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- Title
Courtesy Stigma and Monetary Sanctions: Toward a Socio-Cultural Theory of Punishment.
- Authors
Harris, Alexes; Evans, Heather; Beckett, Katherine
- Abstract
Recent research suggests that the use of monetary sanctions as a supplementary penalty in state and federal criminal courts is expanding, and that their imposition creates substantial and deleterious legal debt. Little is known, however, about the factors that influence the discretionary imposition of these penalties. This study offers a comprehensive account of the role socio-cultural factors, especially race and ethnicity, have in this institutional sanctioning process. We rely on multilevel statistical analysis of the imposition of monetary sanctions in Washington State courts to test our theory. The theoretical framework emphasizes the need to treat race and ethnicity as complex cultural categories, the meaning and institutional effects of which may vary across time and space. Findings indicate that racialized crime scripts, such as the association of Latinos with drugs, affect defendants whose wrong-doing is stereotype congruent. Moreover, all individuals accused of committing racially and ethnically stigmatized offenses in racialized contexts may experience the courtesy stigma that flows from racialization. We find that race and ethnicity are not just individual attributes but cultural categories that shape the distribution of stigma and the institutional consequences that flow from it.
- Subjects
UNITED States; SOCIAL stigma; LEGAL sanctions; LEGAL judgments; STEREOTYPES; MINORITY criminals; ADMINISTRATIVE discretion (Law)
- Publication
American Sociological Review, 2011, Vol 76, Issue 2, p234
- ISSN
0003-1224
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/0003122411400054