Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court.

• Author: Uneke, Okori

Matthew Clair. Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020. xv-320. Hardcover, $29.95.

In Privilege and Punishment, Stanford sociologist Matthew Clair examines how class and racial inequalities are entrenched in the criminal legal system and reproduced through the attorney-client relationship. While criminal defendants come from all racial and economic backgrounds, their experience of punishment immensely differ. For the book project, Clair conducted extensive ethnographic work in the Boston court system, attended criminal hearings and interviewed defendants, defense lawyers, judges, police, and probation officers. Precisely, Clair interviewed eleven female and fifty-two male defendants for the study. This book highlights the enduring features of inequality in the criminal legal system. For instance, when disadvantaged defendants (poor and ethnic minorities) try to learn their legal rights and advocate for themselves, lawyers and judges often silence, coerce, and punish them. In contrast, privileged defendants (middle class), who have little or no knowledge of the criminal legal system, and are more likely to trust their defense attorneys, delegate authority to their lawyers, defer to judges, and are rewarded for their compliance. The takeaway is that attempts to exercise one's legal rights often backfire on the poor and ethnic minorities.

As Clair observes, outside the criminal legal system, the middle class often display a sense of entitlement by asking for accommodations to the rules, while the poor and working class tend to defer to institutional authorities, rarely making demands for accommodations or extra resources. This dynamic is reversed in the criminal legal system: While the privileged defer to their lawyers and court judges, the disadvantaged demand and seek accommodations through their attempts to exercise their legal rights and advocate for themselves. In four chapters, Clair, using qualitative methods, narrates the stories of ordinary people from various walks of life as they navigate the criminal courts alongside their lawyers. By analyzing their experiences, the author provides a detailed understanding of the way privilege and inequality work in court interactions.

Chapter 1 (Different Paths to the Same Courts) focuses on how people from different racial and economic backgrounds become criminal defendants. The privileged and disadvantaged navigate...