Techno-Bureaucratic Race-Making: Latino (Mis)Representation in Criminology and Criminal Justice Knowledge Claims

• In Event: Latina/o/x Criminology Panel 1: Pedagogy, Curriculum, Representation, and Reflections

Abstract

We ask: (1) how are Latino-identifying and Latino-identified persons (mis)represented in criminal and immigration systems data? and (2) how do institutions of formal social control, through their measurement systems, contribute to skewed understandings of racial-ethnic disparities in criminological research? We anchor this analysis in Omi and Winant’s racial formation theory to
understand how variously situated Latinos are made both visible and invisible in the criminal and immigration systems. We use the term techno-bureaucratic race-making to reflect how bureaucratic institutions and processes contribute to the racialization and criminalization of Latinos in the United States. We argue that techno-bureaucratic nomenclature and data generating processes condition the capacity to identify the existence, scale, and scope of racial-ethnic inequities attributable to the carceral state.

Authors

• K. Sebastian León, Rutgers University

• Andrea Gómez Cervantes, Wake Forest