Latino Studies and Latino Criminology: An invitation to engage in the labor of healing in the Neoliberal-Carceral University

Abstract

Recent scholarship on Latinos and crime has invited scholars to reimagine the scholarly project of Latino Studies more broadly. Existing accounts suggest Latino Criminology (LC) can help decolonize or correct colonial, imperialist, and carceral logics within the study of Latinos and crime. However, this paper asks: what actual contributions can Latino studies offer LC, and vice versa? To explore this question, we examine how entire communities—including our own student-educator relationships—are differentially affected by police killings, as Latine/xs are forced to enact the labor of healing in the immediate aftermath of their loved ones’ deaths. We examine how carceral violence makes healing unavoidable not only for families and loved ones of people killed by police, but also for students, educators, and academics writing about police terror. By examining how social media, corporate news networks, and criminological analyses narrate the impact of carceral and police violence in Latine/x communities, we invite scholars to engage in their own healing from depoliticized analyses that seek new paradigms and theories without lifting up the ongoing efforts of local communities already organizing against racialized carceral violence.