A Scoping Review of the Use of Critical Race Theory in Criminal justice Research

• In Event: Applying Critical Race and Racial Threat Theory to Criminal Legal System Topics

Abstract

Critical Race Theory (CRT) emerged after civil rights legislation encountered a conservative judiciary that enforced intentionality requirements in causes of action based on racial discrimination. Among others, two of the fundamental tenets of CRT are that racism is pervasive and that colorblind laws essentially eviscerate legal claims of racism and supports a race-based hierarchy that sustains White Supremacy. CRT has sought to bring these issues into the social, political and legal discourse. However, in the last five years, CRT has been criticized as politically and socially divisive, undisciplined, non-empirical and nonprescriptive. We examine these claims by employing a scoping review to assess the extent to which CRT has been incorporated in criminal justice research. We focused particularly on the typology of subject matters in which CRT has been employed as a theoretical framework and the types of empirical analyses used in support of its tenets. Preliminary results indicate CRT has been applied widely throughout criminal justice and most prevalent in research on racialized policing, punishment/incarceration, and in education. Moreover, throughout criminal justice research, CRT was also found to be supported by empirically rigorous research that uses both quantitative and qualitative analyses to explain the relationship between race and crime.

Authors

• Katrina Rose Perry, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY Graduate Center

• Frank Pezzella, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY Graduate Center