Colonial Model

Colonialism and the Death Penalty

Throughout the history of the American justice system, Blacks and minorities have been overrepresented in criminal cases and prison sentences, particularly in cases involving the death penalty. Scholars have used colonial theory to analyze racial disproportionality in the prison population and in the application of the death penalty. Recent governmental and state-sponsored reports have found that Blacks and other minority defendants are more likely than White defendants to receive the death penalty for the same crime. Specifically, [Page 138]evidence has shown higher execution rates for Black defendant/White victim crimes compared to those in which the defendant is White and the victim is Black. The role of race and racism remains controversial, and it continues to be addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court and in other legal cases. According to some governmental reports, a majority of studies of racial discrimination in implementation of the death penalty show that the race of the victim correlates significantly with the death penalty (i.e., when a similar homicide under similar circumstances is committed by defendants with similar criminal histories, the defendant is several times more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim is White than if the victim is Black).

Several criminologists have noted that colonial theory is compatible with many conflict-theoretical analyses of American racism, emphasizing that Whites have systematically controlled and exploited racial minorities. Others have elaborated by pointing out that conflict theorists have tended either to ignore the role played by race in relation to criminal justice or to subordinate its significance to social class. As a result, these critics argue, conflict theorists have simply lumped all poor people together, regardless of their race/ethnicity, on that assumption that socioeconomic class is the major factor determining treatment in the criminal justice system. The evidence, however, remains consistent with the tenets of the colonial perspective.

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