Sport, Race, and Crime: Disqualifying the
Black Athlete
By Sven Magirius
August 2016
Dr. Ramon Spaaij & Dr. Sebastien Chauvin
Master’s Thesis in Sociology – Migration and Ethnic Studies
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ...
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... I
ABSTRACT ... II
INTRODUCTION ... 1
RACESPORTANDCRIME ... 4
CRITICALRACETHEORY ... 5
AFRICANAMERICANSANDTHECRIMINALJUSTICESYSTEM ... 12
ATHLETESANDCRIME ... 20
BACKGROUNDCHECKS………...30
METHODS ... 33
DISCUSSION ... 42
CONCLUSION ... 44
Abstract
In the past decades the media and scholars have paid grander attention to College athletes committing crimes on college campuses. Particularly athletes involved in American football and basketball are constantly exposed as offenders, often for violent and sex crimes. In consequence, many activists and organizations have pressured the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to adopt policies such as mandatory background checks for athletes. While the NCAA has rejected this idea so far, several universities have adopted their own policies to effectively mirror their future athletes. The public has also demanded policy changes to increase campus security and to allow universities to monitor their future athletes more effectively. What are these polices? Who benefits from them and who suffers from them? I hypothesize that these policies will increasingly disqualify black athletes from participating in collegial sports. Data of the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that African Americans, particularly Males under 18, are disproportionally arrested and therefore are more likely to have a negative mark on their criminal record. These findings suggest that policy changes may have a detrimental impact on African Americans pursuing an athletic career and that relying on a discriminative criminal justice system for mirroring athletes is unjustifiable.
Introduction
The intertwinement of race and crime in the United States has been studied for more than a century. Sadly, racism plagues American society to this day and recent cases of police violence have once again sparked the question if African Americans are fully accepted and equal citizens to their White counterparts. These cases also revived the dialogue of race, crime, and mass-incarceration. Scholars, politicians, and journalists once more gather to explain and underline the concerning statistics of African American males’ roles in the criminal justice system.
About one-third of all black males will be in contact with the criminal justice system in some form (Edwards 2008 & Wacquant 2002). This overrepresentation of men being involved with the law has negatively impacted many parts of African American culture. Individuals who have a criminal record are likely encounter many difficulties in American everyday life.
Employment, housing, federal benefits, and depending on the crime, even voting can become difficult or non-existent for those with a negative track record in the United States criminal justice system. The issues of crime and race have impacted the world of sports as well.
Athletics play a great role in African American culture as it is seen as a ‘way out’ from lower class communities and poverty. Families often neglect conventional paths for their children and push them towards an athletic career, which an overwhelming majority will never attain (Edwards 2000). In 2008, renowned Berkeley professor and civil rights activist Dr. Harry Edwards held an alarming speech at the African American Sports Hall of Fame, and warned his audience of present developments, specifically in collegial sports. He described the current social circumstances for black males in America as ‘desperate’ and argued that these social issues have invaded into the world of sports as well. Edwards scrutinized that American society is “jailing, disqualifying, and burying” black athlete prospects (2008). He referred to the mass incarceration
of black males, but also to a newly enforced California state law that disallowed any individual with a felony charge to participate in athletics on a junior college, state college, or university level (2008).
California isn’t the only State that enforced laws to prohibit athletes with a criminal background to participate in sports. Other States and Universities also imposed policies that require prospect athletes to have a clean criminal record. Background checks and Media investigations have become a usual procedure for universities to check up on athletes that want to enroll in their athletic programs. Some universities require background checks, but leave it up to their judgements who can play and who will be rejected. Reasons for these policy changes are the freshly formed beliefs that athletes, particularly those involved in contact sports, are more likely to commit violent and sex crimes than their student counterparts. Several studies have shown that student athletes are disproportionally involved with the law, particularly when the crimes committed are abusive acts towards women (Berry & Smith 2000). Additionally, victims and the general public are enraged that deviant acts committed by privileged athletes often remain unpunished due to their celebrity status and the support they receive from their
institutions. According to Jeff Benedict, it is common for players to retain their scholarships and continue their seasons uninterrupted after arrests, indictments, convictions, and sentences (1996).
After investigating accusations of sexual assault against three college football players, New York Times author Walt Bogdanich suggested there is a “roiling national debate over how best to stop sexual assaults on campus” (2014). Joining this debate, university officials and advocates of greater campus security have (unsuccessfully) pressured the NCAA to make
increase campus safety, but also protect a positive image for universities that fear to lose status due to crime on their campuses.
However, using mandatory background checks as a procedure to disqualify prospect athletes requires an unbiased criminal justice system. Especially the African American
population would suffer tremendously in regards to their disproportional involvement with the law. Dr. Edwards recognizes that mass incarceration and social inequalities already deny many black athletes a chance to attain an athletic career (2000). While the general public is mostly unaware of issues regarding race and college athletics, many institutions have enforced policies that will disqualify a substantial amount of black athletes. Paradoxically, Sport is generally interpreted as a ground for racial equality, also due to the large participation of minorities. African Americans only make up 13% of the United States’ total population. However, approximately 77 percent of the players in the National Basketball Association (NBA), 65 percent of the National Football League (NFL) and another 57 percent of Athletics participating in the Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are African American (Lapchick 2000). According to the 2012 College Sport and Racial Gender Report Card, black student athletes account for 57.2 percent in men’s college basketball, and 51.6 percent in men’s football (Lapchick, Agusta, Kinkopf & McPhee 2012). Ironically, sport, along with
incarceration, are two of the rare areas where black citizens outnumber their white counterparts. The past decades scholars began observing concerning correlations between athletes and crime, while the news has swarmed its audiences with athletes and their crime stories. Therefore, the public has demanded policies such as background checks to increase campus security, and to allow universities to monitor their future athletes more effectively. What are these polices? Who benefits from them and who suffers from them? And most importantly, are African Americans
disproportionally affected by institutional policies that require mandatory background checks in order to be able to participate in collegial sports?
The goal of this study is not to determine why and when athletes commit crimes, rather to discover which population is most affected by the new policies of Universities. I used data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to analyze the criminal activity and arrests of
predominantly juveniles and 18-20 year olds in 2012 and 2003. The data shows that African Americans, especially at young ages, are disproportionally represented in the statistics of arrests and felony crimes. Therefore, I hypothesize that mandatory background checks will
predominantly affect African Americans and disqualify them from participating in collegial sports. A criminal justice system that disproportionally arrests, convicts, and jails minorities shouldn’t be used as a bureaucratic base for Universities to accept and decline prospect student athletes.
Race, Sport and Crime
To exemplify discriminative policy making by pre-dominantly white institutions (PWI), the theoretical framework of critical race theory is used to examine the role of African
Americans in campus crimes and the criminal justice system. For one, the general perception is that minorities are more likely to be involved in crime, “partly because of African Americans’ strong representation in the criminal justice system and partly because of societal-level racism, substantiated by media crime stories” (Berry & Smith 2000: 173). Secondly, surveys show that the majority of American population still believe that most African Americans are less
intelligent, more likely to use drugs, be violent, and are more inclined to physically abuse women (Lapchick 2000). Particularly, young black males have been historically branded and labeled as
perpetrators and dangerous to American society. These negative associations of African Americans impact the perception of law enforcements, and also define the images of Black athletes. The following sections include the social construction of blackness and the
confrontations of African Americans with pre-dominantly white institutions such as education, law, and sport.
Critical Race Theory
Critical race theory originated in the late 1960s when academics and lawyers started realizing that new forms of racism were infecting unsegregated America. White America was now confronted with a black community that was eager to integrate into American culture and striving for equal rights, but also equal opportunities. Different concepts were forming that dealt with the “new types of colorblind, subtle, or institutional racism that were developing and a public that seemed increasingly tired of hearing about race” (Delgado & Stefancic 2007: 134). African Americans were now assimilating into predominantly white institutions such as
education, but also sport. Segregation was defeated, but racism didn’t disappear and new forms of maintaining white superiority were developing throughout American society. Derick Bell posited the interest convergence theory which states that “elite Whites in America will not
further the status of Black Americans without receiving equal or greater benefit in return for their so-called altruism” (DeLorme and Singer 2010: 367). Alan Freeman displayed how the Supreme Court used antidiscrimination doctrine to legitimize racial discrimination and Richard Delgado showed that white legal scholars even dominated the field of Civil Rights, while excluding gifted
academics such as Derrick Bell or Mildred Ravenell (Delgado and Stefancic 2007). Critical race theory rose from these disparities and offered scholars a framework to analyze a culture of fictional colorblindness and social equality.
Critical Race theory (CRT) is a theoretical framework that fits adequately to the study of
racism, crime, and college sports. For one, the theory is an epistemological framework which emerged in the academy as a challenge to the positivist and legal discourse of civil rights and it begins with the notion that racism is existent and normal in American society (Ladson-Billings 1998). Racism is so “enmeshed in the fabric” of American social order that it appears normal and natural to the people in the culture (Ladson-Billings 1998: 11). This normalness of prejudice expands to all parts of American society; some areas such as the criminal justice system are more obvious examples, whereas racism in sport is more camouflaged. The general public views sport as an establishment for racial equality, whereas Edwards argues it’s an outstanding example to illustrate racial order and discrimination in American culture (Wiggins 2014). For example, while opportunities have increased for black athletes to participate in colleges, many African Americans continue to be locked out of positions (e.g. coaching) in the upper levels of the big-time college sport hierarchy (Singer 2005). College Sports, are amongst the most popular forms of sports entertainment in the United States. Fans love the authenticity of the sport, where athletes are not paid and players usually don’t switch teams until the day of their draft. The sport is seen as ‘pure’ and fans feel close to the players of the universities they have been fans of all their lives. Especially College football, which includes over 50% of black athletes, can be seen as the leading most popular Sport in the United States. Particularly Southern States, which
ironically are also known for their conservativeness and racial tensions, have huge fan bases and account for the most successful teams the past decades. Here, sport can produce racial bonding
and increase tolerance, but it also deceives from racial issues within the States and creates the false notion of non-existing racism in the institutions of sport and education. In regards to this paper, it creates the false notion of equal opportunity for black athletes to pursue an athletic career.
Secondly, Derrick Bell’s interest convergence principle is an important fraction within critical race theory. As mentioned, the interest convergence principle describes how White elites in America will not further the status of Black Americans without receiving equal or greater benefit from their action (DeLorme & Singer 2010). It also describes how racism can advance the interests of both White elites, for example by allowing manipulation of the labor pool, as well as working class people (psychologically, by giving them a reason to feel superior to Blacks) (DeLorme & Singer 2010). A great example is the strategy white plantation owners used to maintain their supremacy during slavery. While countless slaves worked on the fields, many poor white families were also employed by the few rich landowners in the South. When both, slaves and poor Whites began to form a rebellious attitude towards the terrible working
circumstances, the elites had to react. They decided to give their white workers the authority over the slaves and used race as a currency for power. The working environment on the fields
remained dreadful, but whites retreated from their rebellious attitudes due to their newly ascribed ranks in the racial order, while White elites continuously enjoyed their supremacy.
The most striking example of interest convergence was illustrated by Derrick Bell in 1980, when he evaluated one of the civil rights movement’s greatest victories of racial
integration into America’s public schools. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic summarize Bell’s findings as the following:
“…Derrick Bell put forth the audacious hypothesis that Brown v. Board of Education – that crown jewel of American race-remedies law – may have resulted more from the self-interest of elite Whites concerned about projecting a benign image of the United States during the Cold War rather than from a moral epiphany that just happened to click in during 1954, when the Cold War was at its height and we were competing with the godless, materialistic Soviet Union for the loyalties for the uncommitted Third World, most of which was Black, Brown or Asian. Black servicemen returning from the Second World War found that despite their heroic efforts in combat, not much had changed for them at home. Race relations were strained.” (2007: 137).
Now that the doors were open for African Americans to white colleges, it didn’t take long for Southern universities’ coaching staffs to realize what potential a new market of black athletes would bring. Charles Martin, describes in his book on integration in Southern college sports, that most Northern Universities had already been accepting black athletes since they realized the monetary value and national attention their universities could gain through intercollegiate
athletics (2010). Before integration took place in the South, Northern and Southern schools had a deal called the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’, which essentially stated that Northern Colleges would only let their white athletes perform when playing a team from the South (Martin 2010). When this agreement lost legitimacy, and Southern Universities saw their northern counterparts
economically flourish through athletics and compete at a very high level (Martin 2010), it started a nationwide scouting machinery where coaches were ‘hunting’ in poor black communities for prospect athletes, in order to achieve national recognition for successful athletic programs. Former collegiate athlete Billy Hawkins goes as far by claiming that “predominantly white NCAA Division I institutions (PWIs) use male African American student-athletes' physical labor in ways reminiscent of "slavery, sharecropping, and the prison industrial complex."” (Nathan
2010: 730) In his opinion, Universities use Black athletes to strengthen their appearance in sports, yet the individuals themselves become expendable (Nathan 2010). In relation to this phenomena, Hawkins finds it ironic that we have many predominantly White universities known nationally and international through Black athletic excellence (Hawkins 2010). He continues by describing a heavy dependency of Black athletes and Universities:
“intercollegiate athletic departments heavily depend on Black athletic talent to generate revenue for their multimillion dollar athletic budget. Consequently, the majority of elite Black football and basketball players depend on these athletic departments to purchase their athletic talent, for the opportunity to utilize and perfect their athletic skills, with hopes of obtaining a degree and/or career as a professional athlete” (2010: 45). Essentially, what Hawkins is describing as
‘dependency’ is a form of interest convergence. At last, black athletes have made it into the gigantic stadiums of prominent Universities, nonetheless their white institutions profit immensely.
The principle of interest convergence plays a vital role in the context collegial sports and in the disqualification of African American athletes. The past decades, universities have
benefitted greatly through the participation of black athletics in their programs, however, there is a new worrying public conception that pressures colleges to make policy changes. Crimes committed by athletes, and we will come back to this later, have been a major focus of the media and consequently Universities fear for their image of being a safe campus. Therefore, some universities introduced new policies such as background checks that disallow individuals with felony charges and criminal records to participate in their sport programs. This accounts for a shift in the interest convergence, as white universities no longer benefit from athletic success through pre-dominantly black offenders. Their renewed interest focuses on campus safety to
uphold their status as an institution, even if that means disqualifying a substantial amount of predominantly black athletes.
Finally, the third broad principle of critical race theory is the social construction of race and the recognition that race is a product of social thought (Delgado and Stefancic 2007). Surely, race can be a category that distinguishes people with different physical traits from one another. The main idea though, is that race is not biological and varies in definition in every culture. Being ‘black’ for example, is defined differently in the United States and the United Kingdom. While the U.S. defines blackness based on African ancestry, British society refers to blacks as anyone who is nonwhite, and therefore includes people from African, South Asian, and Middle Eastern descent (Khanna & Harris 2009). Particularly in the United States, racial classifications are not inherent, constantly change, and are invented with subjective purposes. One purpose for a group to categorize people could be to maintain authority and to exclude stigmatized individuals with certain physical traits, attitudes, ancestry, and beliefs. For example, Jews, Irish, or Eastern Europeans all had individual racial categories with certain negative stereotypes attached to them. The Irish people were perceived as foreigners from the working class, extreme drinkers with rude manners, and didn’t fit to the constructed ideas of whiteness to the time. This mechanism was used to separate groups from the White upper class, whereas now groups such as the Irish, Jews, or Eastern Europeans would all be defined as ‘white’.
How has blackness been defined as a category in the United States? Similar to most other racial categories, the definition of blackness changed often over time. During slavery, black skin color indicated a mark of degradation, human inferiority, and obedient behavior towards whites. The Jim Crow regime separated Whites and Blacks into a rigid caste system, where subordinate ‘negroes’ comprised for all persons of known African ancestry, no matter how minimal or
(in)visible (Wacquant 2005). The third definition of blackness formed around the peculiar institution known as the urban ghetto. Blacks were fleeing into Northern metropolitan areas to escape the South and its harsh rules of segregation. Most of these overcrowded communities were heavily impoverished and finding fair work was problematic. Nevertheless, being black for the first time meant having voting and civil rights, and being acknowledged as a full citizen. (Wacquant 2002). Finally, while blacks partially found their ways out of the ghetto, American society found new methods to entrap and segregate minorities once again. The role of the
“carceral institution today is different in that, for the first time in US history, it has been elevated to the rank of machine for ‘race making’” (Wacquant 2005: 128). The ‘blackness’ identity is formed through a biased criminal justice system where particularly black males are often associated with criminality, devious violence, and an endangerment to white society (Wacquant 2005). Other present views attached to the ‘black race’, according to the National Opinion Research Center Survey, are that whites think African Americans are more violent, not as hard working as them, and generally less intelligent (Lapchick 2000: 15). These social constructions of blackness translate into the world of sports as well – as will be discussed in the later.
Another important concept related to the social construction of race is that of differential racialization and the notion of intersectionality. This means that no individual has a single, easily stated unitary identity (Delgado and Stefancic 2007). Delgado and Stefancic use the example of a White feminist, who may be Jewish, working class, and a single mother all at the same time (2007). The same accounts for black athletes as well. They may be students, athletes, fathers, or criminals. What is most important, is the master status they attain throughout the public. A master status cuts across all the other statuses an individual occupies and is the most recognizable identity of a person. For example, OJ Simpson is a father, husband, and star
football player, but his master status is that of a criminal. Similar to racial categories, master statuses constantly change as well. During his time in College and with the L.A. Lakers, Magic Johnson was a basketball superstar. After being diagnosed H.I.V positive, his master status universally changed and he was subsequently identified through his disease. Arguably, after working many years with the National Basketball Association and being on television as a commentator, the general public lost interest in his medical case and his master status reversed to being a Basketball star.
Universities and professional leagues put great effort in maintaining positive identities of their athletes. With the new ‘crises’ of student athletes and crime in the media, Colleges spend a lot of money on lawyers and commercialism to maintain their player’s images of being role models and role-model athletes. They fear that negative identities of players will translate into the reputation of the Universities themselves. Sometimes, organizations promote negative images in return for success and financial benefits. For example, the Detroit Pistons (NBA) became known as the ‘Bad Boys’ in the late 80’s and early 90’s due to their violent encounters with opponents and scandals on and off the field. They won two championships, being the last team to prevent the great Michael Jordan of his upcoming success in the 90’s. Detroit is and was a social hotspot, very impoverished with tremendously high crime and unemployment rates. The
basketball team’s identity of being ‘hard’ and ‘hood’ in relationship of being successful was used as intimidation, and was also selling great in a city with huge social problems. In other words, being black and ‘thuggish’ may be tolerated in (white) athletic institutions, if the returning benefits make up for the negative identity.
African Americans and the Criminal Justice System
Countless studies have focused on the overrepresentation of Africans Americans in the United States criminal justice system. While African Americans constitute for only 13% of the United States population, they account for about half of all incarcerated individuals (Berry & Smith 2000). In fact, studies have shown with no uncertainty that African Americans are over-represented at every stage of the correctional system (Petersilia 1985). Nearly one third of African American males are likely to be admitted to prison in their lifetimes (Stone 1999). In a study conducted in 1985, Joan Petersilia found that 51 percent of black males in large urban areas are arrested at least once in their life times for an index crime, compared to only 14 percent of their white counterparts. Nearly one black man in six was nationwide excluded from the voting in 1997, due to felony convictions (Wacquant 2002). Due to racial profiling and ‘probable cause’, especially young black males are over-excessively stopped and searched for drugs and weapons, which causes disproportionate arrest and conviction rates. For example, according to the 2001-2010 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and Health, 28% of black males and 33% of White males between the ages of 18-25 disclosed Marijuana use within the same year (Matthews 2013). In spite of almost equal usage rates, Black are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for Marijuana (ACLU 2016). In fact, 52% of all drug arrests in 2010 were for Marijuana (ACLU 2016), and due to the excessive arrest rates, African Americans are more likely to have criminal records and to be repetitive offenders which can result in felony charges. These are important implementations in regards of what kind of ‘criminals’ background checks can disqualify.
Finally, to underline the disadvantageous role of African Americans in a racially fueled criminal justice system Berry and Smith summarize: “African American defendants are found
guilty more often than white defendants. African Americans are more likely to be incarcerated than whites, for the same offenses and for longer periods of time. African Americans are also more likely to be executed than whites, for the same offenses.” 2007: 175).
Convicts and offenders rarely find empathy throughout American society, since the public believes in the system and their law abiding citizens. If someone experiences problems with the law, the general attitude is ‘you shouldn’t have committed a crime’. But there are
several concerns with this attitude. For one, the 14th amendment is supposed to ensure equal
rights and protection under the law. Clearly, in regards to race, the criminal justice system has failed to do so. Secondly, the general notion that African Americans are incline for a life of crime and violence damages their overall image in society. Not only are African Americans disproportionally involved with the criminal justice system, their crimes are overrepresented and displayed on television. As Bonnie Berry found in her study, the mass media heavily influences public views on minorities and crime which consequently influences policy making (1999). Lastly, these factors promote a belief that African Americans and minorities are in fact more dangerous than Whites. This makes excluding a ‘dangerous’ group a lot easier and allows societal and institutional racism to exist.
It’s hard to grasp why these issues are still tolerated after years of public discussion on racial equality and the influences of the civil rights movement. Racism and discrimination, particularly issues between Whites and African Americans, are deeply anchored in America’s culture and history. One of the most important contributions on understanding racial disparities and crime in the United States is Loic Wacquant’s Race as a civic felony. Wacquant analyzes how race and blackness was socially constructed during the course of slavery, Jim Crow, and after segregation. His analysis of race in ‘peculiar institutions’ in American society sets a
foundation to understand the discriminative experiences of African Americans in the criminal justice system. He identifies four peculiar institutions – Slavery (1619-1865), Jim Crow (1865-1965), Ghetto (1915-68), and Hyperghetto & Prison (1968-) – that have historically promoted a caste system which made Blacks in America second-class citizens (2000, 2005). He describes the purpose of the latest peculiar institution as the following: “As a new century dawns, it is up to
another ‘peculiar institution born of the adjoining of the hyperghetto with the carceral system to uphold the social and spatial isolation of their residents and remold the social meaning and significance of ‘race’ in accordance with the dictates of the deregulated economy and the post-Keynesian state.” (2005: 128). Wacquant explains that the criminal justice system is used to strip
citizens of their rights legally. Every peculiar institution had laws and mechanisms that benefit the race in power and which consequently enabled them to maintain in power (2005). Even when one institution is replaced by another, which historically is perceived as progress, policies and beliefs are put into place which ensured that African Americans wouldn’t have equal access to political and economic power. After slavery, for example, the Black Codes (1860) were enforced to keep African-American labor in place, while the criminalization of civil rights protests in the South in the 1950s aimed to retard the agony of Jim Crow (Wacquant 2005). Today, in
comparison to the 60’s and 70’, African Americans are stronger represented in many social institutions (e.g. sport) throughout the U.S. Nevertheless, the criminal justice system and mass incarceration strip citizens of their legal rights and create a damaging image that relates race with crime. Wacquant elucidates that “the role of the carceral institution today is different in that, for the first time in US history, it has been elevated to the rank of main machine for ‘race making’. (2005:128).
Wacquant, in relation to critical race theory, also goes in-depth with the construction of race and the construction of ‘blackness’ in America. He argues that for four centuries now, blacks have been consistently constructed symbolically and handled institutionally as
‘anticitizens’ and a form of longstanding ‘Negrophobia’ in the public sphere has caused people to associate blackness with crime, deviance, and violence (2005: 128&136)). Whites
continuously regard African Americans with suspicion and carefully examine which individuals have proven to be legitimate. In sports, for example, Michael Jordan is viewed as a legitimate ‘good black’ and Mike Tyson as a dangerous ‘bad black’ (Berry & Smith 2000). Additionally, Wacquant points out that Americans have irrational fears of being victimized by blacks and the dominant strategy of Whites for ensuring physical safety is to avoid younger African Americans (2005). Wacquant claims that these unreasonable fears translate into law enforcement where particularly black men and their race is read as an outward indicator of potential unlawful
activity and used as justification for stopping, questioning, and searching them (2005). He quotes Randall Kennedy’s literature on race and crime who found that law enforcements are “using color as a proxy for dangerousness” and that “…American courts have consistently authorized the police to employ race as ‘a negative signal of increased risk of criminality’” (2005: 128 & Kennedy 1997). This triggers a disproportional amount of arrests, searches, questionings and consequently jailing’s of African Americans. Subsequently, “poor urban African Americans find themselves caught in the clutches of the penal system in numbers and with an intensity far out of proportion with their criminal involvement” (Wacquant 2005: 129).
These constructions of blackness and crime in the public sphere are essentially what allows a discriminative system to exist. Common belief is that the criminal justice system and actions such as the war on drugs increase protection for America’s citizens and punish those that
dare to violate society’s norms. However, through the strong representation of Blacks in the criminal justice system, and the media’s effort to portray black perpetrators, protecting oneself from crime has developed into protecting oneself from particularly young African Americans. Finally, background checks have become a bureaucratic mechanism to exclude criminals from social institutions such as education, housing, employment, and now sport. Most ‘criminal’ acts, however, as we will see in the following section, are non-violent offenses.
The War on Drugs
The war on drugs has to be mentioned in this context since the definition of a ‘criminal’ has changed tremendously since its outburst in the 1980’s. The detrimental impact drug-policy making and law enforcement had on Black communities during the war on drugs in the 80’s and 90’s is undeniable. Mass incarceration as a consequence of ridding the streets of drugs turned into a war on people rather than a war on crime and illegal substances. Michelle Alexander’s contribution ‘The New Jim Crow’ examines the war on drugs and her findings are astonishing. She writes: “Convictions for drug offenses are the single most important cause of the explosion
in incarceration rates in the United States. Drug offenses alone account for two-thirds of the rise in the federal inmate population and more than half the rise in state prisoners between 1985 and 2000. Approximately half-million people are in prison or jail for drug offenses today, compared to an estimated 41,100 in 1980 – an increase of 1,100 percent.” (2010: 60). Predominantly poor
minority neighborhoods were targeted for drug busts which resulted in gigantic numbers of arrests and convictions. Alexander continues by explaining some of the myths created around the war on drugs; First, she emphasizes that the war on drugs is not aimed against kingpins and big-time drug dealers. In fact, four out of five drug-related arrests were for possession. Secondly, the
drug war does not target dangerous drugs. In the 1990s, Marijuana possession accounted for nearly 80 percent of the growth in drugs arrests. Lastly, even though most drug arrests are for nonviolent offenses, “the war on drugs has ushered in an era of unprecedented punitiveness.” (2010 & Alexander 2010: 60).
Drug policies were revolutionized and law enforcements lost constraint by targeting poor minority neighborhoods that were known for drug problems, since they were now considered ‘criminal offenders’. The war on drugs rapidly found its biggest enemy in crack-cocaine and the people who were using it. Federal laws such as the ‘100 to 1’ crack regulation were enforced and stated that crack cocaine offenses are to be punished one hundred times more severely than offenses of powder cocaine, even though the substance has the same chemical basin. In essence, individuals arrested for 5 grams of crack cocaine fear the same punishments as someone who is caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine. However, it seemed only a certain group of crack users had to fear the law. Civil rights activists argue the law discriminates against African
Americans, because “the majority of those charged with crimes involving crack at that time were black (approximately 93 percent of convicted crack offenders were black, 5 percent were white), whereas powder cocaine offenders were predominantly white.” (Alexander 2010: 112). People that were charged with crack-cocaine offenses were looking at some serious time in prison, and just like the innumerable amount of all victims of the war on drugs, they were registered
criminals for the rest of their lives.
The Felony Label
prison. In the United States, if you are a convicted felon, it’s a different story. Once convicted, felons are banned from political participation and excluded from numerous federal and societal benefits. America’s constitutional slogan ‘all men are created equal’ certainly does not pertain to individuals whom have earned themselves the prison label. A felony, in contrast to a
misdemeanor, describes a serious crime and therefore indicates severer mandatory sentences and punishments. Nonetheless, the majority of felonies are non-violent offenses such as
drug-violations, property crimes, and driving under influence of a substance. In fact, only 7.9% of federal prisoners in 2009 were convicted of violent crimes (Alexander 2010).
The importance of the felony label, in relation to this paper, is that some universities have enforced mandatory background checks that ban prospect athletes with a felony charge from participating in their programs. This kind of policy making aligns with numerous other
discriminative laws that target felons and therefore a considerable part of the black population. Since many social and legal rights are withdrawn from convicts, Wacquant describes life in and after prison in American society as a “civic death” (2005: 130). This ‘death’ is imposed by the state and supported by a fearful middle class (2005). Alexander also scrutinizes on the felony label and what it means to be a ‘drug felon’ in the United States. She writes:
“Once a person is labeled a felon, he or she is ushered into a parallel universe in which
discrimination, stigma, and exclusion are perfectly legal, and privileges of citizenship such as voting and jury service are off-limits. It does not matter whether you have actually spent time in prison; your second-class citizenship begins in the moment you are branded a felon. Most people branded felons, in fact, are not sentenced to prison. (…) for drug felons, there is little hope of escape. Barred from public housing by law, discriminated against by private landlords,
applications for nearly every job, and denied licenses for a wide range of professions, people whose only crime is drug addiction or possession of a small amount of drugs for recreational use find themselves locked out of the mainstream society and economy – permanently.” (2010: 94).
The Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King were dedicated to equal suffrage for African Americans in the 1950’s and 60’s, though currently nearly one black man in six is nationwide banned from participating in election through penal prohibitions (Wacquant 2005). It ties back into the idea of one peculiar institution replacing the other, where a dominant group creates new forms of social control in order to maintain power. Segregation is defeated and Blacks are finally able to vote nationwide, nonetheless a substantial amount of the African American population is banned from political participation due to incarceration and felony regulations. Wacquant argues that these civil losses are a reminder that a racial caste division has been a core trait of American society and “shutting out felons from the distribution of valued cultural capital, social-welfare redistribution, and the vote converge perpetuate a ‘sphere of group exclusiveness’” (2005: 139).
In collegial sports, the felony label also plays a role. For one, the label itself can be a barrier for athletes to participate in NCAA sports. Secondly, most athletes that receive media attention for crime are usually involved in violent felony offenses. And third, often the educational institutions work hard to prevent labels being attached to their athletes. The following section will expand on the relationship of athletes and crime.
Athletes and Crime
Since the 1990’s mass media has increasingly reported crimes involving college and professional athletes. Particularly cases of sexual abuse and violent crimes directed towards
women have been sweeping through the news. Even social movements such as the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes (NCAVA) have formed to attract greater attention to this newly defined social problem. Crimes committed by athletes has also caught the attention of scholars and activists who generally have two propositions: 1) Athletes are overrepresented in crime compared to the crime rates of the general public (or in the case of student athletes, they’re more involved with crime than the non-athletic student body), and 2) Athletes are less likely to be convicted for their crimes. This section of the paper describes the relationship of sports and crime which has led to a public debate on campus safety. For some universities, campus crime has motivated them to enforce mandatory background checks for student athletes. Furthermore, the role of African American athletes and their involvements in crime will be discussed.
Literature Review
There is a wide array of studies on athletes and crime. Most research focuses on sports with high masculinity such as football and basketball in order to get the most significant results. Common belief is that the violence and aggressiveness on the field translates into the athletes regular lives as well. Crosset, Benedict, and McDonald found, athletes gain power and status by physically dominating others, and members of sex-segregated groups such as sports-teams are more likely to commit sexual offenses (1995, Berry & Smith 2000). In the same study, Crosset and his colleagues discovered that Basketball and Football players make up 30% of the student-athlete population, but are responsible for 67% of reported sexual assaults (1995). In another study, ESPN’s Tom Farrey’s report in 1997 shows that 83% of all reported crime incidents in 1997 came from athletes active in College Football (30.59%), NFL (26.12%), NBA (14.18%), and College Basketball (12.69%). About half of the crimes committed were of a violent nature which indicates a correlation between the violence of the sports (football, a highly masculine and
aggressive sport leading the way) and the crimes committed away from the field (Berry & Smith 2000). Furthermore, about 50% of the violent crimes were against women and repeatedly
included cases of domestic violence, sexual assaults, and rapes (Farrey 1999).
Another vital study was conducted by Benedict and Yaeger in 1998. In their book “Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL”, they make a compelling case for NFL players being disproportionally involved with violent crimes. They found that 1 out of 5 NFL players has been charged with a serious crime. Almost half of the offenses were assaults, battery, and sexual crimes. Of the 1590 NFL players in the 1996-97 season, they found that more than one-third of the players (509) had some sort of criminal history (1998, Berry & Smith 2000). Moreover, Benedict and Yaeger blame the NFL and the teams for protecting and covering up players delinquencies in order to keep them out of the media and out of prisons (1998).
Chandler, Johnson, and Carroll used a different approach by comparing abusive behaviors of college athletes to abusive behaviors of students that aren’t involved in sports (1999). Their results support the contention that athletes have a greater likelihood of being involved with violent behaviors directed towards women. They created a questionnaire that was filled out by 126 college athletes and 216 non-athletes. For one, their results show that Athletes were more likely than non-athletes to sexually harass or force sex with someone of the opposite sex. Secondly, Athletes were more likely to be sexually abused themselves (Chandler, et al. 1999).
Berry and Smith provide several causations of athletes being overrepresented in sexual and violent crimes, which Dr. Kadie Otto summarizes in six major features: (1) values & norms associated with sports (2) adherence to a win-at-all cost mentality (3) single-sex environments (4) male dominance & entitlement (5) celebrity status of athletes (6) the absence of regulating
crime in sport (2000). In relation to race, Benedict and Yaeger argued that black athletes are more prone to violence due to their economically disadvantaged backgrounds and violent cultural contexts (1998, Berry & Smith 2000). However, Berry and Smith firmly disagree with these conclusions on the grounds that white athletes also engage in violence, not all African Americans come from lower class backgrounds, and many black athletes that do come from poor violent backgrounds do not engage in violence (2000).
These studies support the public notion that athletes are more likely to commit crimes, particularly against women. Berry and Smith warn though, that athletes, similar to other
celebrities, are in the spotlight of the media (2000). At times there are more news about players’ criminal cases than there is about the sport itself, especially if a superstar player is involved. This unique visibility of athletes through the media may seem like their crimes are pervasive (Berry & Smith (2000). In fact, Richard Lapchick argues “images of athletes in trouble create a false and dangerous mindset with heavy racial overtones (2000). Lapchick argues there is no proof for a correlation between athletes and crime and he contends “there are 2,000 assaults in our schools every hour of the day! It is an ugly phenomenon that is nether bound by race, class, geography, nor by athlete vs non-athlete” (2000: 18). In 1994, he argues, 1400 men killed their significant others and OJ Simpson was the only athlete accused of murder. In 1998, an estimated three million women were battered and almost one million were raped. Only 70 to 100 athletes and coaches were accused of assault against women that year. And in data released in 1999, only 35 student-athletes were arrested even though there were 1053 forcible sex offenses reported (2000). Sport psychologist Mitch Abrams says the supposed threat of violent athletes is not supported by statistics (2013). While there are risk factors in sport that can contribute to violent behavior, the idea that athletes are more violent than non-athletes is a myth. (Abrams 2013).
Lapchick retains that “there has been a thorough, scientific study conclusively showing that athletes are more included than others to commit assaults” (2000:18).
The Invincible Athlete
What angers the public the most is that athletes appear to get a different, more lenient treatment in courts. And this anger, to some extent, is justified. While the professional leagues and the NCAA officially hold their athletes to high standards and have very strict ruling on crime offenses, they also serve as powerful gatekeepers between the law and their players. Athletes can rely on their organization’s cultural capital and their high-paid lawyers to protect them from convictions (Berry & Smith 2000). Even within the organizations themselves, there are often made exceptions that leaves athletes’ deviant behavior unpunished. As a form of interest
convergence, team owners, leagues, and colleges want their star players to participate regardless of the crimes they might have committed. To them to it’s a form of business, and losing star players means losing money (Berry & Smith 2000).
Evidence shows that players are not punished by the league or the criminal justice system as harshly as those in the general public (Withers 2015). Benedict and Klein examined the arrest and conviction rates of professional and college athletes who were charged with sexual assaults (1997). They found that athletes were 23% less likely to be convicted than people from the general population (1997). However, there is also a bias on which ‘kind’ of athletes are more likely to be convicted. There are more than 460,000 College athletes participating in sports who all have to conform to the NCAA’s rules and policies. It is unrealistic that all student athletes receive identical support from their institutions and are processed equally in the criminal justice system. Bethany Wither argues that this causes much of the problem: “Consistent
implementation required the league and teams to consider fair judgement in a vacuum, without considering the caliber of the athlete – if you would punish the fourth-string receiver, the starting quarterback should also be punished when involved in a similar incident. It also requires
considering all forms of crime, whether more or less publicly “acceptable”” (2015). It isn’t uncommon for players that are in the upper division teams to retain their scholarships and continue their seasons uninterrupted after arrests, indictments, convictions, and sentences (Benedict 1996). This phenomena mixed with the high admiration players receive from the general public may give athletes with criminal intentions the feeling of being invincible. Yaeger and Benedict are clear that “race does not cause people to commit crime, the absence of any consequences does” (1998: 169). This makes sense if one compares the participation numbers of African Americans in Football and Basketball and Tom Farrey’s study on crimes committed within those leagues. There are more recorded crimes in College football (30.59%) than there are in College Basketball (12.69%), although the participation of African Americans in College Basketball (57.2%) outweighs their participation in College Football (51.6%). This phenomena becomes even clearer in the professional leagues. In 1997, crime reported from players of the National Football League stood at 26.12%, whereas the NBA’s players accounted for only 14.18%. The participation rate of Black males in the NBA (77%) greatly outweighs the number of black athletes in the NFL (65%) (Farrey 1999 & Lapchick 2000). While there is larger participation of African Americans in the NBA, the NFL accounts for more than twice as many criminal incidents. This indicates that race is far more meaningless in explaining athlete crime and that other possibilities may apply. For one, Whites are just as likely to commit crimes. Secondly, Football is far more violent and aggressive than Basketball, therefore the concept of hypermasculinity and athletes translating the values & norms associated with their sport into
their personal lives may play a role (Berry and Smith 2000). Lastly, professional and College Football are the most popular sports in the United States. Its huge popularity and a larger participation of White athletes create a more racial-neutral label of the sport. Therefore, it is possible that all athletes benefit from this admiration and the overall image from the sport, which leaves crime often unpunished. In other words, the high status of athletes may give them a feeling of being above the law, and the benefits they enjoy through their institutions lead to unsanctioned crime (Berry & Smith 2000).
Race does, however, play a role in relation to other factors. African American star athletes enjoy the same institutional support and the same high-priced lawyers as their white counter parts. They are also more likely to avoid conviction and less likely to be punished by their leagues. If they are convicted though, particularly for sexual crimes, African Americans do face harsher punishment than White athletes (Berry and Smith 2000). College athletes are still very young when they are involved with crime. And similar to sexual abuse cases in High Schools or fraternities, the general public is more likely to downplay their offenses and just say “boys will be boys” (Lefkowitz 1998 & Berry and Smith: 183). Unfortunately, this attitude is far less common when the athletes who committed the crime are African American (Berry & Smith 2000). For example, the shockingly unfair verdicts of the Batey & Turner cases received huge media attention recently. Cory Batey was an upcoming African American football star, until security cameras and videos revealed that he had raped an unconscious women in his dorm room. Consequently, Batey now serves a mandatory 15-25 year mandatory sentence for his crime. Brock Turner, on the other hand, was a Caucasian standout swimmer at Stanford who was caught in the act of raping an unconscious women behind a dumpster. He got sentenced for six months
in the local jail and was told he would be released early if he behaved well. He won’t even go to an actual prison (King 2016).
Nonetheless, most black athletes do enjoy the same protection and the same privileges as their White counterparts. As mentioned, it is the lack of fear for punishments that allows athletes to be deviant on their campuses. Subsequently, African Americans that commit crimes and aren’t punished for them is an unusual confrontation for America’s prejudice society. And it wasn’t until two decades of constant media presentations of predominantly black athletes committing crimes, that the general public defined violent athletes as a ‘social problem’. It is ironic though, that White institutions in order to stay athletically and financially competitive, use their monetary and cultural power to protect their African American athletes from a racially biased criminal justice system. This might well be, one of the most revealing forms of interest convergence existent in present American society.
Black Athletes and Crime
The general perception is that African American athletes, like all African Americans, are more likely to commit crimes than any other race (Berry & Smith). Historically, African
Americans have always been labeled more violent and recognized as sex predators that are an endangerment to white mainstream society. These beliefs are still embraced in American culture and in the criminal justice system, as black males are more likely to be convicted for violent and sexual crimes than any other race. However, in regards to collegial and professional sports, there are no studies that indicate that black athletes commit on average more crime than White
athletes. Nevertheless, crimes committed by African American sports figures are disproportionately noticed and punished (Berry & Smith 2000). Black athletes are also
disproportionally displayed as offenders on the news which creates an image of athletes that are excessively involved in crime.
There are some explanations for why the public sphere perceives black athletes in this manner. First, there is racially biased journalism in the mass media when it comes to crime reporting that translates into the world of sports. The spotlight has made black athletes famous, but also vulnerable to racial stereotypes often linked to crime. Ex Boston Celtics players Tom Sanders recaps the media’s negative influence as the following: “…Of the few thousand that play sport on the highest level, if four or five individuals in each sport – particularly if they are black – have problems with the law, people won’t have long to wait before some media people are talking about all those athletes.” (Lapchick 2000: 15).
Secondly, there’s an overrepresentation of blacks 7in all of America’s most popular sports besides Baseball. Approximately 77 percent of the players in the National Basketball Association (NBA), 65 percent of the National Football League (NFL) and another 57 percent of Athletics participating in the Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are African American (Lapchick 2000). According to the 2012 College Sport and Racial Gender Report Card, black student athletes account for 57.2 percent in men’s college basketball, and 51.6 percent in men’s football (Lapchick, Agusta, Kinkopf & McPhee 2012). Since Blacks dominate major sports, it is unsurprisingly that they are more often on the news for certain delinquencies. Unfortunately, the public perception is shaped that they engage in more crime than athletes of other races.
Furthermore, the criminal justice system’s failure of being racially unbiased also
translates into the lives of Black athletes. As standup comedian Dave Chappelle joked: “I don’t care who you are, how famous you are, or how rich you are, if you’re Black you’re going to be
scared of the police”. In fact, African Americans who have achieved positions of high status remain suspect, since their power represents a violation of the social and racial order (Berry and Smith 2000). Scholars seem to have a dispute on athletes and their relationship to crime, but many studies notice a biased against Africa Americans, regardless of the intention of the study. Yaeger and Benedict, for example, found that 88% of players in the NFL with a serious criminal history are African American. This may actually speak to a biased criminal justice system before these athletes came to the NFL (1998, Berry and Smith 2000). Almost certainly, African
American athletes live through processes of the same discriminative justice system that was discussed earlier in this paper. Especially African American college athletes, whom have not reached stardom and celebrity status, will have similar discriminative experiences as non-athletes. Black student athletes find themselves in predominantly White campuses, with White peers and White coaches. Regularly they reside in White neighborhoods or on campus where their “race is read as an outward indicator of potential unlawful activity” (Wacquant 2005: 129). Often coming from economically deprived communities, young muscular African American athletes fit well into the image constructed by White American of a dangerous lower class ‘criminal’. They are now part of predominantly white institutions and have to cope in a system that was not originally designed to support them (Singer 2005).
Additionally, for most black athletes race remains their master status, and blackness in American society is essentially linked to crime. Criminal activity “is attributed to African American athletes in the same way and for the same reasons that young African American men are pegged as criminals” (Berry and Smith 2000: 190). In consequence, the leagues that hold the majority of Black athletes are labeled as being the most criminal. Don McPherson, former athlete
and former activist in the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Program, believes the public mechanically links skin color, crime and the sport itself to one another. He claims:
“Football and basketball mean black. When the public talks about gender violence and
athletes, it talks black. No one discusses the problems of Golfer John Dailey or Braves manager Bobby Cox. (…) Problems about athletes hit the papers and people think they detect a pattern because of the seeming frequency. But no one else’s problems get in the paper. How do we make legitimate comparisons?”
Indeed, leagues and sports do have different racial identities. When African American Eric Garner died through an illegal chokehold by a police officer in 2014, the NBA’s players wore “I can’t breathe” t-shirts in their pregame routines. While some other African American athletes showed their concern for police violence, no other league (Football season was over) or sport showed a united form of sympathy comparable to that of NBA teams. The Basketball players were openly demonstrating against White law enforcements, under the flag of the NBA. This creates an image of a ‘Black’ sport, which then will automatically receive the labels and stereotypes parallel to those of non-athlete African American.
Undeniably, background checks employed by universities primarily target prospect Football and Basketball athletes. While there might be correlations between athletes and crime, there are no grounds that black athletes in these sports are more prone to violent and sexual crimes than Whites. Nonetheless, if universities see a need to apply to public pressures and enforce mandatory background checks based on a racially biased criminal justice system, who do these policies target? If the racial identity of a sport is black and there is a general perception that violent and sex crimes committed by athletes within these sports are African American, then who are universities most likely to disqualify?
Background Checks
Background checks have become a regular process to mirror applicants in American institutions. Through technological advances and many States publishing criminal records online, the use of background checks is constantly increasing, especially for job application procedures (Blumstein & Nakamura 2009). Employers hope to minimize risks in hiring and hope to increase safeness by employing individuals with a ‘clean’ record. Often, businesses fear liability and don’t want their company images to be damaged by crime or deviant behavior. There are laws which are hypothetically enforced to protect applicants from unequal treatment. Title VII, for example, is supposed to protect minorities and states that employers should ensure that the use of background checks is job related for the position in question and criminal records shouldn’t be used as an absolute bar for employment (Zeitler & Luisi 2016). Although in reality, studies such as Zeitler’s and Luisi’s show that hiring processes are still discriminative based on race and gender (2016). Even in other social settings, such as housing, the mark of a criminal record can attenuate one’s chances of securing decent and affordable housing (Desmond 2012). In general, the use of background checks can create group-exclusiveness and leave ex-offenders with no opportunity to reintegrate into society.
Background checks and Student Athletes
This form of social control has expanded to many other parts of American society as well. Several Athletic institutions have recently adopted policies for mandatory background checks. Universities with successful sports teams have reacted to the ‘new wave’ of violent
student athletes from the past two decades. Especially institutions from the top divisions have taken great damage to their images and were publicly criticized for their scouting and hiring processes. While also being harshly criticized in the media spotlight, the league itself (National Collegiate Athletic Association) has not enforced any rules that would apply to all Universities. Consequently, many Colleges reviewed their own policies and investigated which actions could make their campuses safer, or at least make them appear safer.
Repeatedly, policy changes occur when a player is publically convicted of an especially violent crime and there is no doubt that the athlete is guilty. In 2003, Carlton Dotson, a former Baylor University student athlete, confessed of shooting Patrick Dennehy who was a current athlete at Baylor at the time. Both athletes were transfer athletes from another University (Potrafke 2006). In consequence to this event, Baylor University adopted a policy to enforce mandatory background checks on all athletes transferring to Baylor from other Colleges, in order to assess their characters (Potrafke 2006). This policy modification seemed to be a reaction to the public pressures after the incident with Carlton Dotson who was a transfer student himself. While Baylor silenced their critics and ‘reinsured’ campus security, they still don’t enforce mandatory Background checks on students that begin their careers at their own institution. The University of Oklahoma enforced mandatory criminal background checks on all incoming student athletes (Timanus 2005), after “several football-related incidents brought the university unwanted scrutiny” (Hughes & Elliot & Myers & Heard & Nolan 2014: 13). In 2008, the California State passed the ruling AB-22165, “which essentially stated that any athlete who had pleaded no contest to or who had been convicted of a felony cannot participate in sports at the Junior college, State College, or University of California level.” (Edwards 2008). Texas Christian University implements background checks on all student athletes (Keteyian 2011).
And Similar to Baylor, Kansas city implemented criminal checks on all transfer student athletes. Idaho alternatively, is the first State to adopt a State policy “prohibiting any Idaho State
University from recruiting any athlete with a felony conviction of a juvenile charge
corresponding to a felony conviction” (Potrafke 2006: 432). This policy affects Idaho University, Boise State, and Division I-AA Idaho State (Potrafke 2006).
Many other Universities have announced there will be changes in their policies regarding background checks. Stefanie Hughes and her colleagues conducted a study to measure the likelihood of Colleges enforcing background checks on their athletes. They crafted a survey that targeted Athletic Directors and Compliance Directors of Division I-III Universities. The survey included question that referred to the Institution’s policies on background checks and their future plans in this matter. Their findings suggest that current utilization of background checks is low (3.31%) but will increase to 8.01% in the upcoming terms. (Hughes, et al. 2014). This significant increase is aligned with the public opinion that America’s campuses are currently unsafe due to violent athletes. While many Universities have already reformed their policies, other Universities such as University of North Carolina, or University of Miami, are also inclined to do so (Potrafke 2006).
Scholars such as Benedict and Potrafke align with the general public and demand that the league (NCAA) enforce federal changes to increase campus safety. Conversely, according to the National Association of College & University, the NCAA hasn’t enforced mandatory
background checks because it would have a disproportionate impact on minority populations. (NACUA 2006 & Hughes, et al. 2014). Similar to other social fields, the use of background checks can be used to be racially discriminative against applicants. And since criminal records
exist through a prejudice criminal justice system in the first place, it can’t be ignored that African Americans will be more effected than any other race.
Methods
Prospect athletes usually join a collegial athletic program right after graduating from high school. The majority of applicants are between 17 and 20 years old. Therefore, the largest
population that is affected by background checks during the admission process are those individuals with a juvenile record and individuals who commit crimes between the ages 18 and 20 (above juvenile age). The goal of this study is not to determine why and when athletes commit crimes, rather to discover which population is most affected by the new policies of Universities.
I used data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to analyze the criminal activity and arrests of under 18 year olds in 2012 divided by race. Since criminal data is usually divided into above and under 18 year olds, I created another table displaying arrests divided by age to
distinguish criminal activity of 18-20 year olds. Datasets from the Bureau of Justice Statistics are frequently used in criminological and federal studies because they are comprehensive. The BJS combines statistics of many platforms and therefore offers elaborate and exclusive databases. Additionally, I used one of BJS’s associate sites that focus on crimes committed by Juveniles. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) offers an analysis tool to create own datasets. Here, I used the tool EZAPOP (Easy Access to Juvenile Populations) to create databases of an adolescence population between the ages of 5 and 17 from the year 2012
and of adult populations. I then compared the population and the arrests to distinguish the involvement of youth in crime. Finally, I will use an independent sample of juvenile defendants from the State Court Processing Statistics. The dataset is also collected information from the BJS and the OJJDP and focuses und juveniles facing felony charges.
Table 1 and Table 1.1 illustrate all arrests of under and over 18 year olds divided by race and crimes in the year of 2012 (BJS). First, I was interested what percentages of African
Americans and Whites were involved in in the offenses of under and over 18 year olds. So I divided the offenses of African American by the total number of offenses for both groups. For the under 18 year olds, African Americans accounted for 32.4% of the offenses (428,628 % 1,320,043) and Whites for 64.5% (851,814%1,320,043), whereas the over 18 year olds accounted for 27.5% (2,992,731 % 10,878,448) for Blacks and White accounted for 69.5% (7,566,803 % 10,878,448). African Americans under 18 are almost 5% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile than in adulthood in comparison to other races. I compared their involvement in crime with the total population, so I created a population table at OJJDP and organized it by race, ranging ages 5 to 17 from the year 2012. I chose this age group since arrests under the age of 5 are almost nonexistent. The African American population was 8,829,865 and the White
population was 40,848,911, with a total under aged population of 53,731,516 (OJJDP) in 2012. The African American population between the ages 5 to 17 accounts for 16.4% of the under 18 year olds, Whites account for 76%. The population table for adults above 18 can be found at
Table 2.1. Whites make up 192,397,488 and Blacks account for 31,026,598, with a total of
240,400,252 (OJJDP) people above 18. Consequently, Whites above the age of 18 make up 80% and Blacks above 18 account for 12.9%.
Further, I wanted to calculate the arrest percentage of all males under 20 in comparison to the rest of the male offenses. So I added all offenses recorded by males of the ages 20 and under and divided them by total offenses (Table 3). The result indicated that approximately 1 out of 4 offenses (23%) involving males are committed by juveniles or Males between the ages 18 and 20.
Unfortunately, there is no data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics dividing race, age and gender. However, even though the data will be slightly skewed, I calculated a realistic tendency of 15-20 year old African Americans males being arrested. I choose this age group since it will be the most likely group to apply for college programs. I combined all male offenses of ages 15 to 20 (Table 3) which resulted in a total of 1,857,468 offenses. I will use 27.5% as an
measurement, since that was what resulted in averaging out African American arrests in over 18-year olds. Even though the number in reality will probably be higher due to profiling of young African American males. 27.5 percent of 1,857,468 arrests indicate an amount of 510,803 offenses recorded by African American males in between the ages 15 and 20. The total
population of Black males in 2012 amounted for 2,226,254 (OJJDP). This indicates a tendency that more than 1 out of 5 (22.9%) (510,803 % 2,226,254) African American males were arrested in 2012. While this number will be skewed, it aligns with other studies.
