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Racial Innocence

Law, Social Science, and the Unknowing of Racism in the US Carceral State

Bibliographic Data

ID12795118
AuthorsNaomi Murakawa (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume15
Issue1
Pages473-493
Publication date2019-10-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnnual Review of Law and Social Science (BOOK_SERIES)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1550-3585 • E-ISSN: 1550-3631
PublisherAnnual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-101518-042649
OpenAlexW2979328883
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited124

Racial innocence is the practice of securing blamelessness for the death-dealing realities of racial capitalism. This article reviews the legal, social scientific, and reformist mechanisms that maintain the racial innocence of one particular site: the US carceral state. With its routine dehumanization, violence, and stunning levels of racial disparity, the carceral state should be a hard test case for the willful unknowing of obvious devastation. Nonetheless, the law presumes “no racism,” condones racial profiling, and interprets racial disparity in policing and imprisonment as evidence of true racial difference in criminality, not discrimination. Prominent social science research too often mimics these practices, producing research that aids in the collective erasure of racism

Criminology · Dehumanization · Imprisonment · Innocence · Political science · Race (biology · Racial profiling · Racism · Sociology · State (computer science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Gender Studies · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions

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Unique citing works26
Citations per year4,33
Citation span2020 - 2026 (7)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 26

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