Department of Criminal Justice California State University - Bakersfield CRJU 330 Race, Ethnicity and Criminal Justice Dr. Abu-Lughod, Reem Ali CRIME BY ANY OTHER NAME

Pyrrhic Defeat Theory n CJ system is designed to fail and particularly benefits those in power n Influenced by Emile Durkheim (crime is normal), Kai Erickson (institutions to fight crime are contributing to its existence), Karl Marx (it’s always in the best interest of the rich)

n PDT: CJ system only fights a small portion of crimes to control it from getting out of hand. It stays in people’s mind as “Fear of crime” but is never substantially reduced or eliminated. CJ system makes it look like crimes are the works of the poor.

n Society fails to protect people, CJ system failure in fighting crime and labeling some acts as criminal and others not, and that crime is the work of the poor. n Carnival Mirror: shows a distorted images of what occurs in society. It is created by society labeling some acts as criminal and others as non-criminal. But it is not used to label all acts that create misery to American society.

n The typical “label” for a criminal in our society is a “he” urban black poor. n CJ system does not reflect the reality of crime but rather creates the reality we see. n That the decisions of the legislators, police, prosecutors, juries, judges, all together do not reflect the goal of protecting society.

n Looks at a crime by another name and form. Not necessarily those that include physical harm and injury to someone. The example given is of workers dieing because of methane explosion. n Occupational hazards.

n Why do we refer to some crimes as murder and dieing at work because of reckless or negligent behavior as an accident. n He examines incidents of food additives, cigarette smoking, unnecessary surgery….all these Reiman argues produce harm that is comparable to harm produced by any other crime we label as “serious”

HEALTH CARE n Unnecessary surgeries for purposes of making profit POVERTY n Linked to death n Health problems n Causes injury and death The problem is that human effort can help make these problems stop

F The CJ system unfairly weeds out the well-to-do from the system, so that most of the people involved in the justice system are of the lower class F Reiman doesn’t discuss this issue as racial bias but rather as economic bias. For similar behaviors, the poor are likely to be caught, arrested, convicted, sentenced with long prison terms

F Research shows that youth who belong to the lower class are more likely to be referred to a juvenile court than a kids from the middle/upper class committing the same offense.

F We target the poor for the crimes they usually commit, such as burglary, robbery, assault, etc…. However for the crimes that the poor never commit such as antitrust violations, embezzlement, tax invasion, etc… the CJ system is rather blind to those who are likely to be involved in these crimes. F Those offenders who are assigned lawyers or public defenders do not get adequate time spent on their case. Because of case loads and other reasons.

u CJ system has a triple bias against the poor. 1. Economic class bias, as which acts are labeled “criminal” and which are treated more leniently 2. Economic class bias between crimes. Crimes committed by the poor are treated more harshly 3. Those behind bars with longer sentences are often of the lower class in society