Anti-racism in Criminology: An Oxymoron or the way Forward?

• Author: Sean K. Wilson,Jane E. Palmer,Valli Rajah
• DOI: 10.1177/21533687221101785
• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Date: 01 July 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Anti-racism in Criminology:

An Oxymoron or the way

Forward?

Jane E. Palmer

1

, Valli Rajah

2

,

and Sean K. Wilson

3

Abstract

Since the uprisings of 2020 in the aftermath of the police-perpetrated the murders of

George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, universities –and some departments –have

expressed their commitments to anti-racism in public statements. While statements

are laudable, what matters most is how anti-racism is actualized in our classrooms,

our syllabi, our departmental policies and practices, our research, and the discipline

of criminology. In this paper, we outline the racist history of “criminality,”policing,

prisons, and criminology, along with current manifestations of systemic racism in

the criminal legal system. Against this backdrop, we aim to start a conversation

about whether it is possible for the discipline to be proactively anti-racist or if this

transformation is impossible due to the discipline’s historical - and ongoing - complic-

ity with racism. We also offer questions for criminology departments to consider if

they seek to actively uproot present day racism within the discipline and the criminal

legal system.

Keywords

race, critical criminology, police brutality, mass incarceration, prison-industrial

complex, convict-lease system, policing

1

American University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

2

John Jay College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

3

William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jane E. Palmer, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Kerwin Hall 270, Washington,

District of Columbia 20016, USA.

Email: jane.palmer@american.edu

Article

Race and Justice

2022, Vol. 12(3) 531-547

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/21533687221101785

journals.sagepub.com/home/raj

“When the structural character of racism is ignored in discussions of crime and rising

population of incarcerated people, the racial imbalance in jails and prisons is treated as

a contingency…” -Angela Davis (1998, p.62)

Since the uprisings of 2020 in the aftermath of the police-perpetrated murders of

George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, universities –and some departments –have

expressed their commitments to anti-racism in public statements (Casselas

Connors & McCoy, 2022). While such statements are laudable, what matters more

is how anti-racism is actualized in our classrooms, our syllabi, our departmental pol-

icies and practices, and our research. If one is committed to anti-racism, according to

Kendi (2019), they must support anti-racism through policies, actions, and words.

That is, anti-racist actions must be “an active process of identifying and challenging

racism and redistributing power in an equitable manner, by changing policies and

practices within systems and organizations, as well as individual beliefs, attitudes

and behaviors”(Harper Browne & O’Connor, 2021, p.1). They must demonstrate

a conscientious commitment to eradicating manifestations of racism –and other

forms of oppression –that perpetuate inequities, racial superiority, or persistent

state-sanctioned or other forms violence and abuse against marginalized and minori-

tized people and communities.

According to the Washington Post’s tracker of fatal police encounters, the number

of fatal police shootings since 2015 remains unacceptably steady at about 1,000 per

year. Of the 7,330 people shot and killed by police in the U.S. since 2015, 41%

were White, 22% were Black, 15% were Hispanic, 3% were another race, and 19%

had an unknown race. Yet, White people make up 76% of the US Population, while

Black and Hispanic people make up 12% and 18% respectively. Furthermore, an anal-

ysis of 5,494 incidents from 2013–2017 found that Black people were 3.23 times more

likely to be killed by police than White people (Schwartz & Jahn, 2020). As criminol-

ogists, we cannot ignore the ongoing police violence against Black Americans, which

often occurs with impunity. We also cannot ignore that current manifestations of vio-

lence against Black Americans are rooted in the history of the United States, and how

policing, prisons, and our discipline has developed in this context. We cannot treat

“racial disparities”or “biases”as contingencies (Davis, 1998), we must acknowledge

that these disparities are produced through racist histories, policies, and actions in the

U.S. We also must acknowledge that, given our positions at criminologists, we can

change the status quo. Otherwise, we are complicit in maintaining how things have

always been done.

If we apply Prochaska & Velicer’s (1997) transtheoretical model of behavior

change to anti-racist action, people in our discipline must move from precontemplation

(not ready to take anti-racist action), to contemplation (considering pros and cons of

taking anti-racist action), to preparation (getting ready to take anti-racist action), to

action (taking anti-racist actions), to maintenance (sustaining taking anti-racist

actions), to termination (avoiding returning to old behaviors) (see Table 1). Before

the uprisings in 2020, many of our colleagues, especially colleagues of color, were

532 Race and Justice 12(3)