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

by Gregg Barak, Paul Leighton, Allison M. Cotton

Class, Race, Gender, and Crime is a popular, and provocative, introduction to crime and the criminal justice system through the lens of class, race, gender, and their intersections. Almost 15 years after its first publication, the book remains the only non-edited book to systematically explore how the main sites of power and privilege in the U.S. consciously or unconsciously shape our understanding of crime and justice in society today.

The fourth edition maintains the overall structure of the third edition—including consistent headings in chapters for class, race, gender, and intersections—with updated examples, current data, and recent theoretical developments incorporated throughout. Part I has been significantly revised, first providing students with an overview of the criminal justice system, its actors, and actions, then introducing students to key theories of crime criminals. Part II provides foundational information about class and economic privilege, race/ethnicity and white privilege, gender and male privilege, and their intersections. Part III looks thorough these lenses at the topics of victimization, criminal law, policing and criminal prosecution, and punishment. The fourth edition also welcomes a new co-author, Allison Cotton, to the team of Gregg Barak and Paul Leighton.

The fourth edition of Class, Race, Gender, and Crime is a powerful introduction to the strengths and shortcomings of the criminal justice system.

A complimentary Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank is available. Contact textbooks@rowman.com for details.

Genres: Crime, Nonfiction, Race

406 pages, Paperback

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.