Racialization of Crime

For a variety of reasons, the association of race with crime and crime according to race has been an enduring feature of American culture. In fact, race-based assumptions about crime have become so ingrained in public consciousness that the racial identity of suspects need not be mentioned in order for race to be conjured along with crime. This is particularly true for African Americans, whose race seems to be the most closely related to crime in the minds of many Americans. The development of this inextricable linkage between race and crime is referred to as the racialization of crime and has influenced attitudes about crime among the public and functioned as a subtle rationale for both official and unofficial policies and practices that perpetuate differential treatment by criminal justice officials. Factors contributing to the racialization of crime for Blacks have included actual and perceived participation in crime, the 1980s War on Drugs, disproportionate involvement in the criminal justice system, and media portrayals of criminality.

Although the racialization of crime has had some effect on individuals of various races, the prevalent representation of criminality in American culture is that crimes are committed overwhelmingly by young Black men. The familiarity of much of the public with the image of young Black men as violent or predatory street criminals is reinforced by common depictions everywhere. These portrayals of crime as disproportionately attributable to Blacks are not a completely new phenomenon, however. Historical analysis of evolving perceptions of race from the time of slavery to the present suggests that Whites have long viewed criminal behavior as an inherent characteristic of Blacks. Following the civil rights movement, the perceived connection between Blacks and crime took hold of the public imagination, and the popular stereotype of the young Black man evolved from a thief or rapist into that of an ominous violent gangster or criminal predator.

Today the racialization of crime has intensified in such a way that many believe Blacks are even more threatening than at any other time in U.S. history. It is the near inability to distinguish between criminality and Blacks that prompted Katheryn Russell's coining of the term criminal-blackman in reference to the modern image of criminals as Black. Similarly, Jerome Miller, the former executive director and founder of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, has argued that crime is a “code” word that inherently implies race. Some research has suggested that it is the racial typification of crime and the ability to talk about race in code that allows for increasingly punitive crime control policies that promote “getting tough” on crime.