Gender, Violence, Race, and Criminal Justice

Abstract

This essay examines the connection between violence and masculinity that leads men to appoint themselves the protectors of racialized communities and that constitutes its own interracial brotherhood linking lawbreakers and law enforcers. Feminists are familiar with the concept of violence, but this term is usually used to denote violence by men against women. Yet exploration of the violence in the criminal justice system begins to reveal the extent to which masculine identity is shaped by relations of repulsion and desire between men. Indeed, this community of violence extends to state actors within the criminal justice system, most notably the police. Disrupting the cycle of gender violence both inside and outside the state is a race issue and a gender issue, as well as a criminal justice issue.