ABSTRACT
Most criminological perspectives have been applied to the question of race and crime. Social disorganization and strain perspectives, as they have for the past century, continue to show promise for understanding race, crime, and justice. The labeling perspective, in its most recent incarnation, holds considerable promise for understanding the plight of racial and ethnic minorities in criminal justice. In several instances, the perspective was found to be obviously more relevant for whites than for some racial and ethnic minorities. Furthermore, perspectives tied to conservative criminology have also not been supported. Though there was limited empirical support for the colonial model, it provided another potential avenue for contextualizing crime and justice in colonial and postcolonial societies. Feminist perspectives have also shown the propensity to help contextualize the influence of gender on justice system outcomes. Race, ethnicity, and crime is an important area of study. It moves the study of the role of race and ethnicity to the forefront of criminology.
