Shaun L. Gabbidon’s Race Ethnicity, Crime and Justice attempts to provide an explanation for the status of racial and ethnic minorities in countries such as Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. Gabbidon contends that colonization plays a crucial role in explaining the disadvantageous status of racial and ethnic minorities in these countries, but seeks to understand if the effects of colonization impacted all societies the same and whether particular racial or ethnic groups can recover from this oppression. By using Tatum’s (1994) colonial model,a breakdown of colonization into four phases, Gabbidon is able to successfully contextualize the causes of the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in…show more content… His usage of the four step process (invasion, formation of a colonial society as a means of cultural imposition, governance of natives by colonial representatives, and ultimately development of a racial caste system) to outline the experiences of minorities in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and South Africa, emphasises the impact of social and cultural alienation on higher crime rates within a particular group of individuals.
Each chapter begins with a succinct but detailed history of the country, provides a racial and ethnic makeup of each nation, and reviews statistics on crime and justice, often focusing on issues specific to a particular country. Gabbidon concludes each analysis by exploring the effects of colonization within each particular country by examining the overrepresentation and discrimination of minorities in the justice system and society altogether, attributing the disproportion to…show more content… His inability to discuss these aspects left something to be desired by the reader. This need for more is evident in his chapter on the United States. For example, he spoke of the effects of colonization on African and Native Americans, even providing a chart depicting both groups as the lowest on the racial ladder in 1790, but failed to fully juxtapose the lasting effects on both groups. One would suggest that his work would benefit greatly from a additional section in each chapter dedicated to drawing clearer similarities between the different races and ethnicities he
