Racial Crime Research Articles

From a “Glorious Reparation” to a “Wretched Adventure”: The Second Italo-Ethiopian War in Italian History Textbooks (1936-2020)

ABSTRACT Conducted against the backdrop of international debates on colonial and racist crimes, this study examines representations of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in Italian secondary school history textbooks from the fascist period to the present. In a systematic analysis, the article explores how textbooks, as key “memory-makers,” depict the motivations, context, course, and consequences of a colonial war frequently subject to amnesia in Italy. We explore the distortions, omissions, and demystification textbooks have promoted over time, measuring them against historiographical advancements. Overall, we observe growing recognition of arbitrary Italian aggression and the illegal use of chemical weapons, but fluctuations in the assessment of European responsibilities and Mussolini’s involvement in the Second World War and the Holocaust. Silencing, minimization of responsibility, and a strong Italo- and Eurocentric tendency persist in the textbooks, whose lacunae and inaccuracies appear to feed into the enduring myth of the “good Italian.”

Towards a Critical Race Criminology: Decolonising Criminological Practice

This article presents a rationale and strategy for bringing urgent attention to ‘minority’, ‘excluded’, and ‘marginalised’ perspectives within contemporary mainstream criminology. Russell (2022) has previously called for the development of ‘Black criminology’, whilst Phillips and Bowling (2003) further argued that there is a need to develop ‘minority perspectives’ within mainstream criminology. In allyship with these traditions, this article applies a Critical Race Theory lens to provide a rationale for a new criminological perspective presented here as Critical Race Criminology (CRC). CRC is applied here to demonstrate the necessity for centring on ‘race and the racialization of crime’ within the discipline of criminology specifically, and within a global context more widely. It further calls for the development and articulation of a ‘counter narrative’ around race and crime within the discipline of criminology itself. Achieving this requires transcending the binary of the Global North–South divide, moving towards a unifying ‘Critical Race Criminology’ (CRC).

Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony

Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony

The (In)visibility of Racialized Border Violence? A Ukrainian Killed in Lisbon Airport

On March 12, 2020, the Ukrainian citizen Ihor Homenyuk died, having been abused and tortured while in the custody of the Foreigners and Borders Office in Lisbon airport. This crime exposed what several NGOs and institutional reports had long denounced: the climate of impunity that enabled the denial of basic human rights to immigrants in closed spaces at the Portuguese border. Understanding the media as a pivotal place of both reflection and production of social meaning, this article examines the media coverage of this case and identifies the narratives that the case fuelled and the agendas by which it was co-opted. It explores how the public invisibility of violence at Portugal’s borders, Portuguese imaginaries regarding Eastern European immigrants, and current understandings of racism helped frame the case as one of police brutality rather than as a racist crime. We aim to highlight the role of the Schengen border in the reconfiguration of racialized vulnerability and the (re)production of global hierarchies.

Hate in the Time of COVID-19: Racial Crimes Against East Asians

Hate in the Time of COVID-19: Racial Crimes Against East Asians

An Old/New Vision of Europe. National Responsibility and Cultural Otherness in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Play Perikizi

Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s play Perikizi (2010) is a particularly significant migration story because of its shrewd exploration of European integration, specifically in Germany. The protagonist is a girl who undertakes an adventurous journey from Turkey to Europe in order to realize her dream of becoming an actress. The play thus delves into the problem of integration in Europe from both the internal and external perspective of a young woman from a country whose culture and history are deeply intertwined with Europe’s, but are exotic enough to represent the cultural ‘other’ in the eyes of every European. I focus on an issue that is a golden thread throughout the play: the connection between genocide, nationalism and xenophobia, a thematic complex told from the perspective of a character who discovers the chance for change on her journey from East to West. I demonstrate that Perikizi’s journey highlights some structural parallels between East and West with respect to these issues. The play opens up a space in which national responsibility and the relationship with cultural otherness are problematized through different aesthetic strategies. At the end, it depicts a vision of Europe that is an alternative to a past, and a present, of nationalist and racist crimes.

Follow the money: Racial crime stereotypes and willingness to fund crime control policies.

Follow the money: Racial crime stereotypes and willingness to fund crime control policies.

International Perspectives During the Time of COVID-19

2020 has already proven to be a year of seismic societal upheavals We are seeing tragic losses of life and livelihoods and appalling racist crimes, but also opportunities for radical systemic change and progress toward greater diversity and inclusion Examples include securing access to decent public health care, to social justice, and to equitable opportunities for more sustainable livelihoods This issue of International Perspectives in Psychology broaches some of these intersectional possibilities-for change and development-in interconnected ways (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

GEREJA BERMISI MELALUI MEDIA DIGITAL DI ERA REVOLUSI INDUSTRI 4.0

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk memaparkan peranan media dalam mendukung pelayanan misi di era revolusi industri 4.0. Sebab dari beberapa penelitian yang dijumpai ternyata masih ada beberapa pengguna media digital yang tidak bijak dalam bersosial media. Salah satu contohnya yaitu mewabahnya ujaran kebencian yang memainkan peran yang lebih besar dalam kejahatan rasial pada tahun 2019. Selain itu, tak sedikit juga dari pengguna media sosial dan sarana komunikasi online lainnya menggunakan akun pribadinya untuk memfitnah, melakukan tindakan bullying, bahkan sampai menyebarkan berita hoax. Untuk itu, para pengguna diharapkan bersikap bijak dalam menggunakan akun media sosialnya. Adapun metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah kualitatif deskriptif dengan cara mengumpulkan beberapa rujukan melalui studi kepustakaan sehingga menghasilkan beberapa penjelasan yang dibahas secara sistematis. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa gereja perlu membuka diri dalam hal kemajuan perkembangan media sebab ini akan menjadi salah satu ladang pelayanan yang sangat efektif dalam menjangkau jiwa di era revolusi industri 4.0 ini. Beberapa strategi dalam mengkomunikasikan pesan Injil yang dapat dilakukan guna menggiatkan pelayanan media antara lain melalui khotbah live streaming, rekaman video khotbah, update status melalui Facebook dan Instagram. Kesimpulannya ialah pelayanan media sangat berguna untuk menjangkau setiap masyarakat yang sulit untuk dijangkau. Namun yang terutama ialah pelayanan media dapat bertujuan untuk mempercepat kedatangan Yesus Kristus yang kedua kali. “Dan Injil Kerajaan ini akan diberitakan di seluruh dunia menjadi kesaksian bagi semua bangsa, sesudah itu barulah tiba kesudahannya.” (Matius 24:14).

A CRIMINALIZAÇÃO DA HOMOFOBIA/TRANSFOBIA E O RACISMO ESTRUTURAL

O presente artigo busca construir uma reflexão crítica a respeito da utilização da resposta penal como ferramenta de satisfação de demandas democráticas, tomando como ponto de partida a decisão do Supremo Tribunal Federal na ADO nº 26, que equiparou a conduta homofóbica e transfóbica aos crimes de racismo. Os referenciais teóricos utilizados advêm da sociologia do direito e da abordagem materialista do sistema penal. Após uma breve introdução dogmática, é apresentada uma síntese do funcionamento do sistema penal em uma sociedade de classes, problematizando a viabilidade da sua utilização no combate às opressões estruturais. Após considerar as contribuições da perspectiva materialista sobre o Estado, o direito e o racismo, conclui-se ser equivocada a utilização de ferramentas marcadamente opressoras, como o sistema penal, para a satisfação de demandas democráticas.

Black, Blue, and Blow: The Effect of Race and Criminal History on Perceptions of Police Violence

This research aims to determine the situational and individual factors that shape perceptions of whether police violence against citizens is justified. Drawing on research on the racialization of crime, modern racism, and the stigma associated with a criminal history, we hypothesize that individuals will view police violence as more justified when targeted at black citizens and those with criminal histories. We further hypothesize that individuals who have higher levels of racial prejudice will view police violence as more justified. Results from a survey experiment using a sample of 595 white respondents show a consistent effect of criminal history, with individuals viewing violence as more justified against a citizen with a previous criminal background. Further, interaction effects indicate that only white respondents who score highly on racial prejudice view violence against a black citizen as more justified compared to violence against a white citizen. These results underscore the importance of how a criminal record serves as an enduring stigma that shapes how individuals are perceived. Additionally, our results are consistent with theories of contemporary racism and show that negative evaluations of black Americans are limited to whites with high levels of racial prejudice.

Explaining Misperceptions of Crime

Promoting public safety is a central mandate of government. But despite decades of dramatic improvements, most Americans believe crime is rising—a mysterious pattern that may pervert the criminal justice policymaking process. What explains this disconnect? We test five plausible explanations: survey mismeasurement, extrapolation from local crime conditions, lack of exposure to facts, partisan cues and the racialization of crime. Cross-referencing over a decade of crime records with geolocated polling data and original survey experiments, we show individuals readily update beliefs when presented with accurate crime statistics, but this effect is attenuated when statistics are embedded in a typical crime news article, and confidence in perceptions is diminished when a copartisan elite undermines official statistics. We conclude Americans misperceive crime because of the frequency and manner of encounters with relevant statistics. Our results suggest widespread misperceptions are likely to persist barring foundational changes in Americans’ information consumption habits, or elite assistance.

Conmemoración y demandas de justicia en torno a la muerte de un líder senegalés en Argentina

En el presente artículo analizamos los sentidos públicos que se producen, transmiten y disputan acerca de la muerte (entendida como crimen racista) del activista senegalés Massar Ba por parte del colectivo conformado por inmigrantes africanos y afrodescendientes en Argentina, en particular el significado que adquiere este acontecimiento en el contexto de una movilización conmemorativa. A partir del trabajo etnográfico realizado en este marco indagamos sobre los procesos de construcción de memorias subalternas y su relación con las “nuevas” formas de visibilización de negritudes en Argentina. Específicamente, a través del caso de Massar Ba, observamos cómo la recordación de la violencia racista e institucional opera en el presente de los afroargentinos para disputar narrativas hegemónicas de blanquedad e igualdad y, en consecuencia, demandar por derechos históricamente negados. En este proceso consideramos que los sectores de liderazgo afrodescendiente ocupan una posición privilegiada para fijar los parámetros tendientes a la recordación de la alteridad racializada.

Moral Responsibility and History: Problems with Frankfurtian Nonhistoricism

This article examines the nonhistoricist higher-order compatibilist theory of moral responsibility devised and defended by Harry G. Frankfurt. Intuitions about certain kinds of cases of moral responsibility cast significant doubt on the wide irrelevancy clause of the nonhistoricist feature of Frankfurt’s theory. It will be argued that, while the questions of the nature and ascription of moral responsibility must be separated in doing moral responsibility theory, the questions of whether or not and the extent to which an agent is morally responsible for performing certain kinds of actions cannot be settled without also answering the question of the history of that agent’s attitudes, preferences, etc. which may have contributed to the agent’s performing such actions. Thus Frankfurt’s repeated claim that the history of an agent’s action is “irrelevant” to the question of that agent’s moral responsibility for it is rendered dubious, thereby rendering problematic the strongly nonhistoricist component of his theory. The methodological difference between my challenge to Frankfurt’s nonhistoricism and those of others is that, while others have challenged Frankfurt’s nonhistoriciams by way of thought experiments involving hyper-manipulation, mine presents a set of counter-examples to his nonhistoricism which emanate from morality and the law. Indeed, if my counter-example is plausible, then Frankfurt’s nonhistoricism cannot make good sense of some standard instances of racism. Furthermore, while many believe that racist hate crimes ought to be punished more heavily than crimes committed absent hate, the argument herein provides reasons for mitigating, rather than increasing, the responsibility and punishments of many such crimes. What matters in such cases is the extent to which the hatred accompanying said crimes has a history in the agent’s life, one which makes it significantly difficult for her to do other than what she did in committing the racist crime.

Accounting for crime in the US: Race, class and the spectacle of fear

Abstract Expanding critical accounting research on incarceration, this paper explores the consequences of neoliberal techniques and discourses intersecting with race and class in prison practices. As crime is socially constructed we concentrate on two intertwined terrains of struggle: first, the privatization of prisons and second, the “creation of the other”. Controversies over privatization are pervasive and we illustrate that a raison d’etre of privatization – minimizing costs – is discredited and distorted. The devastating consequences of privatization further the divide in communities between those privileged and those vulnerable based on race and class. Through this neoliberal process of privatization and racialization of crime there is a creation of the other – a powerful and hostile discourse. We are troubled that a crime-control dynamic mythologizing and fearing the other has become so institutionalized that domination and injustices are normalized. Accounting contributes to these processes with techniques claiming objectivity, but with undeniable moral impacts. Illustrating these dynamics, we review policies surrounding a four-decade “war on drugs” in the US, appraised as an assault on marginalized (poor) populations. Contrasting to white collar-financial crimes we make visible how incarceration displaces certain groups from significant entitlements of citizenship. While statistics indisputably reveal prejudicial treatment, this is only part of the story. Numbers reduce phenomena to simplistic representations erasing humane meaning and obscuring social dimensions of discrimination and power permeating incarceration practice. Acknowledging these complexities, one aim is developing counter accounts to promote new visibilities to advance social justice.

Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World by Andrew T. Fede

Reviewed by: Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic Worldby Andrew T. Fede Jeannine DeLombard Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World. By Andrew T. Fede. Southern Legal Studies. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2017. Pp. xviii, 343. $69.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-5112-4.) In Federalist PapersNumber 54 (1788), Publius adopts the voice of "one of our Southern brethren" to explain the logic of article 1, section 2, of the U.S. Constitution—the notorious three-fifths clause. As a result of forced labor, commodification, physical restraint, and coercion, Publius acknowledges, "the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals which fall under the legal denomination of property." "In being protected," Publius continues, "in his life and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the master of his labor and his liberty," as in his or her own criminal culpability, "the slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society." Slavery studies, for the most part, has been preoccupied with the first component of the slave's "mixed character" ( Federalist54). After all, it is the property status of the enslaved that arguably distinguishes this form of servitude from other sorts of unfreedom. Recently, heightened awareness of racial profiling, mass incarceration, and police brutality has directed attention to the criminalization of race and the racialization of crime as the enduring legacy of U.S. slavery. Outside of scattered accounts in local, state, and regional histories of slavery, however, little has been said of the status of enslaved people as officially recognized victims of violent crime. As Joan (now Colin) Dayan has trenchantly observed of the slave's "retractable personhood," "the dead slave gets the protection of positive law, but at great cost" (Dayan, "Legal Slaves and Civil Bodies," in Russ Castronovo and Dan D. Elson, eds., Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics[Durham, N.C., 2002], 80, 66). [End Page 722] Dayan, of course, alludes to the prohibitive cost of such retroactive, formal redress to the enslaved victim. But as Andrew T. Fede demonstrates, meaningful legal protection of enslaved lives would have extracted too great a cost from the slave system to be feasible. His comprehensive survey of "the comparative law of slave killing" briefly considers ancient Rome, medieval Europe, and the British Caribbean before settling into a comparative analysis of slave homicide in colonial and then state jurisdictions throughout what would become the United States (p. 1). Here, as in other aspects of American slave law, variation across time and place was the norm. Still, from colonial Pennsylvania to Civil War–era Texas, one fact remained constant: slave owners were hardly ever legally punished for their role in the violent deaths of their slaves. Some were prosecuted, fewer were convicted, and fewer still expiated their crimes by capital punishment or even lengthy prison sentences. Fines, short-term incarceration, pardons, and community-assisted escapes were far more frequent. Significantly, the story changes considerably when the white killer was not of the slave-owning class. Although still rare, these prosecutions revealed the class divisions among white people in slaveholding communities. More to the point, the differential liability of owners and other white slave-killers gives the lie to Federalist54's tidy division of slaves' mixed character into property under civil law and persons under criminal law, for it was to protect the value of slave property as much as to preserve social order that nonslaveholding white people were held responsible for the deaths of enslaved people. In this way, Homicide Justified: The Legality of Killing Slaves in the United States and the Atlantic World,Fede's third book, confirms the arguments of his first book, People Without Rights: An Interpretation of the Fundamentals of the Law of Slavery in the U.S. South(New York, 1992). Drawing on original research as well as an impressive array of secondary sources, Fede here offers a granular view of the legislation and litigation pertaining to slave homicide but little synthetic analysis. Nevertheless, Fede's comprehensive overview...

Toronto: A Psychological and Physical Landscape in More by Austin Clarke

The paper aims to explore Toronto’s role in shaping Idora’s life and her experiences in a place to which she has an ambivalent attitude. She condemns it for the loneliness, alienation, racism, violence and incrimination, but she also loves it by the end of the novel, for a sense of belonging she develops with Toronto. The paper studies the Black experience of different aspects of Toronto life as offered in the novel. Toronto is presented as a place of racism, segregation; as a place, infected with violence and consequent racial crimes and above all as a multicultural city.

The Shaping, Enactment and Interpretation of the First Hate-Crime Law in the United Kingdom - An Informative and Illustrative Lesson for South Africa

Hate crimes are crimes that are motivated by personal prejudice or bias. Hate-crime laws criminalise such conduct and allow for the imposition of aggravated penalties on convicted perpetrators. This article examines the historical, social and political factors which influenced the shaping and enactment of the first British hate-crime law. The South African context is also considered since the Department of Justice has recently released the Prevention and Combatting of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill for public commentary and input.
 While Britain has had a long historical record of criminal conduct that was motivated by the race and the ethnicity of victims, it was only in the twentieth century that civil society first drew attention to the problem of violent racist crimes. Nevertheless, successive British governments denied the problem of racist crimes and refused to consider the enactment of a hate-crime law. Following a high-profile racist murder and a governmental inquiry, a British Labour Party-led government eventually honoured its pre-election commitment and passed a hate-crime law in 1998.
 Some parallels are apparent between the British and the South African contexts. South Africa also has a long historical record of racially motivated hate crimes. Moreover, in the post-apartheid era there have been numerous reports of racist hate crimes and hate crimes against Black lesbian women and Black foreigners. Despite several appeals from the academic and non-governmental sectors for the enactment of a hate-crime law, and the circulation for public commentary of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill, such a law has hitherto not been enacted in South Africa. This article posits that the enactment of a hate-crime law is a constitutional imperative in South Africa in terms of the right to equality and the right to freedom and security of the person. While the enactment of a hate-crime law in South Africa is recommended, it is conceded that enacting a hate-crime law will not eradicate criminal conduct motivated by prejudice and bias.
 

Is the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement Tainted by Anti‐Semitism?

If one disagrees with the actions of company, an organization, or country, boycotting that entity is an acceptable form of protest. Campaigns to boycott table grapes because of labor practices and Coors beer because of their antigay policies achieved their desired results. While divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign can have measurable and positive impact in certain situations, successful result is not guaranteed: witness that one can search online the name of just about any company, and the word boycott, and find campaigns waged against almost every major corporation--and almost none of them have produced any impact. For more than ten years, there has been global campaign to effect boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. This campaign has had little success, in part because, as we argue in this essay, it was born of an ideology hostile to Judaism and Jewish nationalism, and remains steeped in that hostile ideology to this day. The Palestinian people are not united behind this effort. The Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, Palestinian NGO, shows support down ten percentage points from 59 percent in March 2015 to 49 percent in August 2015 (www.jmcc.org). Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, while supporting the boycott of goods produced in West Bank settlements, has opposed of Israeli products not from those settlements. The movement was informally initiated in late August 2001 at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. An array of anti-Israel groups campaigned for language equating Zionism with racism and opposed the inclusion of language that would define anti-Semitism as form of racism. Israel, these advocates said, was an apartheid and its defensive security barrier an apartheid wall. They posited that could impact this protracted conflict in the same way as it had been effective with the South African regime. The final document from accused of genocide and apartheid. This was the opening salvo of what has become known as the BDS movement, an effort born, in effect, in the shadow of anti-Semitism, and unable to this day to shed intolerance of Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish state from its core values. The Conference's final declaration described as state that was guilty of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing. The Durban Strategy promoted a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel, the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel (1) While it is clearly not true that all proponents of are anti-Semitic, the record of the conference, and the campaign for that has unfolded, have been mired by anti-Semitic tropes and in many instances by outright anti-Semitism (ADL 2015). This essay provides several examples of and its anti-Semitic nature: the cultural case of Matisyahu in Spain; the case of attempts at by academic associations; and the case of the boycott of commercial companies, particularly Caterpillar and SodaStream. CASE STUDIES: IN CULTURAL EVENTS Matisyahu (born Matthew Paul Miller), an American Jewish (but not Israeli) reggae rapper and alternative rock musician, was targeted by members of the Movement simply because he is Jewish when he was scheduled to perform at the Rototom Sunsplash festival in Spain in August 2015. Representatives of the movement demanded that the singer release public statement stating that he endorses Palestinian state. He was the only performer of which this demand was made. When he refused, pressure to cancel his performance came from pro-BDS group in Valencia and the performance was initially cancelled. Spain's government and the European Jewish Congress condemned the group's action and the decision of the concert promoters. …

When More than Property Is Lost: The Dignity Losses and Restoration of the Tulsa Riot of 1921

Bernadette Atuahene's We Want What's Ours focuses on deprivations that go beyond property losses. Her focus is on the dignity harms to South Africans over centuries, such as denial of citizenship, that accompanied the theft of their land. I focus here on one grotesque episode of violence, the Tulsa race riot of 1921, to gauge dignity takings in a US context. Thousands were, in the parlance of the times, run out of town in a “negro drive.” They lost property, but also their community, and they could not assert their rights after the riot. This article turns to the ways in which African Americans in Oklahoma obtained rights through the courts that should have been protected around the time of the riot. This expands our sense of the range of responses, from apologies and compensation, to additional judicial process and substantive rights, that are needed for past racial crimes.