Becky L Tatum - Crime, Violence and Minority Youths

This book is dedicated to my parents,
Mary and L.C. Tatum

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes, 1951.

First published 2000 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge

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Copyright Becky L. Tatum 2000

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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 99072840

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-70324-7 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-315-20325-6 (ebk)

Race is a dominant theme in American society. Few issues can be discussed without the factor of race underscoring the analysis. Americas obsession with race is rooted in the reality in which the concept is used. Rather than a method of identifying people according to genetic make-up or physical characteristics, race is primarily used to locate and place people according to culturally defined social positions (Rose, 1990). These social positions are unequal and location in the structural hierarchy determines cultural experiences. As a result, it makes a difference (emphasis mine) what one is called and into what social position one is placed (Rose, 1990).

Much attention and research have been devoted to the role of race in criminal offending. Crime statistics have traditionally suggested a disproportionate involvement in criminal activity by people of color in comparison to their representation in the population. Official data point to young African Americans, especially young African American males, as being the major perpetrators of crime. From 19801990, for example, part one index crime arrests for African American youths ranged from 29% to 37% (FBI, 1991), although they represented less than 5% of the total U.S. population during this time period (Bureau of the Census, 1991). The widest racial gap in juvenile arrests, by far, are for violent crimes, which were reported to be 5 times higher for African American youths than for White youths in 1991 (Snyder and Sickmund, 1993).

Generally, criminologists have attributed high rates of crime and violence among racial minorities to inequities in the social structure. Popular explanations such as social disorganization and strain theories suggest that the greater involvement of nonwhite youths in delinquency is best explained by conditions associated with their lower-class status. These conditions weaken the proficiency of familial and communal institutions to regulate adolescent aspirations and desires, and decrease the ability of nonwhite youths to obtain cultural goals. Blocked opportunities lead to frustration that is acted out through criminal, violent, and delinquent behaviors. The failure of mainstream structural perspectives, however, to explicitly address the role of race and racism in structural relations has lead some minority scholars to suggest the colonial model as an alternative explanation of African American crime and delinquency (Austin, 1983, 1987; Staples, 1975, 1987; Tatum, 1994). From the standpoint of race, the colonial model examines the effects of racial inequality (or oppression) on the personality and behaviors (which are sometimes criminal) of minority individuals. In short, both the mainstream and alternative perspectives argue that crime and delinquency are adaptive responses to structural inequities; the key difference between the two perspectives lies in the use of class versus race as the starting point of analysis.

In Crime, Violence and Minority Youths, we critically examine the ability of both classic structural theories and the colonial model to explain high rates of crime among African and Mexican American youths. We, in turn, propose the neocolonial model as a framework that addresses the limitations of both theoretical perspectives. Findings from a pilot study testing several of the propositions and assumptions of the neocolonial model provide initial insights into the adequacy and theoretical value of the framework.

The contents of the book are presented in seven chapters.. Addressing these limitations, we revise the perspective to form a neocolonial model of adolescent crime and violence.

Although the colonial model is used as a cross-cultural explanation of minority structural experiences, as a theoretical explanation of crime, the perspective has only been applied to African Americans. further reviews the Mexican American class structure, in particular, the applicability of the underclass perspective. Finally, the chapter explores how the social structure impacts the structural status of Mexican American youths and the theoretical implications for crime and violence.

In to the interrelationships among theoretical variables. A general causal model of delinquency is drawn from the perspective and is tested for the combined sample and by race and types of delinquency.

Finally, in , we provide an overview of the results of the pilot study and offer concluding comments regarding the theoretical promise of the colonial perspective.

Victimization and self-report data suggest similar patterns of juvenile offending (see U.S. Department of Justice, 1992; Huizinga and Elliott, 1987). The National Youth Survey (NYS), however, stresses the importance of distinguishing between prevalence and incidence of delinquency. Prevalence comparisons of delinquent behavior show few differences between African American and White juveniles and youths from lower-, working-, and middle-class backgrounds (Elliott and Ageton, 1980). The incidence of delinquent behavior, however, appears to be greater among low-income and African American juveniles (Elliott and Ageton, 1980).

This work is drawn from my dissertation research which examined the utility of the colonial model as a theoretical explanation of minority youth crime. I am deeply indebted to my dissertation committee Drs. Terry Thornberry, Frankie Bailey, David Duffee, Alan Lizotte and Graeme Newman for their valuable comments and insight during the course of that research project. 1 am particularly grateful to two individuals: Dr. Terry Thornberry whose profound scholarship in delinquency theory provided the foundation for this research, and to Dr. David Duffee who as Dean of the School of Criminal Justice actively recruited minority students and worked diligently to create an academic environment for them that was both inclusive and receptive to diverse ideologies. I am also indebted to Dr. Ronnie Davis and Dr. Gloria Woods who provided assistance in the collection of data, and the Criminal Justice programs at North Carolina Central University and the University of Illinois at Chicago for their support of my scholarship while I was employed at these institutions. I extend a special thanks to Lois Smith-Owens and the late Dr. Vivian V. Gordon who were invaluable mentors during my course of study at the School of Criminal Justice in Albany. In light of the benefits of the expertise and support of the individuals above, I take full responsibility for the viewpoints expressed in this document as well as any errors and omissions which may have occurred in the completion of this research.