Social Movements and Criminal Justice: Movement Impacts and Perspectives on Advocacy

Session Submission Type: Regular Session

Abstract/Description

This session has four papers examining how social movements interact with criminal justice structures and public perceptions. Two papers focus on responses to the Black Lives Matter movement and the broader criminalization of protest. One analyzes national survey data to show how racial resentment, ambivalent sexism, and Christian nationalism may predict public perceptions of BLM protesters as engaging in unlawful or illegitimate behavior. Another links the rise of anti-protest legislation across U.S. states to shifting racial attitudes, using panel regression to explore how laws restricting protest activity correspond with measures like racial resentment and colorblindness. A third paper investigates how civic reporting practices changed in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd, revealing a temporary spike in graffiti complaints, reflecting shifts in neighborhood surveillance during times of social unrest. The final paper examines the experiences of organizers within sex offender reform movements, highlighting the risks, motivations, and stigma these activists navigate. Together, these studies highlight the complex dynamics between social movements, public attitudes, and the legal and institutional responses that both shape and resist activism.

Sub Unit

• Area VIII. Perceptions of Crime & Justice / 66. Activism and Social Movements

Individual Presentations

• Behind the Screen: Getting to Know the Individuals that Run Sex Offender Advocacy Organizations - Kimberly Ann Ingold, University of Iowa

• Policing Protest Through Policy: A Quantitative Analysis of Racial Attitudes and Anti-Protest Legislation - Stephanie Ha, University of Delaware

• Racial Resentment, Ambivalent Sexism, and Christian Nationalism Predict Perceptions of Black Lives Matter Protesters as Criminals - Alexander H. Updegrove, University of North Texas; Carlene Barnaby, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY; Maisha Cooper, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Ahram Cho, New Mexico State University

• Reporting the Resistance: Graffiti, Race, and Social Control - Cam Marsinelli, University of Massachusetts Boston

• "Abortion Abolitionism": Christian Nationalism, Male Supremacy and Motherhood Penalties in Post-Dobbs America - Darci Kathleen Schmidgall, University of Oklahoma

Chair

• Miltonette Olivia Craig, Sam Houston State University