crim 101

• Race

  A social construct, not a biological reality, developed through historical processes like Western European colonization and slavery
• Encounter with non-Western societies

  • Led to the development of racial frameworks, where Western Europeans saw themselves as civilized and others as uncivilized
• Ideas about race were attached to flawed notions of biology, leading to the belief in distinct biological groups among humans
• Blumenbach's categorization

  European scholars like Johann Friedrich Blumenbach categorized humans into racial groups based on physical characteristics, such as skull measurements
• Modern biologists and geneticists reject the idea of physical races, and Blumenbach's theories are considered pseudoscience
• Blumenbach's ideas about races, which were popular in the past, are not scientifically valid
• Race


  A social construct used to categorize and divide people, rather than reflecting real human differences
• Race has become ingrained in society's understanding and institutions, making it difficult to simply change or erase the concept
• Importance to criminology


  • Race plays a significant role in how people are identified, judged, and treated differently in modern societies, including within the criminal justice system
• Race influences interpersonal interactions, institutional practices, and systemic organization, requiring an examination of colonial history to understand its systemic nature