Review: Race, Crime and Resistance
| DOI | 10.1350/pojo.2011.84.3.566 |
| Author | Chris Pac Soo,Zoe James |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
ZOE JAMES
Reviews Editor
Z.James@plymouth.ac.uk
REVIEWS
RACE, CRIME AND RESISTANCE
Tina G. Patel and David Tyrer
London: Sage, 2011
Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-84920-399-9
Reviewed by Chris Pac Soo, Plymouth University
For those of us teaching ‘race’ and crime to undergraduates,
Patel and Tyrer’s book Race, Crime and Resistance provides a
welcome addition to the small but expanding recent literature
that provides theoretically interesting and challenging contribu-
tions to the field. The authors have achieved this in a number of
ways: first, by providing a text for students that utilises online
supporting material accessed via the publisher’s website; and
secondly, providing a theoretical argument that will also interest
and satisfy researchers and academics.
The main premise of the book is an unflinching critical
assessment that scientific and cultural racisms underpin relation-
ships between ‘race’, crime and criminal justice. Patel and Tyrer
argue that criminology as a discipline must engage in a more
critical evaluation of its own position and challenge the bio-
politics of crime control. Through the use of case studies and
research the authors argue that crime continues to be racialised,
communities continue to be stigmatised and criminalised, and
that this has allowed criminal justice and the state to legitimise
and normalise racial profiling based on ethnicity and, more
commonly, faith.
The introductory first chapter is an interesting contextualisa-
tion of the current state of the ‘race’ debate post Macpherson.
The authors discuss how despite the criminal justice system
adopting diversity and antiracism as core messages to its work,
scientific and cultural racism is regaining momentum in the
strategies and practices of its agencies. This is revealed in the
statements by politicians that attempt to focus attention on
dysfunctional aspects of BME family structures such as a lack of
father figures in black households. It is argued that whiteness is
constructed as the basis from which human rights are to be
298 The Police Journal, Volume 84 (2011)
DOI: 10.1358/pojo.2011.84.3.566
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