Social Inequality, Criminal Justice, and Race in Tennessee

Social Inequality, Criminal Justice, and Race in Tennessee PDF Author: Gerald K. Fosten
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498559212
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
This book examines the national criminal justice system’s and the state of Tennessee criminal justice system’s policies in terms of how they balance the citizens’ need for prisons with the private sector's desire for profits and the policies’ effects on the incarceration rate of African American males in the state of Tennessee. There are important, often neglected, connections among prison sentencing, felony disenfranchisement, voting, and the continuing problematic issues of race in America, particularly in Tennessee. This state serves as a representative case study from which to examine local, state, and national criminal justice systems, disparate outcomes, and social inequality. The book therefore investigates ethically questionable public-private business relationships and arrangements that contribute to socially-constructed economic policy instruments used to fulfill conservatives and white supremacists’ objectives for white domination in Tennessee. Through mass incarceration and felony disenfranchisement, African Americans—in particular, African American males—have been discriminated against and systematically excluded from political participation, employment, housing, education, and other social programs. This book is grounded on the Racial Contract Theory and Racial Group Threat Theory (Racial Threat Theory or Group Threat Theory). The Racial Contract Theory is used to show how racism itself is an intentionally devised, institutionalized, political arrangement of official and unofficial rule, of official and unofficial policy, socioeconomic benefit, and norms for the preferential distribution of material wealth and opportunities. The Racial Group Threat Theory is employed to demonstrate how growth in the comparative size of a subordinate group increases that group’s capacity to use democratic political and economic institutions for its benefit at the expense of the dominant group.

Social Inequality, Criminal Justice, and Race in Tennessee

Social Inequality, Criminal Justice, and Race in Tennessee PDF Author: Gerald K. Fosten
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498559212
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 149

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines the national criminal justice system’s and the state of Tennessee criminal justice system’s policies in terms of how they balance the citizens’ need for prisons with the private sector's desire for profits and the policies’ effects on the incarceration rate of African American males in the state of Tennessee. There are important, often neglected, connections among prison sentencing, felony disenfranchisement, voting, and the continuing problematic issues of race in America, particularly in Tennessee. This state serves as a representative case study from which to examine local, state, and national criminal justice systems, disparate outcomes, and social inequality. The book therefore investigates ethically questionable public-private business relationships and arrangements that contribute to socially-constructed economic policy instruments used to fulfill conservatives and white supremacists’ objectives for white domination in Tennessee. Through mass incarceration and felony disenfranchisement, African Americans—in particular, African American males—have been discriminated against and systematically excluded from political participation, employment, housing, education, and other social programs. This book is grounded on the Racial Contract Theory and Racial Group Threat Theory (Racial Threat Theory or Group Threat Theory). The Racial Contract Theory is used to show how racism itself is an intentionally devised, institutionalized, political arrangement of official and unofficial rule, of official and unofficial policy, socioeconomic benefit, and norms for the preferential distribution of material wealth and opportunities. The Racial Group Threat Theory is employed to demonstrate how growth in the comparative size of a subordinate group increases that group’s capacity to use democratic political and economic institutions for its benefit at the expense of the dominant group.

Social Inequality, Criminal Justice, and Race in Tennessee

Social Inequality, Criminal Justice, and Race in Tennessee PDF Author: Gerald K. Fosten
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781498559201
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
This book examines the national criminal justice system's and the state of Tennessee criminal justice system's policies in terms of how they balance the citizens' need for prisons with the private sector's desire for profits and the policies' effects on the incarceration rate of African American males in the state of Tennessee. There are important, often neglected, connections among prison sentencing, felony disenfranchisement, voting, and the continuing problematic issues of race in America, particularly in Tennessee. This state serves as a representative case study from which to examine local, state, and national criminal justice systems, disparate outcomes, and social inequality. The book therefore investigates ethically questionable public-private business relationships and arrangements that contribute to socially-constructed economic policy instruments used to fulfill conservatives and white supremacists' objectives for white domination in Tennessee. Through mass incarceration and felony disenfranchisement, African Americans--in particular, African American males--have been discriminated against and systematically excluded from political participation, employment, housing, education, and other social programs. This book is grounded on the Racial Contract Theory and Racial Group Threat Theory (Racial Threat Theory or Group Threat Theory). The Racial Contract Theory is used to show how racism itself is an intentionally devised, institutionalized, political arrangement of official and unofficial rule, of official and unofficial policy, socioeconomic benefit, and norms for the preferential distribution of material wealth and opportunities. The Racial Group Threat Theory is employed to demonstrate how growth in the comparative size of a subordinate group increases that group's capacity to use democratic political and economic institutions for its benefit at the expense of the dominant group.

Criminal Justice Contact, Racial Discrimination, and Health

Criminal Justice Contact, Racial Discrimination, and Health PDF Author: Tanner Kilpatrick
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
A sizeable body of research has shown that contact with the criminal justice system increases the risk for a variety of physical and mental health problems. However, less is known about mechanisms through which criminal justice contact increases the risk for health problems, particularly for women. This study extends research on criminal justice contact and health by examining the mediating role of racial discrimination. I hypothesized that racial discrimination would mediate the association between criminal justice contact (arrest, jail or prison) and mental health (depressive symptoms, overall mental health) and physical health (overall general health, doctor diagnosed health issues), and that the relationship among these variables would differ by gender. Using data on 613 African American adult caregivers from the Mobile Youth and Poverty Study (MYPS), I conducted a series of regression analyses to test these hypotheses. Results suggest that criminal justice contact increases the risk for depressive symptoms, poorer overall general health, and doctor diagnosed health issues among women, but not for men. Results further suggest that racial discrimination mediated the relationship between contact with the criminal justice system and depressive symptoms among women, but not overall general health or doctor diagnosed health issues. These findings lend support to theoretical perspectives and policies that aim to decrease discriminatory experiences and improve health among racial minority women following contact with the criminal justice system.

Corruption in Society

Corruption in Society PDF Author: James T. Gire
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666930938
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Corruption in Society: Multidisciplinary Conceptualizations is the first book to address the notion of corruption in a truly multidisciplinary manner, augmented with empirical evidence. The prevalent definition in books and articles on corruption is that it is a dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those with political and/or economic power, typically involving bribery. This political-economy or public choice denotation, while very useful, is inadequate for a comprehensive understanding of the concept because the notion of corruption appears in every discipline. For example, in the field of chemistry, chemical corruption concerns (a) the incorporation of defective compounds into experiments to better simulate conditions on the early-Earth and to help us understand how the first molecules of life formed and (b) how to make chemicals appear safer, sometimes dodging restrictions on their use, by minimizing the estimates of how much is released into the environment. In order to address this shortcoming, this book provides a discipline-by-discipline conceptualization of corruption buttressed with evidence from the discipline.

The Tennessee Death Penalty

The Tennessee Death Penalty PDF Author: Kristin Amber Wagers
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Discrimination in capital punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The impact of race within the American criminal justice system has seen long-term debate and has been studied by numerous social scientists. This dissertation examines the criminal justice system by analyzing data created by the Tennessee courts to determine whether race impacts the administration of Tennessee's death penalty. This dissertation examines whether race impacts the overall administration of Tennessee's death penalty, a Tennessee prosecutor's decision to seek death, and a Tennessee jury's decision to impose death. The impact of race at each stage is analyzed by logistic regression to isolate the defendant's race, the victim's race, and the racial interaction between them. Prior empirical research shows black defendants whose victims are white are more likely to receive death than white defendants whose victims are white. Prior research shows defendants whose victims are white, regardless of the race of the defendant, are more likely to receive death than when victims are black. The regression analyses reveal after controlling for heinousness of crime and the defendant's dangerousness that race is not a predictive factor in whether defendants are sentenced to death in the overall application of the death penalty. The findings show that white victim murders, irrespective of the defendant's race, have slight predictive power in whether prosecutors seek the death penalty, but white victim cases have the least predictive power of all variables that impact prosecutorial decisions. Murders involving black defendants and white victims, irrespective of their racial relationship, decrease the likelihood a jury will return a death sentence. When testing the racial interaction of defendants and victims, the only relationship that is a significant predictor in the Tennessee death penalty are murders with white defendants and white victims. Based on qualitative data from interviews with Knox County criminal court judges, this can be explained by heinousness of crime.

Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice, and Policy

Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice, and Policy PDF Author: National Academies Of Sciences Engineeri
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 9780309693370
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The history of the U.S. criminal justice system is marked by racial inequality and sustained by present day policy. Large racial and ethnic disparities exist across the several stages of criminal legal processing, including in arrests, pre-trial detention, and sentencing and incarceration, among others, with Black, Latino, and Native Americans experiencing worse outcomes. The historical legacy of racial exclusion and structural inequalities form the social context for racial inequalities in crime and criminal justice. Racial inequality can drive disparities in crime, victimization, and system involvement. Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice, and Policy synthesizes the evidence on community-based solutions, noncriminal policy interventions, and criminal justice reforms, charting a path toward the reduction of racial inequalities by minimizing harm in ways that also improve community safety. Reversing the effects of structural racism and severing the close connections between racial inequality, criminal harms such as violence, and criminal justice involvement will involve fostering local innovation and evaluation, and coordinating local initiatives with state and federal leadership. This report also highlights the challenge of creating an accurate, national picture of racial inequality in crime and justice: there is a lack of consistent, reliable data, as well as data transparency and accountability. While the available data points toward trends that Black, Latino, and Native American individuals are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and given more severe punishments compared to White individuals, opportunities for improving research should be explored to better inform decision-making.

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Race, Crime, and Justice: Contexts and Complexities

Race, Crime, and Justice: Contexts and Complexities PDF Author: Lauren Krivo
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781412976565
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
To what extent does racial discrimination exist within the criminal justice system, and to what extent is that inequality in crime and justice an outgrowth of structured societal inequality? The empirical picture of racism and criminal justice is complex, and although a large body of valuable research on the intersection of race and crime exists, new and innovative research is needed. This special volume of The ANNALS lays a solid foundation for that research. This volume is organized into three broad sections that represent the types of emergent research from this network of scholars and focuses on patterns, processes, and consequences. This volume of The ANNALS provides an innovative approach to understanding the ways that race, ethnicity, crime, and justice are interconnected within the racialized U.S. society, but it also fosters solutions to inequalities in the criminal justice arena. Students, scholars and policymakers will find this collection of cutting-edge articles avoids taking a one-size-fits-all approach to problems of inequity and offers meaningful and novel perspectives to this complex volume.

Communities in Action

Communities in Action PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Making the Unequal Metropolis

Making the Unequal Metropolis PDF Author: Ansley T. Erickson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602525X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
List of Oral History and Interview Participants -- Notes -- Index