RACIAL THREAT THEORY AND MINORITIES IN THE AMERICAN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

People of color in the United States have historically played second fiddle. Their position in the racial caste is essentially a function of demography, fueled by competition for scarce resources. Group survival is thus at the heart of the discriminatory practices in the U.S. criminal justice system which functions as a tool to ensure that each group knows and keeps to its place in the social hierarchy. In this competition, the structure of society and its key institutions are compromised in their deployment to maintain the status quo and to ensure that the majority population’s dominant position is unchallenged. In the zero-sum game of racial dominance, the criminal justice system, therefore, is a non-neutral social control mechanism and a pliant tool to restrict minority access to valued but scarce resources. Article visualizations