Reconceptualizing Inequality

• In Event: Policy Panel: Race, Space, and Inequality

Abstract

Economic inequality is consistently utilized as an explanatory variable in studies of crime and violence. Yet, the most common measure of economic inequality, the GINI index, does not incorporate whether people perceive the inequality or how people subjectively interpret it. Furthermore, the subjective interpretation of economic inequality may be dependent on cultural influences and intersectional effects with other forms of experienced inequality. Addressing this limitation, this study explores the concept of subjective inequality—defined as the notion that individual interpretation of one's respective position in society is subject to relativity based on community, culture, assigned class, assigned race, personal identification, and other social influences. Using data from a larger project on the disenfranchisement of system-impacted individuals, I analyze transcripts from 58 interviews and 12 focus groups conducted across five states (CA, MI, OH, PA, and TX) to identify how individuals most impacted by our criminal justice systems define, experience, and understand various forms of inequality in context with American social structures and cultural paradigms. I then develop a measure of subjective inequality to use as a key predictor in cross-national homicide studies where shifts in social structure and culture are most pronounced.

Author

• Kyle Winnen, University of California, Irvine