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      Due Process & the Theater of Racial Degradation: The Evolving Notion of Pretrial Punishment in the Criminal Courts

      Daedalus
      MIT Press

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          Abstract

          Most theorists assume that the criminal courts are neutral arbiters of justice, protected by the Constitution, the rule of law, and court records. This essay challenges those assumptions and examines the courts as a place of punitive excess and the normalization of racial abuse and punishment. The essay explains the historic origins of these trends and examines how the categories of “hardened” and “marginal” defendants began to assume racialized meanings with the emergence of mass incarceration. This transformed the criminal courts into a type of public theater for racial degradation. These public performances or “racial degradation ceremonies” occur within the discretionary practices and cultural norms of mostly White courtroom professionals as they efficiently manage the disposition of cases in the everyday practice of law. I link these historical findings to a recent study of the largest unified criminal court system in the United States–Cook County, Chicago–and discuss court watching programs as an intervention for accountability and oversight of our courts and its legal professionals.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          Daedalus
          MIT Press
          0011-5266
          1548-6192
          2022
          January 01 2022
          January 01 2022
          2022
          January 01 2022
          January 01 2022
          : 151
          : 1
          : 135-152
          Article
          10.1162/daed_a_01894
          2788a636-6b5a-49d3-886a-681570ffb109
          © 2022

          https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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