NCJ Number
218512
Journal
Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 46 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2007 Pages: 128-144
Date Published
May 2007
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article analyzes the dynamics of racial discrimination in the areas of criminal justice and mental health policy and practice in the United Kingdom.
Abstract
The main argument is that the racial discrimination against Black people in the areas of criminal justice and mental health policy can be understood in terms of the relationship between three processes: (1) preemptive criminalization, in which criminal justice responses take on an anticipatory form; (2) risk analysis, which is the process of allocating individuals into categories based on their statistical likelihood of committing certain types of acts; and (3) institutional racism, which is racial discrimination that is rooted in the mode of operation of an institution. The growth of preemptive criminalization is explored followed by a consideration of the association between preemptive criminalization and risk management practices. The author shows how the relationship between preemptive criminalization and risk management cast the working class and the poor as a threat to social stability. Next, policing is used as an example of how institutional racism, preemptive criminalization, and risk management interact to produce racial discrimination. The author argues that the control and management of socially excluded risk groups creates a pressure towards the preemptive criminalization of certain groups regardless of their actual rates of criminality. Stop and search procedures put into place by policing institutions provide an example of the link between risk management, preemptive criminalization, and institutional racism. Similar dynamics are seen within the mental health industry, which is charged with socially excluding Black people. Concepts of mental illness are vulnerable to stereotyping which tend to misinterpret culturally appropriate behavior and reflect deep-rooted racism at different stages of the psychiatric process. The author notes that in order to combat institutional forms of racism, there must be a greater focus on the individual rather than the group. Notes, references