Those familiar with social science research on criminal justice contact and political participation could easily feel pessimistic about the potential for reform in the United States. The reach of police and the carceral state is massive; for example, approximately 45% of US adults have had an immediate family member who spent at least one night in prison or jail during the family member’s life (Peter K. Enns et al., “What Percentage of Americans Have Even Had a Family Member Incarcerated? Evidence from the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS)” Socius, 2019). In addition, many scholars have found that contact with the legal system dampens political participation (for example, see Traci Burch, “Turnout and Party Registration among Criminal Offenders in the 2008 General Election,” Law and Society Review, 2011; Hedwig Lee, Lauren C. Porter, and Megan Comfort, “Consequences of Family Member Incarceration: Impacts on Civic Participation and Perceptions of the Legitimacy and Fairness of Government,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2014; and Vesla M. Weaver and Amy E. Lerman, “Political Consequences of the Carceral State,” American Political Science Review, 2010). If the broad scope of criminal justice contact translates to reduced political participation, a sustained push for reform seems unlikely, especially because those most affected may become least likely to engage in political action.
Mobilized by Injustice makes it clear this is not the whole picture. Early in this book, Hannah L. Walker shows that some of the most prominent research—which finds that contact with the criminal legal system leads to political disengagement—has overlooked evidence within these same studies that suggests a more complicated story. In contrast to scholars who “either miss signs of citizen resistance or deemphasize them as curiosities” (p. 4), Walker takes seriously the evidence that criminal justice contact sometimes leads to increased political engagement. Indeed, the goal of the book is to understand the conditions that lead criminal justice experiences to demobilize and those that lead these experiences to mobilize individuals.
Building on work such as Lisa L. Miller’s The Perils of Federalism (2008) and Michael Leo Owens’s “Ex-Felons’ Organization-Based Political Work for Carceral Reform” (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2013), Walker constructs a theory to explain this variation. Although she is careful to recognize that other factors influence political participation, the theoretical argument focuses on “systemic injustice,” which she argues moderates the effects of both personal and proximal contact with the criminal legal system. Proximal contact refers to having a loved one who has had personal contact with the legal system. For personal or proximate contact with the legal system to lead to politicization, the person must believe both that the experience was unfair and was the result of systemic injustice; that is, targeting on the basis of race, place, or class. Walker’s focus on systemic injustice is closely related to the concepts of group consciousness and linked fate. Thus, the theorizing and analysis pay close attention to the experiences of African Americans and Latinos. Walker also theorizes how institutional factors, such as community-based organizations, can cultivate awareness, as well as channel feelings of systemic injustice into political participation. Together, these arguments offer a nuanced set of predictions for when those who have directly experienced the criminal legal system or those who have had loved ones with such experiences will become politically mobilized.
Evidence to support the theoretical predictions comes from in-depth interviews with advocates, activists, and community members affected by the system, as well as from five unique datasets, including the National Crime and Politics Survey (NCPS), which Walker conducted specifically for this research. Walker deftly weaves accounts from the in-depth interviews throughout the book to illustrate the theoretical mechanisms and how they apply in various contexts. She also successfully uses the strengths of the various datasets to test the numerous hypotheses that stem from her theory. Mobilized by Injustice is theoretically rich and full of detailed and rigorous analysis of qualitative and quantitative data; it offers new insights into the relationship between the criminal legal system and political engagement. Of course, as is typically the case with theoretically driven and important books, this research also raises questions and invites extensions.
Although Walker uncovers substantial evidence of the hypothesized mobilizing effects, what also caught my attention was that the quantitative analyses produced minimal evidence that personal or proximal contact corresponds with political demobilization. After conditioning on covariates, there was no evidence of a direct statistical relationship between personal contact and voter registration, voting, or nonvoting participation among the general public; no relationship between personal contact and voter registration among Blacks (though there was a negative and significant relationship for Whites); a positive and significant relationship between personal contact and nonvoting participation among Blacks; no corresponding relationship among whites; and no relationship between personal contact and voter registration or voting for Latinos (findings from Table 3.3, Figure 4.4, Table 4.2, and Table 5.4).
Perhaps even more surprising than the lack of direct effects in these analyses (which might be expected given the theoretical argument), when the theory would predict demobilization, we often failed to see such evidence. For example, even when a sense of injustice is at its lowest level, there is no evidence of a relationship between personal contact and nonvoting participation for the general public, or when white and Black respondents are analyzed separately (findings from Tables 3.4 and 4.3). Although surprising, these results do not diminish, and may even enhance, the importance of the book. First, although they are representative, these findings reflect just a portion of the many analyses. Second, these findings could imply that the evidence for mobilizing effects is even stronger than hypothesized, which suggests important opportunities for further research.
A narrower point relates to the measurement of political engagement in the analysis of community-based organizations (CBOs), which uses the Chicago Area Survey (2014). To measure political participation, the survey asked respondents if they had done a variety of activities (up to seven) in the past 12 months, including having “donated to a political cause” or “volunteered for a political campaign” (p. 69). CBO contact was measured with a question that asked respondents if they currently belong to, volunteer with, attend meetings of, or pay dues to any of the following groups (up to six), including “an organization that focuses on a specific political cause” (p. 69). The focus on how institutional factors, such as CBOs, can moderate the effects of criminal justice contact offers a major theoretical and empirical contribution. At the same time, if some respondents viewed volunteering for a political campaign as similar to volunteering with an organization that focuses on a political cause, or donating to a political cause as analogous to paying dues to an organization that focuses on a political cause, the finding that those with CBO contact were more likely to participate politically could be explained, in part, from the two measures capturing the same behaviors.
Of course, one of the values of combining in-depth interviews and multiple datasets is that no conclusion rests on a single measurement strategy or analysis. Further, because Walker has made her NCPS and other data available (https://mobilizedbyinjustice.com/details-and-data/), scholars can continue to build on this important research. In sum, Mobilized by Injustice is an exciting and accessible book that not only advances the scholarly literature by taking seriously the potential mobilizing effects of injustice, but also charts a potential path from mass incarceration to mass-led reform.
