A visit inside the Cook County Criminal Courts building -- a gigantic, stark four-square-block multiplex situated at 26th Street and California Avenue on Chicago's West Side -- reveals a grim fact: the people who are the main clients of U.S. criminal justice (offenders, victims, witnesses) are not from among what we might call the "beautiful people."

The 6,000 or so young adults held in detention in the complex's County Jail, the sad-eyed defendants who are led into court handcuffed to their chains, and the astonished people who nervously line the buildings' ungainly corridors -- just before being herded like packs of sheep into a maze of undifferentiated courtrooms by stone-faced deputies -- do not reflect the mix, the racial/ethnic/socioeconomic diversity, that is said to characterize U.S. society. Folks at the delivery end of U.S. "due process," Chicago style, do not come from the yuppie crowd who leisurely shop with gold-plated credit cards in the high-priced stores on Michigan Avenue's gold coast, who jog alongside the city's lakefront and who cruise up and down North Lake Shore Drive (arguably the most expensive stretch of highway real estate in the country) in their fast, flashy cars. For those who are the "objects" of justice (to use Paulo Freire's [1984] terminology) shopping means -- except for the more successful" drug pushers -- not knowing if there are enough food stamps left over to procure needed groceries; and cruising takes place only in the imagination.

As you listen and observe, you discover something saddeningly uniform about the accused murderers (often of their own kin), narcotics peddlers, drug addicts, robbers of corner liquor stores, street walkers, and hub cap thieves who are paraded before judges in assembly-line fashion. They are mostly youthful males (somewhere between 17 and 30 years old). Not only are they unemployed, but most have also never held a job in their adult lifetimes, and some have never worked a single day or known anyone who has. To the extent that they speak the language of those who dispense justice, it is unintelligible, incoherent, sloven. And most noticeably, they come primarily from among America's two most disadvantaged racial/ethnic groups -- African Americans and Latino Americans (specifically Chicanos and Puerto Ricans). The accused are, alas, casualties -- just like most of the people they are said to have robbed, mugged, sold dope to, or murdered.

Offenders, victims, and eyewitnesses are, in a larger sense, all victims of the impervious functioning of faceless, systemic forces. All are bound together by the logic of historical circumstance, by the spatial dynamic of ghettoized impoverishment. The Chicago newspapers estimate that upwards of 90% of all the people who come before the Cook County criminal and juvenile courts -- offenders, victims, etc. -- fall below the nation's official poverty line (i.e., annual income of $11,000 for a family of four, in 1985 dollars). The objects of the justice system are the people whom Jesse Jackson refers to as being "locked out" of the American society, the American dream; whom Barbadian author George Lamming describes as the "people from below"; whom Frantz Fanon in his revolutionary optimism may have hailed as the "wretched of the earth," but who nonetheless are people for whom, as the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer put it, "life is an endless pain with a painful end."

The people whose lives seem to be continuously entangled with crime and criminal justice, who find themselves at the system's formal-processing end, whose entire existence is walled in by a never-ending cycle of "visits" and summonses to the welfare office, eviction hearings, and the state prison, are, in other words, the powerless. They are among the least influential members of the society -- folks in the U.S. class order who always seem to have "things" done to them and for them; rarely are they active "subjects" in shaping their own biographies. They are linked by a shared fate, a common destiny. As heirs to a joint tenancy of suffering and a legacy of the already condemned, defendants are typically the unlucky ones who were unable to evade -- or frustrate -- the system's final stages. In the end, the "justice" that both victims and offenders receive is like a plate of joyless food that has been cooked up, "worked out," "plea bargained" -- essentially without either's participation -- in the backrooms of judges' chambers by mysterious-looking white men and then dished out with faceless dispatch in crowded courtrooms.

Power and Homogenization

The picture that emerges inside the Cook County criminal courts duplicates itself with amazing consistency throughout the rest of the nation. Newton, Shelden, and Jenkins (1975) describe the process by which the justice system sifts individuals accused of committing "social harms" through its various stages, resulting in a population of people who all look alike, as a process of "homogenization." According to the authors, norm-violating behavior, in its broadest sense, characterizes the behaviors of a quite heterogeneous group of people, since just about everyone at some time commits some act that could be considered a social harm or even "criminal." But, according to Shelden,

Other observers have also written on the homogenization process. For example, Kerper (1979: 176-177) -- even though she understated the importance of nonlegal factors such as race, sex, and class -- concludes that the criminal justice process is like a "sieve": it is constantly sifting persons out of the system "before they complete all of the stages in the process." Reiman, on the other hand, flatly asserts that "the criminal justice system effectively weeds out the well-to-do, so that indeed by the time we reach the end of the road in prison, the vast majority of those we find there come from the lower classes." The single most important factor in determining who and which groups get processed through the system is, therefore, power -- defined as the "ability to mobilize collective energies, commitments, and efforts" (Light and Kellar, 1975: 175).

There are two kinds of power: personal power and social power. Personal power "is the freedom to choose, to design one's own destiny," while social power "is the ability to affect public affairs, even if others oppose you" (Ibid.: 195). According to Light and Kellar,

Those who have power -- both formal and informal -- are not only able to influence legislation "to their own advantage and/or disadvantage of others," but by having "pull" they can also avoid detection of their criminal acts (or prevent them from being defined as "criminal") or, if caught, can "avoid or at least minimize punishment" (Shelden, 1982: 3).

The Powerless and American Justice

Individuals who hold no formal office and, because of their meager resources, have no real access to those who do (i.e., they are without "pull") are the powerless. Clive Thomas, in his forceful analysis of Caribbean dispossession, The Poor and the Powerless, describes the powerless as:

Under U.S. capitalism the poor are powerless and the socially powerless are always poor.

Because of a long history of white racism, America's poor and powerless are found in disproportionate numbers among the society's nonwhite population -- namely, Native Americans, African Americans, and Latino Americans. In 1980, for instance, the greatest proportion of people living in poverty came from a combination of these three groups, with poverty and dispossession hitting African Americans the hardest. Even though in 1980 African Americans constituted roughly 12% of the U.S. population, they made up fully 30% of all Americans officially classified as poor (Newsweek, 1982). In 1986, despite significant economic and social gains made by a Black petty bourgeoisie, median Black income was still only 57% of whites'; and one in three African Americans still lived below the official poverty line, compared to one in 10 whites (Newsweek, 1988). Even more startling, Ebony Magazine (1989: 96) -- Black America's chronicler facile princeps -- estimates that of the 350,000 to three million homeless people in the U.S. in 1989, "more than 60%...[of them] are Black, mostly single mothers with small children." And according to a 1989 edition of National Public Television's "Frontline," which examined infant mortality in the United States, African American babies in cities like Chicago "are born poor and they die poor."

It is indeed poor and powerless African and Latino Americans who are imprisoned at rates that are highly disproportionate to their numbers in the U.S. population. They are the ones most likely to end up behind bars when political considerations call for more law and order and as the society increasingly shifts toward emphasis on a "lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key" mentality, evidenced by the conservative-reactionary politics of the last 20 or so years, which have indeed given the state the green light to apply, with maximum force, its capacity to repress and punish. Steven Whitman (1987), a Chicago-area prisoners' rights activist and statistician at Northwestern University, points out that in 1925, when the U.S. began keeping statistics on imprisonment, the imprisonment rate per 100,000 population was 79. This rate stayed more or less constant until 1972, when, under the law-and-order presidency of Richard Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell, it started to rise dramatically. By mid-1986, six years into an even more repressive period of right-wing Republicanism under Ronald Reagan, more than a half-million people (545,133 was the official count) were in state and federal prisons -- that is, the total excludes people in jails, on probation, parole, or confined to other correctional settings. This number, in Whitman's calculation, corresponds to an imprisonment rate of 219 per 100,000 population -- about twice as high as it had been in the years prior to 1972.

When these figures are examined closely, what we see is that African Americans and Latinos, who together make up about 20% of the national population, have experienced unevenly the trend toward higher rates of imprisonment. Latest U.S. Bureau of Census (1988) information and data released by the U.S. Department of Justice (1988, 1989) support this contention. The proportion of African Americans in state and federal prisons doubled between 1930 and 1980 -- from 23% in 1930 to 46% in 1980. In 1983 the rate of imprisonment per 100,000 African Americans was 713; by 1986 it had climbed to 840, an increase of about 18% in just three short years (see Table 1 at the end of this "Introduction"). Because census and other vital statistics reported by government agencies for Latino Americans (i.e., as a distinct "ethnic" group) have been inconsistent, their pre-1980 imprisonment figures are not readily ascertainable. However, a trend similar to that of their African American brethren is evident. In 1983, 8% of all U.S. prisoners were Latinos; by 1986 the figure had risen to over 14%. Also in 1983, the rate of imprisonment per 100,000 Latinos was 213; by 1986 it had increased to 350, for a huge three-year jump of 64%.

Imprisonment figures for white Americans reveal a markedly different pattern. As can be seen in Table 1, in 1983 the rate of imprisonment for whites was 114, which was one-sixth the rate for African Americans and approximately one-half the rate for Latinos. In 1986, it had increased to 130, for a relatively small increase (when compared to the two adjacent groups) of 11%. In sum, what these data clearly show are:

1 African Americans and Latinos make up the bulk of all people being imprisoned, who together account for over 60% of all U.S. prisoners, even though they comprise less than one-quarter of the nation's total population;

2. African Americans and Latinos are the two groups most affected by increases in rates of imprisonment, with Latinos, in recent years, experiencing even more rapid rates of increase; and

3. An African American male is six times more likely to go to prison than is his white counterpart; and one out of every four African American men will go to prison in his lifetime (again, excluding jail or being placed on probation, etc.).

* * *

This special issue of Social Justice looks at powerless racial groups from an international perspective, but with special emphasis on the U.S. situation. Our primary theoretical focus is on the interrelationship between powerlessness, racism, and official or state actions toward powerless groups. It is in the political administration of justice, we argue, that much nefarious state action toward powerless racial groups takes place. The articles here give critical analyses of the material milieu of the powerless racial groups within class-dominated society, and show how a situation of powerlessness serves to reinforce prevailing ideologies about the nonwhite poor. The manner in which justice is delivered -- and/or type of justice received -- is therefore a function of race-class positioning within the dominant order.

The collection of articles is organized around three principal themes: "Race and Ideology in the 1980s," "Justice and the African Experience," and "Justice and the Latino Experience." Under the first theme Inniss and Feagin take a critical look at contemporary usage of the term "underclass." They argue that the notion of a "Black underclass," as used in the writings and scholarship of the 1980s, has a distinct ideological basis. Georges-Abeyie's piece provides an insightful analysis of the reality of Black disproportionality in criminal justice processing. He employs a sophisticated sociocultural level of analysis to challenge the current system-supportive ideology that argues the absence of racism in definitions of criminality and in the disposition of criminal cases. Headley's article makes the point that the mysterious murders and disappearances of some 30 African American youngsters in Atlanta, Georgia, between 1979 and 1981, represented, for the Atlanta establishment, more than simply a police and/or law enforcement problem. The "Atlanta tragedy," he argues, had ramifications that extended to the core of Atlanta society, specifically to its productive relations and ruling ideology of "good" race relations.

Under the theme "Justice and the African Experience" are articles by Hawkins and Hardy, Richey Mann, and Harrison. Hawkins and Hardy give an explanatory analysis of the difference between Black and white rates of imprisonment across U.S. jurisdictions. They find that after controlling for differential arrest rates, substantial differences yet remain among states in the comparative rates of Black-White incarceration. Richey Mann's piece addresses the plight of minority (Black, Latino, and Native American) female offenders. She argues that their predicament is different from that of the white female who breaks the law. Harrison examines, from an economic-dependency perspective, the interconnection between the state, capitalist penetration, and the illegal drug phenomenon. She argues that the formidable presence of poor Black Jamaican youths in U.S. drug trafficking must be understood as a byproduct of capitalist transformation on the U.S. mainland and Third World underdevelopment.

Articles by Knepper, Aguirre and Baker, and López-Rivera appear under the "Justice and the Latino Experience" theme. Knepper gives an historical examination of the operation of the Arizona Territorial Prison system between 1876 and 1909. The author argues that the system was the functional equivalent of a Southern prison in many ways. Like the elaborate system of race hierarchy based on white supremacy in the post-Civil War South, Anglos dominated the economic and political systems of early Arizona, according to Knepper. As in the South, where prisons were almost completely filled with Blacks, territorial Arizona disproportionately imprisoned Mexican Americans. The article by Aguirre and Baker presents a descriptive profile of the population of executed Mexican American prisoners in the American Southwest. An important finding is that executed Mexican Americans had lower rates of appealing their death sentences than did either Black or white offenders. And from inside his prison cell in the U.S. penitentiary at Marion, Illinois (the federal government's most "maximum-security" institution), López-Rivera tells us of the forces that led him into the struggle for the independence of his homeland, Puerto Rico. His evocation is an historical, political, and personal tour de force.

In the "Commentary" section, Elizabeth Martínez and Tony Platt each take retrospective, social-historical looks at past writings on the Latino and African American experience. The piece by Martínez is a critique of 26 books about the political activism of the 1960s. She finds in these works a "lack of commentary" about the contributions -- and the struggles -- of Asian Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans during that quite important period of U.S. history. She attributes this lack to failure among writers of the period to see the interdependence of "minority" non-Black struggles with that of Black Americans. Platt also gives a thoughtful retrospection. He invites us to "reconsider" the contributions of noted African American sociologist and activist, E. Franklin Frazier. Having done extensive, in-depth research on the man, his life and times, Platt attempts to place Frazier in a more systematically comprehensive and cogent light than the oft-times contradictory and unfavorable assessments of his legacy.

Finally, the "Reviews" section includes review essays that are in keeping with the general theme of powerlessness. Gwen Carter looks at John Hagedorn's People and Folks. She believes the work makes an overall useful contribution toward understanding contemporary urban gangs, particularly those whose members come primarily from racially defined minority groups. And Gerald Bennett gives an extended critique of William J. Wilson's latest book.

* * *

Before closing out this "Introduction," I should acknowledge the invaluable assistance I received from numerous folks throughout the almost two years of work on this special issue. I must thank the editors of this highly acclaimed journal for inviting me to guest edit this special issue, for the democratic manner in which they handled matters, and for always lending an understanding ear when it seemed like agreed-upon deadlines were not being met. Thanks to all who responded to my Call for Papers. The process whereby submissions were reviewed and eventually selected adhered to the usual norms of peer review. Special thanks go to the three individuals who served in that anonymous, time-consuming, and usually unrewarding capacity. Special thanks to Maureen Cain for putting me in touch with Rhoda Reddock, whose moving tribute to Ken Pryce appears in abbreviated, edited form here.

My colleagues at Northeastern Illinois University were especially supportive. Frank Dobbs, a college dean unsurpassed in understanding, generosity, and enlightened thinking, made sure I had enough student help; and Dragan Milovanovic went beyond any normal call of duty. Karol Bayley and Dion Dennis were immensely helpful with essential typing and editing chores.

This entire issue is dedicated in loving and respectful memory to the late Jamaican-born criminologist and activist, Ken Pryce.

Table 1:

Imprisonment Rates per 100,000 African Americans, Latinos, and Whites, 1983 and 1986

Sources: Calculated from U.S. Department of Justice (1989) and U.S. Bureau of Census (1988).

REFERENCES