Class, Race, Gender, and Crime: The Social Realities of Justice in America

by Gregg Barak

Class, Race, Gender and Crime: Social Realities of Justice in America examines the dynamics of class, race, and gender as they intersect with the social realities of crime and justice in the U.S. today.
Criminologists Barak, Flavin, and Leighton reveal how class, race, and gender operate both separately and in combination to influence individual experience in and of the criminal justice system and larger society. To this end, the authors provide a detailed and nuanced portrait of the multi-layered social reality of crime, incorporating useful historical and contemporary examples as they analyze the twin problems of crime production and crime control.
The book examines how these social realities affect the meanings and intentions of justice, law, policing, judicial processing, punishment, victimization, and media representations of crime and crime control. In light of these social realities, the authors then look at similarities and dissimilarities between systems of "equal justice," "restorative justice," and "social justice." In conclusion, they set forth a summary of reforms and policies for crime control and criminal reduction currently under consideration.

Genres: Crime, Nonfiction, Race

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Gregg Barak is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Eastern Michigan University. In 2003 Barak became the 27th Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and in 2007 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Critical Division of the American Society of Criminology. Gregg Barak gained popularity as a commentator of the O.J. Simpsons trial on a radio talk show and is also a notable critic of the "crimes of the powerful".

Reviews

[Christa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my favorite textbooks from my Engendering Prisons course. The authors explained intersectionality in interesting ways. The viewpoints were fairly radical, which I appreciated.

"Imagine standing in the middle of an intersection with a view down several streets that run in different directions. If a friend stands at the end of one of those streets, she can share some of the same view, but her perspective will also be different: the features that are closest will be different and she will have a view down different side streets. Now, think of those streets as being social dimensions such as class, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual orientation.
The view of those streets represents a person's life experiences, worldview, and "social location." Describing a person's social location based solely on race would be like saying "Third Street" in a large diverse city without specifying a cross (intersecting) street." (81-82)

[Dylan Haman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a good supplement to criminal justice education in the United States. The book offers a good lens for viewing criminal justice, but is too heavy-handed on rhetorical flourishes that are not particularly valuable for understanding the true nature and theory of crime.

If we cannot understand the causes of social problems, then our pursuit to solve them will either do more harm than good or nothing at all.

[Morgan Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the layout of information, but felt like it was drawn out. Multiple times took about 3 pages to get to the point of what 1 page could’ve sufficiently said.