Working Under the Myth of the Black Rapist

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-117
Author(s):  
Gordon Braxton
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sexual Activity ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Black Boys ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Sexual Desires

Chapter 5 posits that the journey for Black boys adopting anti-violent perspectives is substantially different than that of their White peers because they must operate under negative tropes about their propensity for aggression: There is a belief that Black men have a special propensity for forcefully acting out their sexual desires on women. “The myth of the Black rapist” is identified as a term, and the author provides contemporary and historical evidence of its existence. Examples can be found in the criminal justice system and pornography. Chapter 5 reminds readers that caution in initiating sexual activity is an appropriate standard and closes with a challenge that Black men overcome historical stereotypes by becoming recognized advocates for anti-violence.

“A Rose out of This Cement”

2018 ◽  
pp. 142-161
Author(s):  
Nikki Jones
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Young People ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Black Fathers ◽  
Community Residents ◽  
Life Trajectory ◽  
Forms Of Violence

Chapter 5 tells the story of Jay, one of several young men that Eric and his group tried to support shortly in his efforts to break free from the criminal justice system. I first met Jay when he was in his early twenties. He was just beginning to construct the kind of narrative and life that would lead him away from the street. Five years after our first meeting, I found myself speaking at Jay’s funeral. This chapter reveals the limitations of buffer-and-bridge work when it comes to changing the life trajectory of young men like Jay and highlights the limitations of the crime-fighting community when it comes to protecting Black youth from violence. The chapter provides a compelling illustration of how and why individualistic efforts at transformation or narrowly focused calls for the redemption of Black men in general and Black fathers in particular – narratives often embraced by a variety of community residents – will always fall short of delivering young people from the various forms of violence that shape their adolescence.

The Crime of Freedom

2018 ◽  
pp. 217-246
Author(s):  
Adam Malka
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Black People ◽  
Racial Violence

Slavery in Maryland died during the 1860s, but for all of their promise the changes also brought heartbreak. As Chapter 7 shows, black men’s acquisition of a fuller bundle of property rights and legal protections brought them into conflict with the very criminal justice system built to guard those rights and ensure those protections. White commentators scoffed at black men’s supposed indolence and bristled at their households’ apparent disorder; police officers arrested black Baltimoreans for an expanding list of crimes; and black people, black men in particular, were incarcerated at growing rates. During the years immediately following the Civil War, Baltimore’s policemen and prisons perpetrated a form of racial violence that was different from yet indicative of the violence inflicted by the old order’s vigilantes. Castigated as criminals, freedmen’s legal victories provoked a form of policing reserved for the truly free.

scholarly journals Black Boys’ and Young Men’s Experiences with Criminal Justice and Desistance in England and Wales: A Literature Review

Genealogy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Laura Robertson ◽  
John Peter Wainwright
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Black Boys ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Justice Systems ◽  
Minority Ethnic

Black boys and young men are over-represented in the youth and adult justice systems in England and Wales. Despite the Lammy Review (2017) into the treatment of and outcomes for Black, Asian, and minority ethnic individuals (BAME) in the criminal justice system, the disproportionate numbers of Black boys and young men at all stages of the system continue to rise. There has been limited qualitative research of Black boys’ and young men’s experiences with the justice system in England and Wales. In particular, there is a lack of evidence on their experiences with sentencing and courts. What is known tends to focus on Black, Asian, and minority ethnic and/or Muslim men’s experiences more generally. A lack of critical understanding of the specific experiences of desistance by young Black men has been criticised in the literature. Set in this context, this review of UK literature focuses on the following questions: (1) What are Black boys’ and young Black men’s experiences with the youth and criminal justice systems in England and Wales? (2) What does research tell us specifically about their experiences with desistance?

Exposure to Community-Based Violence on Social Media among Black Male Emerging Adults Involved with the Criminal Justice System

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert O Motley ◽  
Yu-Chih Chen ◽  
Carnayla Johnson ◽  
Sean Joe
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Police Violence

Abstract The prevalence of community-based violence (CBV) exposure among black American male emerging adults ages 18 to 25 with a history of involvement with the criminal justice system is a major public health concern. Although exposure (whether as victim or witness) to CBV is linked with negative outcomes, empirical research examining black men’s negative emotional responses to seeing videos of real-life incidents of CBV on social media is scant. To address these identified concerns and make recommendations for future research, the present study examines the relationship between seeing videos of CBV on social media and three types of negative emotional responses (that is, feeling sad, angry, and fearful) prior to incarceration among a sample of 101 black men detained in a midwestern jail. Social media use and seeing videos of CBV on social media were moderately high for study participants. Seeing a video involving police violence was significantly associated with an increase in the odds of feeling sad, angry, and fearful. Social media research is an emerging area that has the potential to advance our understanding of the impact of seeing social media videos of police violence on the well-being of black men and factors that mediate or moderate this relationship.

Targets

2018 ◽  
pp. 87-115
Author(s):  
Nikki Jones
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Gender Socialization ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Adolescent Period ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 3 illustrates how the crime-fighting community cedes responsibility for the control of young Black men most vulnerable to violence as either victim or perpetrator to the most powerful and punitive member of the community: the criminal justice system. This isolation and vulnerability is evidenced in the daily and routine interactions among a range of law enforcement actors in the neighborhood and young Black men, which makes the adolescent period for today’s youth markedly different than that of Eric and his peers. In places where targeted policing practices persist over time, the juvenile and criminal justice system can become the most significant institutional presence in young men’s lives, which can make it even harder to reach young, Black men in crisis. Routine encounters with the police, which are facilitated and legitimized by the crime-fighting community, also shape the gender socialization of young men and exacerbate the vulnerability of other neighborhood adolescents to gendered forms of violence, including Black women and girls.

Economic Inequality: The Picture in Black and White

1987 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Joe
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Service System ◽  
White Men ◽  
Minority Youth ◽  
Median Income ◽  
Net Worth ◽  
Black And White

This article hypothesizes that at least part of the reason minority youth are overrepresented in the criminal justice system is that they see few prospects for future economic success in comparison to Whites. Blacks are over three times as likely to be poor as Whites; their median income is only half that of Whites; their net worth (defined as total assets owned minus any liabilities) is only one-twelfth that of Whites; and Black men are twice as likely to be jobless as White men. Without radical changes in the use-service system, we should not be surprised if minority youths continue to remain outside the mainstream economy.

scholarly journals Youth Justice, Black Children and Young Men in Liverpool: A Story of Rac(ism), Identity and Contested Spaces

Genealogy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
John Wainwright ◽  
Laura Robertson ◽  
Cath Larkins ◽  
Mick Mckeown
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Youth Justice ◽  
The North ◽  
Before And After

This study explores the experiences of the black children and young men that attended a Youth Offending Team (YOT) in Liverpool, a city in the North of England, UK. It focuses on the perspectives of both the YOT practitioners and the black children/young men as they develop working relationships with each other. Through this two-way prism the back children/young men reflect on what is important to them before and after they enter the criminal justice system. Likewise, the YOT practitioners provide their understanding of the key issues in the young people’s lives—in particular, how the black children/young men made sense of their lives in Liverpool with a particular identity with place, space, class and race. A genealogy of race/class prism, along with an intersectional and appreciative inquiry methodology, was employed that encouraged the youth justice workers and young black men to explore the strengths and realities of their lives. Focus groups were undertaken with seven YOT practitioners and managers, along with semi-structured interviews with five black children/young men. The methodology focused on points of intersection of power, difference and identity. Findings that emerged from the participants included the experience of racism within the criminal justice system, the community and the wider city, along with the importance of education, employment and relations with the young people’s family. A core theme was an identity of black children/young men from a specific region. This intersection was as Scousers, black boys/young men, the contestation over space and their negotiated identity regarding race. The ambivalence and (un)certainty that these identities evoked provide possibilities for youth justice practitioners engaging with young black men involved in serious and repeat offending.

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