RACE, ETHNICITY AND LAW
SOCIOLOGY OF CRIME, LAW AND DEVIANCE
Series Editors: Mathieu Deflem
Jeffrey T. Ulmer (Volumes 15)
Recent Volumes:
Volume 8: | Police Occupational Culture: New Debates and Directions Edited by Megan ONeill, Monique Marks and Anne-Marie Singh, 2007 |
Volume 9: | Crime and Human Rights Edited by Stephan Paramentier and Elmar Weitekamp, 2007 |
Volume 10: | Surveillance and Governance: Crime Control and Beyond Edited by Mathieu Deflem, 2008 |
Volume 11: | Restorative Justice: From Theory to Practice Edited by Holly Ventura Miller, 2008 |
Volume 12: | Access to Justice Edited by Rebecca Sandefur, 2009 |
Volume 13: | Immigration, Crime and Justice Edited by William F. McDonald, 2009 |
Volume 14: | Popular Culture, Crime and Social Control Edited by Mathieu Deflem, 2010 |
Volume 15: | Social Control: Informal, Legal and Medical Edited by James J. Chriss, 2010 |
Volume 16: | Economic Crisis and Crime Edited by Mathieu Deflem, 2011 |
Volume 17: | Disasters, Hazards and Law Edited by Mathieu Deflem, 2012 |
Volume 18: | Music and Law Edited by Mathieu Deflem, 2013 |
Volume 19: | Punishment and Incarceration: A Global Perspective Edited by Mathieu Deflem, 2014 |
Volume 20: | Terrorism and Counterterrorism Today Edited by Mathieu Deflem, 2015 |
Volume 21: | The Politics of Policing: Between Force and Legitimacy Edited by Mathieu Deflem, 2016 |
SOCIOLOGY OF CRIME, LAW AND DEVIANCEVOLUME 22
RACE, ETHNICITY AND LAW
EDITED BY
MATHIEU DEFLEM
University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
United Kingdom North America Japan
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Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
First edition 2017
Copyright 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78714-604-4 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-78714-603-7 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-78714-991-5 (Epub)
ISSN: 1521-6136 (Series)
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CONTENTS
Mathieu Deflem
PART I
LAW AND BLACK LIVES
Marvin D. Free Jr.
Xuan Santos and Christopher Bickel
Sherrise Truesdale-Moore
James Burnett, Alvin Killough and Eryn Killough
Kaimipono David Wenger
PART II
DISPARITIES IN SENTENCING AND PUNISHMENT
Celesta A. Albonetti
Lori Elis
Chenelle A. Jones and Renita L. Seabrook
Meggan J. Lee and Nick Rochin
Gennifer Furst
PART III
SYSTEMS AND MECHANISMS OF INEQUALITY
Nicholas J. Chagnon
Amada Armenta and Irene I. Vega
Brian J. Smith
Jeanette Covington
Michael J. Leiber and Maude Beaudry-Cyr
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Celesta A. Albonetti | Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA |
Amada Armenta | Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA |
Maude Beaudry-Cyr | Department of Criminology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA |
Christopher Bickel | Department of Sociology, California State University, San Marcos, CA, USA |
James Burnett | College of Education, Arts and Sciences, Franklin University-Urbana Division, Urbana, OH, USA |
Nicholas J. Chagnon | Departments of Sociology and Womens Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA |
Jeanette Covington | Department of Sociology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA |
Mathieu Deflem | Department of Sociology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA |
Lori Elis | Department of Criminal Justice, Radford University, Radford, VA, USA |
Marvin D. Free, Jr. | Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin Whitewater, Whitewater, WI, USA |
Gennifer Furst | Sociology Department, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ, USA |
Chenelle A. Jones | Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Ohio Dominican University, Columbus, OH, USA |
Alvin Killough | Liberal Arts and Education, University of Minnesota Crookston, Crookston, MN, USA |
Eryn Killough | Disability Resources Center, University of Minnesota Crookston, Crookston, MN, USA |
Meggan J. Lee | Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA |
Michael J. Leiber | Department of Criminology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA |
Nick Rochin | Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA |
Xuan Santos | Department of Sociology, California State University-San Marcos, San Marcos, CA, USA |
Renita L. Seabrook | School of Criminal Justice, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA |
Brian J. Smith | Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI, USA |
Sherrise Truesdale-Moore | Department of Sociology and Corrections, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN, USA |
Irene I. Vega | Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA |
Kaimipono David Wenger | Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, CA, USA |
INTRODUCTION: THE LAWS OF RACE, ETHNICITY AND LAW
Mathieu Deflem
Even in the most recent era of our modern world, which has on more than one occasion been idealistically described as post-racial or multi-cultural, it is clear that race and ethnicity remain important markers of our daily lives and, additionally, provide a critical demarcation upon which both structural possibilities as well as inequities are built. It is all the more remarkable that racial and ethnic injustices continue to exist precisely in the area of law, the regulatory environment which we all too routinely associate with fairness, equality, and justice. One of the central sociological ironies of law, in other words, is and remains that equality before the law exists primarily as a construct of law itself, while law is unable to provide always for such equality as an accomplished sociologically observable reality, least of all in terms of race and ethnicity. Simply put, equality before the law does not accurately describe the actual workings of law (), least of all for underrepresented and historically oppressed groups.
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