University of Washington.
Law Soc Rev. 2010;44(3-4):695-730. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2010.00420.x.
In post–civil rights America, the ascendance of “law-and-order” politics and “postracial” ideology have given rise to what we call the penology of racial innocence. The penology of racial innocence is a framework for assessing the role of race in penal policies and institutions, one that begins with the presumption that criminal justice is innocent of racial power until proven otherwise. Countervailing sociolegal changes render this framework particularly problematic. On the one hand, the definition of racism has contracted in antidiscrimination law and in many social scientific studies of criminal justice, so that racism is defined narrowly as intentional and causally discrete harm. On the other hand, criminal justice institutions have expanded to affect historically unprecedented numbers of people of color, with penal policies broadening in ways that render the identification of racial intent and causation especially difficult. Analyses employing the penology of racial innocence examine the ever-expanding criminal justice system with limited definitions of racism, ultimately contributing to the erasure of racial power. Both racism and criminal justice operate in systemic and serpentine ways; our conceptual tools and methods, therefore, need to be equally systemic and capacious.
在后民权时代的美国，“法律与秩序”政治和“后种族”意识形态的兴起催生了我们所谓的种族无罪刑政策。种族无罪刑政策是一种评估种族在刑罚政策和制度中所扮演角色的框架，其前提是刑事司法在没有被证明有罪之前是无罪的。相反的社会法律变化使这一框架特别成问题。一方面，反歧视法和刑事司法的许多社会科学研究缩小了种族定义的范围，将其定义为狭义的、有意的和因果离散的伤害。另一方面，刑事司法机构已经扩大，影响到历史上前所未有的大量有色人种，刑罚政策的扩大使得识别种族意图和因果关系变得特别困难。采用种族无罪刑政策的分析方法以种族主义的有限定义来考察不断扩大的刑事司法系统，最终导致了种族权力的抹杀。种族主义和刑事司法都以系统和曲折的方式运作；因此，我们的概念工具和方法也需要同样具有系统性和包容性。
