Relationship Between Racism and Sentencing: A Conflict Theory Perspective

Running head: SOCIOLOGY AND CRIMINOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY AND CRIMINOLOGY
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1SOCIOLOGY AND CRIMINOLOGY
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