Justice for All: The Construction of White Identity in Oregon Circuit Courts

38 pagesAmerican society is constructed atop an inveterately racist foundation. Oppressive institutions - including slavery, Jim Crow laws, and mass incarceration -have instituted the legal subjugation of People of Color, thus programming racial oppression into the social order. The criminal justice system is meant to be a great equalizer; Lady Justice holds her scales with a blindfold, signifying the supposed impartiality of legal institutions. Yet, in actuality, the criminal justice system reflects the same racial inequalities that exist throughout society, in that whiteness is hegemonic in this system. In order to form conclusions about the construction and interpretation of white identity within the criminal justice system, my research uses ethnographic methods to analyze the processes and exchanges that occur within two Oregon circuit courts. This study ultimately finds that the criminal justice system somewhat expels lawbreakers from whiteness. Whites who plead guilty to crime are essentially admitting to a betrayal of white performance, and thus relinquish certain social protections of white identity. White offenders outcasted within their racial group, and thus swallowed up by the criminal justice system