Political culture of race and racism

¶ … Political Culture of Racism and Criminology

Race is not only a biological determination of skin color and ethnicity. It is also a social construct, meaning that "it is defined and created by those in power in a society, and those definitions change as conditions change" (Apple and Aasen 65). As such, the notion that people of certain races are disproportionately incarcerated because of some innate trait or predisposition that causes them to commit crimes is visibly erroneous. There is no "criminal gene" that is passed on from generation to generation. The fact is, society has created the conditions that perpetuate criminal activity in certain races due to prejudice, discrimination, isolation and oppression.

In the 21st century, at its most basic level, the forces of racial prejudice still subjugate freedom by giving whites more access to a wide variety of resources, opportunities and advantages that are simply not afforded to minorities for no other reason than the color of their skin. Thus perhaps whites need to struggle with how the ongoing access to those freedoms and privileges has shaped their self-perception and warped their worldview. Paul Gordon Lauren asserts that power and privilege in modern society is vested in the white race, and society revolves around that power structure. He adds that it shapes our understanding of what is worthwhile, valuable and beautiful and that it influences us in both blatant and subtle ways. Yet he also points out that until we begin to rethink these premises, first as individuals and then collectively, we will remain intolerant.

Research has shown that human beings are not born with behaviors that are fully developed. There are certain personality traits that are inherited, but that does not automatically predispose people to certain behaviors. Behaviors primarily differ as a result of the environment in which an individual develops. Which personality traits are nurtured or disregarded is highly reliant on how a person is raised, the experiences they have, and the values they develop from those experiences.

Environmental factors also explain why some individuals tend to become 'career criminals' and re-offend time and time again. While some elitists prefer to think that being a criminal is simply in someone's nature, Halsey conducted a longitudinal study that provides a deeper understanding of the tendency to repeatedly commit crimes. Halsey conducted a five-year study in which he interviewed 47 juvenile offenders in depth. Of those, twenty five were interviewed multiple times upon committing multiple offenses. As of the article's publication in 2007, only four years of the study had been completed. From the data that had been gathered to that point however, a great deal of pertinent information was obtained. Most significantly, Halsey concluded that:

"Data from this research to date overwhelmingly illustrate that the vast majority of young men who have spent significant and repeated time in custodial environments return to such environments shortly after release. However, so-called chronic offending and repeat incarceration has...as much to do with risky and unpredictable systems of management as they do with the so-called 'innate' risks and unpredictability attributed to particular 'clients' or young custodial subjects" (149).

A great deal of sociological study is based on the quest of determining an explanation for deviant and criminal behavior. For example, Travis Hirschi is responsible for the development of social control theory, (also known as social bonding theory) which emphasizes the role of social bonding in preventing people from engaging in deviant behaviors such as crime or addiction. Hirschi was concerned with how people learn to avoid antisocial behaviors rather than with how people learn to engage in such behaviors, since he assumes that humans are, by nature, self-centered and hedonistic. Hirschi posited that antisocial behavior occurs when the individual fails to bond with conventional social groups like the family, school, and pro-social peers, which under normal circumstances would aid the individual in learning to suppress antisocial inclinations.

The roots of social control theory can be traced back to Emile Durkheim, who in the late 1800s proposed that "The more weakened the groups to which [the individual] belongs, the less he depends on them, the more he consequently depends only on himself and recognizes no other rules of conduct than what are founded on his private interests" (209). Hirschi expanded upon this theory to include the influence of social bonding on antisocial behavior. As described by Tittle (1995), Hirschi's social control theory "contends that everybody is motivated toward deviance, but only those who are relatively free of the bonds of commitment to, and belief in, the conventional order, attachment to others, and involvement with conventional institutions of society actually manifest their deviant motivation in unacceptable behavior" (7).

There is little question that ethnic minorities are the ones most likely fall into this category. This is not because they are 'born criminals' but rather because they are frequently isolated from conventional society and therefore are not tied to the conventional institutions of acceptable behavior. Unfortunately, the more people tend to believe that criminal behavior is innate to certain races and ethnicities, the more isolated these groups become, and in turn, the more likely they are to commit crimes.

According to Paul Gordon Lauren, the true regulator of criminal activity is, for most people, not the threats of the criminal justice system, but their own set of morals, values and beliefs. These morals, values and beliefs are shaped by one's surroundings. Most people do not commit murder or other crimes because they know deep within themselves that it is wrong and they simply could not live with their own conscience if the committed such a horrendous offense against humanity. However, for those who are raised in environments where criminal behavior is rule rather than the exception; where poverty is rampant and role models are scarce; value systems naturally begin to shift.