Democracy for whom? How criminal punishment marginalizes the political voices of Black and Brown Americans

U.S. racialized punishment practices have long harmed communities of color in sundry ways, including access to democratic processes. Synthesizing scholarship on punishment and democracy that centers the lived experiences and political subjectivities of Black and Brown Americans, we argue that crimin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociology compass 2023-02, Vol.17 (2), p.n/a
Main Authors: Remster, Brianna, Kramer, Rory
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
citizenship
Convictions
Democracy
deviance and social control
Du Bois, W E B (1868-1963)
Elections
government, politics, and law
Inequality
Marginality
Politics
Punishment
race & ethnicity
Redistricting
Scholarships & fellowships
Social exclusion
sociology
sociology of law
stratification and inequality
Voting rights
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Summary:U.S. racialized punishment practices have long harmed communities of color in sundry ways, including access to democratic processes. Synthesizing scholarship on punishment and democracy that centers the lived experiences and political subjectivities of Black and Brown Americans, we argue that criminal punishment is a powerful form of political marginalization that diminishes the political voices of Black and Brown Americans en masse and simultaneously amplifies the voices of White Americans. To illuminate how punishment (re)produces systemic racial inequities in democratic processes, we focus on two distinct but related marginalizations: disenfranchisement for a felony conviction and prison gerrymandering. These deep‐rooted “colorblind” policies did not draw scholarly attention until recent decades, well after district boundaries and election outcomes across the country were impacted. To help understand that delay, we highlight the utility of applying an emancipatory, Du Boisian lens with an example from our past work. Looking to the future, we argue that DuBois's tenets should inform punishment scholarship regardless of methodology or data type. Doing so will help identify more hidden forms of political marginalization in a timely manner, enable scholars to investigate the potential multiplicative effects of those marginalizations, and increase the potential impact of that work beyond the academy.
ISSN:1751-9020
1751-9020
DOI:10.1111/soc4.13053