Complicating the Assumed Relationship Between Race and Crime

• In Event: Teaching Critical Criminology: Helping Students Critique and Challenge Data

Abstract

Progressives tend to respond to the (apparent) disproportionate involvement of minorities in crime by emphasizing racial inequalities that are said to foster criminality, while conservatives propose racial propensities for criminality that focus on racial differences in IQs or some aspect of genetic makeup. Approaches of both groups are problematic because they take for granted a correlation between race and crime. The focus of this presentation is to complicate this assumed relationship through critical consideration of the evidence used to draw such a correlation. This evidence is often flawed and contradictory.

Author

• Elyshia Aseltine, Towson University