Article
Hip-Hop and Procedural Justice: Hip-Hop Artists' Perceptions of Criminal Justice
Race and Justice
(2012)
Abstract
Despite its popularity, hip-hop has remained one of the most woefully underexamined topics within criminal justice and criminology. Given the reality that hip-hop music represents lyrical expressions from criminal justice’s most overrepresented population; the aforementioned paucity is all the more perplexing. Utilizing a latent and manifest content analysis of a random sample of 200 hip-hop songs, drawn from platinum-selling albums between the years 2000 and 2010, the current study examined the manner and extent to which hip-hop artist’s portrayed the criminal justice system. The results demonstrated that law enforcement was the branch of the criminal justice system most likely to be mentioned by hip-hop artists (58.27% of mentionings) followed by corrections (33.81%) and courts (7.91%). Subthemes that emerged from hip-hop discussions of law enforcement and corrections are also discussed. Unfairness and powerlessness inductively emerged as the two general themes from the hip-hop criminal justice portrayals and are discussed within a procedural justice framework. Suggestions for future research and policy implications are put forth.
Keywords
- hip-hop,
- rap,
- music,
- procedural justice,
- criminal justice,
- content analysis
Disciplines
Publication Date
2012
Citation Information
Howard M Henderson. "Hip-Hop and Procedural Justice: Hip-Hop Artists' Perceptions of Criminal Justice" Race and Justice Vol. 2 Iss. 3 (2012) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/howard_henderson/7/