to said rights. I ask, how do these narratives about citizenship sustain, create, or re-envision American myth? Similarly, how do the narratives interact with the dominant culture at large? Do any of these texts achieve oppositional value, and/or modify the complex hegemonic structure? I use Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Forms of Capital” to investigate the ways in which economic, cultural, …

The New Drug War Or The New Race War: Incarceration's Impact On Minority Children, Families, And Communities, Karen P. Lawrence

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This non-experimental study examines the issues of over-representation of minorities in the criminal justice system due to drug-related incidences, race relations, and the impact such representation has on families, children, and communities. The exploration of the current criminal justice efforts against drugs is presented through a meta-analysis qualitative lens in an effort to disseminate the information on those arrested, sentenced, and subsequently incarcerated for various drug offenses. In an attempt to understand the encyclical racial disparities that promulgate the criminal justice system, the study relies on information from several key theorists to cement the discussions in the research. Qualitative data …

Race, Social Disorganization And Delinquency, Alina Bazyler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in crime has been an issue of debate. Some evidence, however, has shown that racial differences in offending are largely accounted for by economic disadvantage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 4,290), the relationship between race and delinquency was examined looking at social disorganization factors. It was hypothesized that there would be racial and ethnic differences in delinquency and that these differences would be accounted for by social disorganization factors, specifically collective efficacy and economic disadvantage. The results show that compared to White adolescents Hispanic adolescents …

Racism In The Criminal Justice System, Nichole Griffith

Social Sciences

This paper examines racism in the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system creates and perpetuates racial hierarchy in the United States. African Americans are criminalized and targeted because of their skin color. I analyze the Reagan administration, the War on Drugs, corrupt police practices, media, inner city enforcement, police discretion, racial profiling, and sentencing to reveal this racism and unfair treatment of African Americans. These victims of racism face lifelong marginalization and exclusion because they were criminalized. I also draw a link between the criminal justice system and slavery and Jim Crow. This racism explains why there are so …