Consumer Racial Profiling Discussed in Upcoming Pryor Center Presents Lecture Series Event, Oct. 22

For the next Pryor Center Presents lecture series at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22, Shaun L. Gabiddon, Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice at Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg will present 'Shopping While Black: Hidden Injustices in the Private Justice System.'

Racism, social justice and policing is the focus of this fall's series, hosted by the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

This lecture will be held via Zoom and registration is required.  

Gabiddon will discuss "Shopping While Black" or the use of racial profiling to identify shoplifters in retail settings—also referred to as consumer racial profiling. The discussion includes an overview of the private justice system that exists within retailers. 

Drawing on his two decades of research on the topic, as well as his own experience as a security executive for a major retailer, Gabbidon provides the socio-historical context that fostered the development of the practice. In addition, Gabbidon reviews the current knowledge base related to consumer racial profiling and discusses how retailers can identify—and begin to eliminate—racial profiling within their establishments.

Gabbidon has served as a fellow at Harvard University's W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research and taught at the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. 

He is the author of more than 100 scholarly publications, including more than 70 peer-reviewed articles and 13 books. His most recent books include the co-authored book, Shopping While Black: Consumer Racial Profiling in America, Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime, the co-authored text Race and Crime, and the co-edited book, Building a Black Criminology: Race, Theory, and Crime. 

The recipient of numerous awards, Gabbidon was named a 2019 Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and recipient of the 2015 Julius Debro Award for outstanding service and the 2016 Outstanding Teaching Award, both from the Division on People of Color and Crime of the American Society of Criminology.

Pryor Center Presents Lecture Series Calendar

• Nov. 4 - Michael Sierra-Arévalo - 'Peril on Patrol: Death, Danger, and US Policing' - Register
• Dec. 3 - Natalie Todak - 'Body-Worn Cameras and Police Accountability: High Hopes, Lackluster Evidence' - Register

About the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History: The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History is an oral history program with the mission to document the history of Arkansas through the collection of spoken memories and visual records, preserve the collection in perpetuity, and connect Arkansans and the world to the collection through the Internet, TV broadcasts, educational programs, and other means. The Pryor Center records audio and video interviews about Arkansas history and culture, collects other organizations' recordings, organizes these recordings into an archive, and provides public access to the archive, primarily through the website at http://pryorcenter.uark.edu. The Pryor Center is the state's only oral and visual history program with a statewide, seventy-five county mission to collect, preserve, and share audio and moving image recordings of Arkansas history.

About the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences: The Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is the largest and most academically diverse unit on campus with three schools, 16 departments and 43 academic programs and research centers. The college provides the core curriculum for all University of Arkansas students.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.