TY - JOUR
T1 - The dark footprint of state violence
T2 - A synthetic approach to the American crime decline
AU - Roussell, Aaron
AU - Sexton, Lori
AU - Deppen, Paul
AU - Omori, Marisa
AU - Scheibler, Esther
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Thythy Bui and Amanda Zuniga for their research assistance. The authors remain solely responsible for the analyses, interpretations, and opinions presented herein. The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
PY - 2022/5
Y1 - 2022/5
N2 - This project combines the conversation on the national crime rate with emerging discussions on the violence that the state perpetrates against civilians. To measure US lethal violence holistically, we reconceptualize the traditional definitional boundaries of violence to erase arbitrary distinctions between state- and civilian-caused crime and violence. Discussions of the “crime decline” focus specifically on civilian crime, positioning civilians as the sole danger to the health, wealth, and safety of individuals. Violence committed by the state—from police homicide to deaths in custody to in-prison sexual assault—is not found in the traditionally reported crime rate. These absences belie real dangers posed to individuals which are historical and contemporary, nonnegligible, and possibly rising. We present Uniform Crime Report data side-by-side with data on police killings, deaths in custody, and executions from sources such as Fatal Encounters, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the Center for Disease Control to produce a robust discussion of deaths produced through the criminal legal system. We ground this empirical analysis in a broader conceptual framework that situates state violence squarely within the realm of US crime, and explore the implications of this more holistic view of crime for future analyses.
AB - This project combines the conversation on the national crime rate with emerging discussions on the violence that the state perpetrates against civilians. To measure US lethal violence holistically, we reconceptualize the traditional definitional boundaries of violence to erase arbitrary distinctions between state- and civilian-caused crime and violence. Discussions of the “crime decline” focus specifically on civilian crime, positioning civilians as the sole danger to the health, wealth, and safety of individuals. Violence committed by the state—from police homicide to deaths in custody to in-prison sexual assault—is not found in the traditionally reported crime rate. These absences belie real dangers posed to individuals which are historical and contemporary, nonnegligible, and possibly rising. We present Uniform Crime Report data side-by-side with data on police killings, deaths in custody, and executions from sources such as Fatal Encounters, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the Center for Disease Control to produce a robust discussion of deaths produced through the criminal legal system. We ground this empirical analysis in a broader conceptual framework that situates state violence squarely within the realm of US crime, and explore the implications of this more holistic view of crime for future analyses.
KW - crime control
KW - crime trends
KW - crimes of the state
KW - critical criminology
KW - definitions of crime
KW - homicide
KW - police and policing
KW - police homicide
KW - state violence
KW - violent crime
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100971390&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85100971390&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1362480620984233
DO - 10.1177/1362480620984233
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85100971390
VL - 26
SP - 326
EP - 346
JO - Theoretical Criminology
JF - Theoretical Criminology
SN - 1362-4806
IS - 2
ER -