by ShaunL.Gabbidon (Author), JamesD.Unnever (Author)
A little more than a century ago, the famous social scientist W.E.B. Du Bois asserted that a true understanding of African American offending must be grounded in the real conditions of what it means to be black living in a racial stratified society. Today and according to official statistics, African American men - about six percent of the population of the United States - account for nearly sixty percent of the robbery arrests in the United States. To the authors of this book, this and many other glaring racial disparities in offending centered on African Americans is clearly related to their unique history and to their past and present racial subordination. Inexplicably, however, no criminological theory exists that fully articulates the nuances of the African American experience and how they relate to their offending. In readable fashion for undergraduate students, the general public, and criminologists alike, this book for the first time presents the foundations for the development of an African American theory of offending.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 28 Mar 2011
ISBN 10: 041588358X
ISBN 13: 9780415883580
Race, Racism, and Crime offers an insightful account of why black Americans more often commit violent crimes than do members of other groups, and why most black people do not. It draws heavily on the American black experience and will become the standard work on the subject. - Michael Tonry, Law, University of Minnesota
This book is a must-read for criminologists and sociologists. Although the book is written for social scientists concerned with explaining crime, it is likely to be of interest to anyone striving to understand the high amount of crime that exists in many African American communities. I look forward to using it as one of the texts in the criminology course that I teach. - Ronald Simons, Sociology, University of Georgia