NCJ Number
125853
Journal
Social Justice Volume: 16 Issue: 4 Pages: 1-9
Date Published
Unknown
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article maintains that the capitalist system in the U.S. makes the poor classes socially powerless and that those who are powerless are the individuals accused by the criminal justice system of committing norm-violating behaviors. Through this process of homogenization of offenders, the powerful classes are able to avoid detection of their own criminal actions, prevent them from being defined as illegal, or at least minimize their own punishment.
Abstract
Because of American racism, the powerless classes in the U.S. are comprised largely of the society's nonwhite populations; blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately poor and disproportionately imprisoned. These populations have experienced a trend toward higher rates of imprisonment. This article provides an introduction to a series of articles in this journal focusing on three themes: race and ideology in the 1980's, justice and the African experience, and justice and the Latino experience. The theoretical perspective of the series is that the interrelationship between powerlessness, racism, and official or State actions toward powerless groups results in the delivery of justice as a function of the race-class positioning within the dominant order. 1 table and 14 references.