Race, space and punishment in urban sociology
Review essay: The reassertion of race, space, and punishment’s place in urban sociology and critical criminology
Structural circumstances of deprivation and criminalization facing African-Americans and the racialized perceptions of criminality appear to be some of the salient features that recently led to a young black teenager being killed by neighborhood watch patrolman George Zimmerman.
A review by Tom Reifer of Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect and The Collapse of American Criminal Justice Robert J Sampson and William Stuntz, respectively.
The structural circumstances of deprivation and criminalization facing African-Americans that they both highlight, and the related racialized perceptions of criminality that are counterparts, appear to be some of the salient features that recently led to the murder of a young black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in the US state of Florida.
Florida is one of many US states with new Stand Your Ground laws which have proliferated across the country, along with a noticeable uptick in so-called ‘justified homicides’. In this instance the inequalities of race and space highlighted by these two authors tragically came together as a neighborhood watch patrolman shot and killed Trayvon and shaped the lack of an initial official response, until massive protests broke out across the US against the failure of authorities to charge the assailant with a crime (Sampson, 2012; Sampson and Raudenbush, 2004). This review essay presents these two landmark books, offering an appreciation and critique of their interrelated arguments and setting them in the context of a wider literature on the evolution of spatial, social class, and racial relations right up to our contemporary present.
Sampson’s book is arguably one of the greatest works of urban sociology, critical criminology, and what Soja (2011) calls “postmodern geography” in a generation, radically altering these entire fields. Highlighted here in particular is the “neighborhood effect”, referring to the relationship between race, class, space, and punishment’s place in the US, which with only 5% of the world’s population, has 25% of its prisoners. This carceral boom is the latest, and perhaps one of the most troubling, forms of American exceptionalism, with a widening divide since the 1970s between the US and other advanced capitalist states (albeit one that has been narrowing as of late).
Download the pdf to read the full review.
“The Reassertion of Race, Space & Punishment’s Place in Urban Sociology & Critical Criminology,” Review Essay, Robert J. Sampson, Great American City: Chicago & the Enduring Neighborhood Effect, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012 & William Stuntz, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011, Environment & Planning D: Society & Space, Volume 31, April 2013, pp. 372-380
About the authors
Tom Reifer
Tom Reifer is currently Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of San Diego and publishes widely on global peace and social justice issues. He has also been a long-time activist in the anti-nuclear movement as well as a rank and file trade union activist. His specialty is the study of large-scale, long-term social change and world-systems analysis.
He is currently working on a book "Lawyers, Guns & Money: Wall Street & the American Century"
Recent publications from Public Services & Democracy
Race, space and punishment in urban sociologyStructural circumstances of deprivation and criminalization facing African-Americans and the racialized perceptions of criminality appear to be some of the salient features that recently led to a young black teenager being killed by neighborhood watch patrolman George Zimmerman. |
Privatising EuropeThis working paper and infographic provide an overview of a great ‘fire sale’ of public services and national assets across Europe that is providing profits for a few transnational companies but is often fiercely opposed by its citizens. |
Participatory alternatives to privatisationExperience worldwide shows that EC-imposed privatisation on crisis countries will not work. The alternative is not reinforcing the status quo, but using citizen power and labour to reinvigorate public services and democratically transform the state.
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The future of Public Enterprises in Latin America and the WorldAn international seminar in Montevideo, co-organised by TNI and the Uruguayan government, shared the latest learning and innovation by state-owned enterprises across Latin America and affirmed their importance as instruments for economic and social development. |
