Race, Ethnicity, Crime & Justice: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

1. Race, Ethnicity, Crime & Justice: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Robert Crutchfield Department of Sociology University of Washington

2. What do we know about race, ethnicity and crime? • There are racial and ethnic differences in criminal involvement. • African Americans are more involved in violence. • It’s less clear about property crime, • and sell and use drugs no more than other racial/ethnic groups. • In general, Latinx criminality is between that of Blacks & Whites, but there are important within group differences. • Immigrants, including those crossing the southern border, are less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans • This is the case for both documented and undocumented immigrants • The same was true of earlier immigrants too

3. What do we know about race, ethnicity and criminal justice? • African Americans and Latinos are more likely to be imprisoned than can be “justified” by arrest rates. • Beck & Blumstein (2017) in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. • Each state and federal jurisdiction • Analysis of racial & ethnic warranted and unwarranted disparities by crime • Major findings: • A very large portion of Black/White differences in imprisonment for murder & rape are a result of higher involvement in these crimes by Blacks • A substantially smaller portion of racial differences in imprisonment for other violent crimes can be explained by higher enrolment by Blacks • Racial & ethnic differences in drug crime imprisonment CANNOT be explained by racial & ethic differences in involvement in either sales or possession.

4. The Good • Explaining higher African American violence rates • Higher levels of neighborhood social and economic disadvantage explains this • Doing something about racial differences in violence? • Reducing educational inequalities and doing what we already know works—e.g. early childhood education • Addressing economic & labor market inequalities • Immigrants are generally among the most vital, hard working people in the places where they are from, not criminogenic characteristics • In succeeding generations, sometimes crime rates go up. Why? • Doing something about increasing crime in succeeding generations? • What is their American experience?

5. The Good: What we Know About Reducing African American Violence • African American violence rates—the national & the local • National—but also states & cities • Reduce inequalities in education • Reduce labor market inequality—special emphasis on young adults • Guns? • Local—close to home • Early childhood education • Address racial gaps in school performance & discipline • Limit and improve police/citizen contacts • Juvenile and criminal justice reform—treatment, innovative courts, etc.

6. The Good?: Immigration and Crime • Historic patterns • Low crime rates, then assimilation • Assimilation means different things for different groups • When they are black vs. when they are white • European immigrants • Puerto Ricans (migrants, not immigrants), Dominicans, Haitians, others from the Caribbean • The reality of MS-13 • An out of the box suggestion…

7. The Bad • High rates of POC violence means high rates of POC victimization. • Police and communities of color • Violence and accountability • Tactics—stop and frisk, “hot spot” policing • Continued racial and ethnic disparity in imprisonment. • Mass incarceration (see next slide), the War on Drugs & inequality • Will criminal justice reform bring down racial disparities in imprisonment? • Maybe, but maybe not.

8. U.S. Incarceration Rate, 1925-2012 Note: Incarceration rate is state and federal prison population per 100,000

9. The Ugly The Department of Justice’s move away from active involvement in fostering local police department reform & accountability and the use of consent decrees to “support” change. Resistance to police reform at the local level—officers & guilds Resistance to criminal justice reform and sentencing reform. The current immigration narrative Efforts to abandon programs that support education, training, treatment, and support for the poor.

10. Where does that leave us? • Science vs. election slogans • At the national level • Work against xenophobia • Force a recognition that the Federal government has helped to create the problems and must be a part of the solution • What they fund • What they enforce • Tone that is set • Locally • Until the Feds do more, local jurisdictions and communities need to be the vanguard, the site of experimentation and trying new paths. • The people/Social movements—e.g. Black Lives Matter

11. Glory The song, Glory, is the Oscar winning song from the movie Selma by John Legend and Common. It contains the lyric… “It takes the wisdom of the elders, and young people’s energy” https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=glory+song+lyrics&view=detail&mid=06F785330278000734C206F785330278000734C2&FORM=VIRE

12. Thank you