Relationship Between Racism and Sentencing: A Conflict Theory Perspective

This essay evaluates the relationship between racism and sentencing or punishment and the way conflict theory sheds light on the relative racial and cultural rise of observations of criminal injustice.

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SOCIOLOGY AND CRIMINOLOGY
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Introduction
The view of criminal injustice is universal amongst underprivileged racial and ethnic
minority groups. Such a view of inequality is particularly widespread among highly learned and
socially thriving groups. It is noted that encounters taking place among citizens and law
enforcement agencies serve decisive role between in such perceptions of racial injustice (Dollar,
2014). The fact concerning that these perceptions of racial injustice can be highly severe among
less racially advantaged minority group members. Delgado and Stefancic (2017) have noted that
a conflict theory of crime and sentencing aims to seek relationship between racially
disadvantaged groups and sentencing. The aim of this essay is to evaluate the relationship
between racism and sentencing or punishment and the way conflict theory will shed light on the
relative racial and cultural rise of observations of criminal injustice.
Discussion
There can be found certain grounds to believe that the processes involved in perceptions
of injustice have extensive as well as generic attributes which tend to encompass a wide range of
American institutions. Smith and Holmes (2014) have cited an instance of African-Americans
who observe discrimination, injustice and unfairness in areas as miscellaneous as education,
employment, housing and health care. According to Steffensmeier, Painter-Davis and Ulmer
(2017), while the greater part of Whites tend to suppose that African-American economic
dissimilarity is a consequence of motivational disadvantages, major proportion of African-
Americans consider that discrimination is the consequence of white racism along with other
structural barriers. Delgado and Stefancic (2017) have found a growing as well as compelling
evidence that race is considerably more crucial than social class in explaining disparity in urban

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American capture and sentencing rates. Such evidence however emphasizes on the consequence
recently linked to race in a transformed socio-legal conflict theory. Meanwhile, Light, Massoglia
and King (2014) have shed light on micro-macro level economic disadvantages which can
further be identified as significant cause of perceived criminal injustice. Comprehensive studies
of Skeem and Lowenkamp (2016) have shed light on the behaviour of blacks by the criminal
justice system. However, in both occurrences the interest paid in black offense and
discrimination in opposition to blacks has been insignificant when one aims to focus on the
disproportionate occurrence of blacks within the American system of criminal justice for over a
century. According to Mears, Cochran and Lindsey (2016), within this framework, expected
discrimination and injustice have caused due to low socio-economic status in the American
society. This framework further implies that similar treatment for blacks, lower-class whites,
American Indians, Asian-Americans, and Hispanics along with other low rank groups. However,
it can be argued that the reinforcement of conflict theory obtained from classification Marxist
ideas related to implication of social class.
Meanwhile, comprehensive studies of Skeem and Lowenkamp (2016) indicate that
visible social contrast and distance have been associated with powerlessness and threat. Several
African and American have been perceived by governing groups as less superior or dominant
and further intimidating to whites in comparison to Latino-Americans who tend to create a rising
relative presence as well as point of indication in present-day American society. Such a sense of
varying risk has the tendency to be resultant from the extensive history linking slavery of
African-Americans in the United States, drawing contradiction to the current as well as rising
existence of Latinos in several American cities. According to Light, Massoglia and King (2014),
conflict theory has typically been attributed by suggesting that nonwhites tend to get severe

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sentence in comparison to whites for all offense, in all conditions and at parallel levels of
inequality. This probability has been competent with implications that given the legacy of racism
in the South, differences between whites and non-whites may be more significant and as
American race relations develop over time, there may be witnessed a gradual transition in the
black-white punishment discrepancy. On the other hand, Worrall (2014) has put greater degree
of importance on the racial attributes of the homicide victim. Such enlightenment focuses on the
undervalued status of the black sufferers as well as black existence especially in the United
States. Delgado and Stefancic (2017) have noted that crimes not in favour of whites are regarded
to be more ruthlessly penalized than those in opposition to the blacks regardless of the race of the
offender. Furthermore, due to the classification of ethnic and socio-economic stratification in the
United States, offenses such as white collar crimes have been chiefly referred as ‘white crime’,
while most street crimes against wealth and assets have been viewed as ‘non white crime’.
Furthermore, unfavourable social conditions shaped by intense difficulty consequential from
separation have a strong consequence on black but not white homicides. Moreover, Dollar
(2014) has noted that within the street crime category, there have been found certain divisions in
relation to racial lines. Mears, Cochran and Lindsey (2016) have found that aggressive and brutal
street crimes have been typically associated with blacks or racially minor groups. Authors have
found certain evidences regarding offenses such as rape which has been perceived to be a critical
crime offense which results to unyielding sentencing. In contrast, distinctive fraudulent acts have
been signified as a middle class, white qualified whereby these types of offenses in the United
States and Australia tend to reveal certain social realities. These stereotypes may be grounded in
ideas of the causes of crime. Other critical factors which have put in to the declines primarily
incorporated a favourable financial system, besieged policing in addition to rules focusing on

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imprisonment of aggressive offenders and control of firearms. Worrall (2014) has noted that
regardless of its source such typing tend to pose impact to the official response to criminal
activity. The treatment of black offender defendants within the legal organization demonstrated a
highly intricate decision-making development in comparison to the one described within the
conflict perspective.
Drawing relevance to these evidences, Steffensmeier, Painter-Davis and Ulmer (2017)
have demonstrated the way rising non-white or black poverty besides elevated levels of racial
isolation have interrelated in order to give attention to poverty and to create the social conditions
consequential to the offense effects experienced in the U.S. over recent decades. On the other
hand, Skeem and Lowenkamp (2016) have emphasized on the way biased policies and practices
have strengthened racial separation, further mounting and concentrating disadvantage for blacks
or not whites groups. The social and economic inequalities encountered by African Americans
along with other racially minority groups tend to create similar challenges which include
obstacles related to economic opportunity, employment along with other educational services.
Studies of Mears, Cochran and Lindsey (2016) have revealed that as incomes for low-skilled
men have been waning since the 1970s and African Americans, Hispanics, and Native
Americans have been overrepresented at the substructure of the skill hierarchy, whereby these
issues tend to explicate their participation in criminal activities.
Conclusion
Hence to conclude, many of the financial as well as social conditions which have formed
racial disparities and black and white punishments and sentencing differentials have undergone
noteworthy alteration over the last quarter-century. It has been noted that the societal forces and

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dominance which tend to form the recent levels of unbalanced punishment of blacks in the
United States may, for that reason, be at variance from those that have been highly operant in the
past decades. Moreover, on the other hand, the powerlessness to proficiently build up non-
historically conditional intentions should not make the fact ambiguous that black-white criminal
sentence degree of differences has continued to stay at parallel levels for more than ten decades.

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References
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