Black women and White Criminal (in)Justice

This chapter argues for the necessity of intersectional analyses of Black women's experiences of criminal justice in the UK. Black women are over- represented in policing and the criminal justice system and are more likely to be victimized than White women; however, there is a dearth of evidence about their experiences. Through an intersectional analysis of the evidence pertaining to Black women’s experiences of policing, victimization and imprisonment, this chapter shows that racialized and gendered constructions of Black masculinity and femininity shape criminal justice responses to Black women both as suspects and victims. In some contexts, Black women can mitigate the excesses of contemporary criminal (in)justice through displaying respectability aligned to desirable [White] femininity. Nevertheless, when Black women are poor, ‘angry’ or criminal, they embody, like the Black man, the ultimate criminal threat and are subject to the excesses of White criminal (in)justice

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-8...