LatCrit and Criminology: Toward a Theoretical Understanding of Latino/a/x Crime and Criminal Legal System Involvement

Abstract

An important body of work documents how race matters for the patterning of crime and criminal legal system involvement largely by focusing on comparisons between Blacks and Whites. We build on this vital scholarship by spotlighting Latino/a/xs, a fast-growing group that is the United States’ largest racial minority, to broaden the field's understanding of race and crime. In this review, we follow race scholars who see Latino/a/xs as a racial category because dominant actors racialize them as an innate, distinct, inferior, and criminogenic category, leading to their marginalized experiences across many domains. Moreover, Latino/a/xs increasingly view themselves as not White. Studying Latino/a/xs offers an opportunity to integrate key tenets of Latina and Latino Critical Legal Theory (LatCrit), which provide a scaffolding to center race and racism. LatCrit highlights the ways racism metes out discrimination, cultural and linguistic devaluation, criminalization, and racial profiling that in turn shape and are shaped by levels of Latino/a/x crime and legal system involvement. This article provides a description of what it means to center race with an emphasis on LatCrit,an empirical assessment of Latino/a/x crime and legal system involvement, and an integration of core criminological theory with LatCrit. By doing so, we advance the field to more directly and robustly engage with the idea that racial disparities in crime and legal system involvement are products of racialization as well as attendant policies, institutions, and practices that historically and contemporaneously subjugate and marginalize the Latino/a/x population. We seek to push the boundaries of criminology theory and thereby invigorate and equip them for the twenty-first century and its racial landscape, which is increasingly Latino/a/x.

Creating a minority threat: Assessing the spillover effect of local immigrant detention on Hispanic arrests

“…Yet, Blalock argued economic competition would drive this reaction, and this does not appear to be the case as White–Hispanic unemployment ratios did not moderate the relationship between IGSAs and Hispanic arrest rates. Using the perspective articulated by Stucky (2012) and Vélez and Peguero (2023), larger Hispanic populations could lead to greater bureaucratic representation and protection of Hispanic interests that limit arrest exposure. Another possibility is that officers in counties with large Hispanic populations may use other differentiating factors, such as skin color, occupation, or language as a proxy for immigrant status (Armenta, 2017; Donato & Rodriguez, 2014).…”

“…Research, however, has identified curvilinear relationships that accord with Blalock's economic competition scenario for other types of social control, such as police expenditures (Holmes et al, 2008;Jackson, 1986Jackson, , 1989. Rather than reflect dwindling attempts at economic discrimination, however, scholars have argued that these relationships may stem from minority groups forming an empowered voting block with the ability to change the allocation of resources (Stucky, 2012;Vélez & Peguero, 2023). That is, social control efforts may diminish when minority groups, because of their relative size, begin to exert political influence.…”

Staying under the Radar? Immigration Effects on Overdose Deaths and the Impact of Sanctuary Jurisdictions

“…For example, Latinx populations in particular may be hesitant to bring attention to family or other community members who may not themselves be fully documented. Furthermore, from a Latinx critical criminology perspective, Vélez and Peguero [97] point out there is an overall perception among some that Latinx communities have been criminalized, which discourages trust in formal institutions. In particular, Latinx "enclaves" tend to undergo increased surveillance and experience more frequent ICE raids, despite overall lower crime rates in these communities [98].…”

Thinking critically about race bias and culpability perceptions of Latinxs in the criminal justice system

“…Latinx people are the largest ethnic minority group in the U. S. with 62.5 million people or approximately 19% of the population (Moslimani & Noe‐Bustamente, 2023), but there is a lack of focus on Latinxs and criminal justice system (CJS) disparities (Luna, 2002). Such a focus is imperative because Latinx people endure discrimination at all levels within the CJS (Valencia et al., 2004; Velez & Peguero, 2023). One in six Latinx people born in 2001 can expect to go to prison (Rovner, 2016).…”