scholarly journals The Relevance of the Social Control Theory in Explaining Crime among African American Families

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ayodeji Daramola ◽  
Gbolahan S Osho
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Control Theory ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Justice System ◽  
African American Families ◽  
Social Control Theory ◽  
The Church

Today, criminologists, especially, Black criminologists, are thoroughly perplexed by the same problem of disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) most especially of Blacks in both the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Are African Americans more criminally minded than other races or ethnic groups? Do African Americans actually commit more crimes than others? These are the questions that the different deviant theories have tried to answer. The concept of social bonding arose from social control theory, which suggests that attachment to family and school, commitment to conventional pathways of achievements and beliefs in the legitimacy of social order are primary and important elements of establishing a social bond (Hirschi, 1969). In expounding his social control theory, Hirschi listed the elements of the bond as attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. Does it mean that African Americans commit more crimes than other racial and ethnic groups? Or are African Americans genetically wired to be criminogenic? Is the society or the environment to blame for the perceived higher rate of crime among African Americans? Or are the criminal justice system, the judicial system, and the juvenile justice system, all together racially biased against Blacks, especially, Black males? Even though Hirschi (1969) did not mention attachment to religious beliefs as part of social control, but for the African American families, the church could play a significant role in helping to cement the bond of adolescents to their families. Any study of the African American family is not complete without the church. According to Work (1900), in all social study of the Negro, the church must be considered, for it is one of the greatest factors in his social life.

Constructing Race in Black and Whiteness: Media Coverage of Public Support for President Clinton

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 114-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dwight E. Brooks ◽  
James A. Rada
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
The Media

This study employs a framing analysis of media explanations regarding public support for President Clinton during the 1998 coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. An analysis of broadcast, newspaper, and magazine stories during the scandal reveals that media coverage of support for the President focused exclusively on African Americans. Five discursive frames were used to explain African American support: morality, political pragmatism, distrust of the criminal justice system, forgiveness/redemption, and Clinton's rapport with African Americans. Although these frames construct blackness using a variety of characteristics seldom found in the media, they also construct the concept of blackness in near universal and essentialist terms. Media explanations of Black support at the expense of explanations of White support (or lack thereof) for the President reinforce a racial hierarchy whereby whiteness serves as an invisible racial norm.

Race, Sport, and Crime: The Misrepresentation of African Americans in Team Sports and Crime

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Berry ◽  
Earl Smith
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
The United States ◽  
African American Athletes

Criminological literature and statistics show that African Americans are comparatively overrepresented in the United States criminal justice system. This study explores whether African American athletes are similarly overrepresented as criminally involved sports figures. Data abundantly illustrate that African Americans fare worse in all phases of criminal justice compared to whites. It has been speculated that African Americans, perhaps due to cultural influences or blocked opportunities, do commit more crime than other racial categories. There is equally strong reason to believe that the representation of African Americans in the criminal justice system is largely a result of racial bias on the part of social control agencies. Crime among athletes, regardless of race, can be explained through social forces, such as collective behavior, organizational influences, and social process. We conclude that African American athletes are socially expected to be engaged in crime and suggest a new approach to this area of study.

Racial Justice and Criminal Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Black Neighborhoods

The criminal justice system in the United States both reflects racial inequality in the broader society and contributes to it. The overrepresentation of African Americans among those in prison is a result of both the conditions in poor black neighborhoods and racial bias in the criminal justice system. The American system of criminal justice today is excessively punitive, when compared to previous periods and to other countries, and its harsh treatment disproportionately harms African Americans. In addition, those released from prison face a number of obstacles to housing, employment, and other prerequisites of decent life, and the concentration of prisoners and ex-prisoners in black communities does much to perpetuate racial inequality.

Crack and Criminal Justice in Canton, Ohio, 1987–1999: “The Drug Problem has Created a Monster”

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-182
Author(s):  
WILL COOLEY
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Crack Cocaine ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
The City

AbstractThe rise of crack cocaine in the late 1980s propelled the war on drugs. The experience of Canton, Ohio, shows how the response to crack solidified mass incarceration. A declining industrial city of 84,000 people in northeast Ohio with deep-seated racial divides, it was overwhelmed by aggressive, enterprising crack dealers from outside the city. In response, politicians and residents united behind the strategy of incessant arrests and drastic prison sentences. The law-enforcement offensive worsened conditions while pursuing African Americans at blatantly disproportionate rates, but few people engaged in reframing the drug problem. Instead, a punitive citizenry positioned punishment as the principal remedy. The emergency foreclosed on more comprehensive assessments of the city’s tribulations, while the criminal justice system emerged as the paramount institution.

Hobbling a Generation: Young African American Men in Washington, D.C.'s Criminal Justice System—Five Years Later

1998 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Lotke
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Census Data ◽  
African American Men ◽  
District Of Columbia

The number of young African American men ages 18 to 35 in the District of Columbia under criminal justice supervision—in prison or jail, probation or parole, out on bond or being sought on a warrant—was compared to U.S. census data for the district. It was found that virtually half (49.9 percent) of that population was under justice control on any given day in early 1997.

Social Control Theory

2011 ◽  
pp. 2768-2769
Author(s):  
Roger J. R. Levesque
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Social Control Theory
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