Towards an Africentric Critique of the Criminal Justice System
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059604300204 |
| Date | 01 June 1996 |
| Published date | 01 June 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
77
Towards
an
Africentric
Critique of
the
Criminal
Justice System
Chiatulah
Ameke,
Probation
Officer
with
Inner
London
Probation
Service,
introduces
a
two-part
exploration
of
African
identity
and
the
white
supremacist
agenda
for
criminal
justice.
n
African-centred
approach,
or
JL
’Africentrism’
as
it
is
often
termed,
is
a
way
of
utilising
the
essential
features
of
African
culture
to
analyse
and
advance
humanity.
One
such
feature,
the
corner-stone
in
fact,
is
the
enduring
emphasis
on
spiritual
development.
The
dynamic
principle
at
the
heart
of
efforts
to
liberate
Africa
and
African
people
is
the
desire
to
develop
and
express
this
spirituality
for
the
good
of
all.
This
aim
has
been
impeded
by
elite
factions
in
the
West.
These
elites
have
subjected
African
people
to
an
experience
of
enslavement,
exploitation,
psychological
trauma
and
cultural
destruction
that
is
without
parallel.
Consequently
many
people
of
African
descent
subsist
as
re-
fashioned
Europeans,
stripped
of
a
functional
awareness
of
their
vast
and
invaluable
heritage,
and
at
the
mercy
of
others
with
a
more
unified,
assertive
and
purposeful
agenda.
Liberation front
Europeait Tliouglit
Africentrism,
therefore,
also
implies
that
we
Africans
must
assume
the
historic
responsibility
of
rediscovering,
re-
constructing
and
re-establishing
who
we
once
were:
pre-eminent.
This
involves
a
struggle
on
many
fronts,
not
least
of
which
is
the
struggle
to
free
ourselves
from
the
demeaning
and
debilitating
efforts
of
adopting
European
intellectual
traditions
and
conceptual
frameworks.
In
truth,
this
process
has
been
less
an
’adoption’
than
an
’intellectual
seasoning’
or
’breaking-in’
procedure
where
slavery
has
adapted
to
resistance
to
re-emerge
in
a
more
insidious
and
deceptive
form.
For
Africans
then,
psychological
and
intellectual
emancipation
holds
the
promise
of
unleashing
our
creative
potential
to
assist
the
strategic
thinking
in
cultural
and
economic
spheres
where
reconstruction
is
most
urgent.
This
is
why
Malcolm
X
was
so
insistent
that
we
’liberate
our
minds’.
Doing
so
acts
as
a
prelude
to
delimiting
our
thinking
in
terms
of
how
we
secure
a
more
complete
liberation.
Readers
may
be
confused
or
indeed
offended
by
the
assertion
that Africans
need
to
liberate
themselves
from
’European
intellectual
traditions
and
conceptual
frameworks’.
Many
will
insist
that
European
thought
is
clearly
not
homogenous
or
inherently
oppressive,
but
is
multifaceted
and
complex,
made
up
of
competing,
diverse
and
evolving
ideologies.
Africentrism
contends
that
European
thought
is
only
superficially
complex
and
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