Papers by Sarah Beth Kaufman
Qualitative Sociology, 2019
The criminalization of Muslims-framing an Islamic religious identity as a problem to be solved us... more The criminalization of Muslims-framing an Islamic religious identity as a problem to be solved using state crime control logic-is undeniably in process in the United States. Local, state, and federal statutes target Muslims for surveillance and exclusion, and media sources depict Muslims as synonymous with terrorism, as others have shown. This paper analyzes the public's role in the criminalization of Islam, which I call "cr-Islamization." Drawing on in-depth, qualitative interviews in a major Southwest city during the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, I detail how the majority of 144 politically, racially, and economically diverse interviewees talk about Muslims as a potential "racial threat," using "fear of crime" language indicative of the mass incarceration era. This suggests that criminalization theory should be central to sociological studies of Muslims in the contemporary United States, and that criminal-ization rhetoric remains powerful, despite mainstream enthusiasm for criminal justice reform. I argue that criminalization's power might reside in its ability to mutate in the "post-racial" era. The mechanisms supporting crimmigration, the criminalization of black Americans, and cr-Islamization are related but not identical. Muslims are religiously and racially subjugated, but more economically secure compared to other criminalized groups. This paper's findings should prompt scholars to reexamine the relationships between racialization, criminalization, religious subjugation, and economic exploitation in the twenty-first century United States.
This article draws on in-depth, qualitative interviews with Muslim and non-Muslim Ameri-cans in 2... more This article draws on in-depth, qualitative interviews with Muslim and non-Muslim Ameri-cans in 2016 to specify how Muslim "racialization" is shaped by the racial politics of the United States (US). Anti-Muslim bias is not experienced by religious Muslims as a whole, but by people whose bodies are read to be affiliated with the Islamic religion-often erroneously because of their perceived racial characteristics. Self-identified black, white, and Hispanic Muslims with no visible markers of their religion do not experience anti-Muslim harassment, while non-Muslim Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs who embody an imagined "Muslim look," cope with fear and aggression from strangers on a daily basis. These findings are notable for two reasons. First, our respondents demonstrate how racialized religion is mutable: they are active in constructing how Islam is read on their bodies in public. Second , our findings demonstrate how hate crime categorization in the US obscures the role that racism plays in religious victimization. We urge scholars who study anti-Muslim acts to include non-Muslims in their analyses, and advocate for the re-conceptualization of identity based hate crime categories. Excavating the corporeality of criminal victimization in particular can help to understand the ways in which biases are experienced in the contemporary US. They could care less that I am calling myself a Muslim. All they look at is the dark skin. That is how I am judged. That is how we are all judged, as black people.-Joshua, black Muslim man I am perceived to an American as Muslim. If I walk down the street I'll get yelled at, "Hey, Bin Laden, how are you doing?" Or "Osama." And it will happen all the time.-Hari, (non-Muslim) Sikh man This article joins ongoing critical conversations about violence labeled "hate" or "bias" crime (
This article presents findings from ethnographic research in death penalty trials around the Unit... more This article presents findings from ethnographic research in death penalty trials around the United States, focusing on the role of victims and their supporters. Victim impact testimony (VIT) in death penalty sentencing has received intense legal scrutiny during the past thirty years. The ruling jurisprudence allows VIT with the explanation that it deserves parity with testimony about the defendant’s background. Drawing on observations and
interviews with participants in 15 death penalty trials, I demonstrate that this framing confuses the central role of victim supporters in the courtroom. Victim supporters function as mourners, which grants them a socially elevated position in the courtroom. I argue that the consequences of the institutionalization of VIT can only be understood through this lens.
American Ethnologist, 2016
For two years, John Borneman attended four group therapy sessions per week for convicted sex offe... more For two years, John Borneman attended four group therapy sessions per week for convicted sex offenders in Germany, and he gained access to a repository of past cases to examine how German courts imagine rehabilitation. The courts order therapy for such offenders in Germany, and the expectation is that therapy will do more than merely change criminal behavior. To demonstrate rehabilitation, a "deeper" kind of therapy is required, relying on the psychoanalytic model to discover and reorganize the self.
Contemporary Sociology a Journal of Reviews, Jul 1, 2014
Law & Society Review, 2009
... Eligible for Execution: The Story of the Daryl Atkins Case. By Thomas G. Walker. Sarah Beth K... more ... Eligible for Execution: The Story of the Daryl Atkins Case. By Thomas G. Walker. Sarah Beth Kaufman. Article first published online: 11 DEC 2009. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2009.00393_8. x. © 2009 by The Law and Society Association. Issue. Law & Society Review. ...
Although capital punishment in the United States is subject to much social scientific scrutiny, t... more Although capital punishment in the United States is subject to much social scientific scrutiny, there has been little ethnographic study of death penalty trials. This is not only an empirical lacuna, but also a theoretically and politically important one: by failing to take capital trials as primary objects of inquiry, the practices of lawyers, witnesses, judges, and others are viewed as products of, rather than implicated in, the institution of criminal justice. Based on an ethnography of fifteen death penalty sentencing trials
across the United States during 2007, 2008, and 2009, this article seeks to understand the role of juries in capital trials. While judges customarily make sentencing decisions in American criminal cases, capital cases require jury sentencing. Key to understanding this unusual requirement is the recruitment of potential jurors into a role I term punitive citizenship. Through the process of choosing ‘death qualified’ jurors for trial, capital
jurors are asked to call upon their own moral positions in conjunction with their responsibility to the collective to decide on appropriate punishments for defendants who are singled out for capital prosecution by the state. This ensures that capital jurors take personal responsibility for the punishment decision. The article argues that this process blurs the lines between state and citizen action, solidifies the types of homicides that are designated worthy of capital punishment, and allows the state to neutralize
some of the historic problems with state-sponsored death sentences.
This article presents findings from ethnographic research in death penalty trials around the Unit... more This article presents findings from ethnographic research in death penalty trials around the United States, focusing on the role of victims and their supporters. Victim impact testimony (VIT) in death penalty sentencing has been the focus of intense legal scrutiny during the past thirty years, generally framed as a conflict between victim and offender rights. Drawing on observations and interviews with participants in fifteen death penalty trials, I argue that framing the conflict as one between testifying victims and offenders misses the more important role of victims and their supporters in the courtroom. I show that victims perform the role of public mourners, potentially compelling jurors, spectators, lawyers, and others to empathize with them. I argue that it is only through this lens that the consequences of the institutionalization of VIT can be understood: when victims achieve the sacred status of mourners, they are elevated to a privileged position in the courtroom.
Social Science Research Council, 2006
Drafts by Sarah Beth Kaufman
This paper analyzes interviews with 172 adults in San Antonio conducted during the height of the ... more This paper analyzes interviews with 172 adults in San Antonio conducted during the height of the 2016 Presidential campaign. We ask two questions: To what extent do the 2016 Presidential candidates’ stated views on Muslims impact the general public’s understanding of Muslims? And what does the public think of the religion of Islam in relation to these views? As we demonstrate, our respondents employ two types of discourse to make sense of the candidates’ proposals to treat Muslim Americans differently than other Americans: racial and religious. We show that candidates’ statements prompted members of the public to imagine Muslims as a homogenized racial group, as others have argued, but also to view Muslims as part of a dangerous religious group. We contend that racialization theory is not adequate for making sense of public discourse about Islam during the 2016 election, and that the criminalization paradigm is necessary to understand the debate and its impact.
Books by Sarah Beth Kaufman
As the death penalty clings to life in many states and dies off in others, this first-of-its-kind... more As the death penalty clings to life in many states and dies off in others, this first-of-its-kind ethnography takes readers inside capital trials across the United States. Sarah Beth Kaufman draws on years of ethnographic and documentary research, including hundreds of hours of courtroom observation in seven states, interviews with participants, and analyses of newspaper coverage to reveal how the American justice system decides who deserves the most extreme punishment. The “super due process” accorded capital sentencing by the United States Supreme Court is the system’s best attempt at individuated sentencing. Resources not seen in most other parts of the criminal justice system, such as jurors and psychological experts, are required in capital trials, yet even these cannot create the conditions of morality or justice. Kaufman demonstrates that capital trials ultimately depend on performance and politics, resulting in the enactment of deep biases and utter capriciousness. American Roulette contends that the liberal, democratic ideals of criminal punishment cannot be enacted in the current criminal justice system, even under the most controlled circumstances.
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Papers by Sarah Beth Kaufman
interviews with participants in 15 death penalty trials, I demonstrate that this framing confuses the central role of victim supporters in the courtroom. Victim supporters function as mourners, which grants them a socially elevated position in the courtroom. I argue that the consequences of the institutionalization of VIT can only be understood through this lens.
across the United States during 2007, 2008, and 2009, this article seeks to understand the role of juries in capital trials. While judges customarily make sentencing decisions in American criminal cases, capital cases require jury sentencing. Key to understanding this unusual requirement is the recruitment of potential jurors into a role I term punitive citizenship. Through the process of choosing ‘death qualified’ jurors for trial, capital
jurors are asked to call upon their own moral positions in conjunction with their responsibility to the collective to decide on appropriate punishments for defendants who are singled out for capital prosecution by the state. This ensures that capital jurors take personal responsibility for the punishment decision. The article argues that this process blurs the lines between state and citizen action, solidifies the types of homicides that are designated worthy of capital punishment, and allows the state to neutralize
some of the historic problems with state-sponsored death sentences.
Drafts by Sarah Beth Kaufman
Books by Sarah Beth Kaufman
interviews with participants in 15 death penalty trials, I demonstrate that this framing confuses the central role of victim supporters in the courtroom. Victim supporters function as mourners, which grants them a socially elevated position in the courtroom. I argue that the consequences of the institutionalization of VIT can only be understood through this lens.
across the United States during 2007, 2008, and 2009, this article seeks to understand the role of juries in capital trials. While judges customarily make sentencing decisions in American criminal cases, capital cases require jury sentencing. Key to understanding this unusual requirement is the recruitment of potential jurors into a role I term punitive citizenship. Through the process of choosing ‘death qualified’ jurors for trial, capital
jurors are asked to call upon their own moral positions in conjunction with their responsibility to the collective to decide on appropriate punishments for defendants who are singled out for capital prosecution by the state. This ensures that capital jurors take personal responsibility for the punishment decision. The article argues that this process blurs the lines between state and citizen action, solidifies the types of homicides that are designated worthy of capital punishment, and allows the state to neutralize
some of the historic problems with state-sponsored death sentences.