미국의 힙합 형법 연구 - 폴 버틀러의 힙합 형사정의를 중심으로 -

Introducing the hip-hop justice theory by Paul Butler, who once served as an African-American prosecutor in the United States, this paper examines several implications hip-hop culture has on criminal law. Hip-hop citizens vocalize how their families, friends, and they themselves were unfairly treated as the suspect, accused or prisoner under the criminal justice system, and their feelings of fear, resentment and defiance from their experiences. Through rappers’ narratives, Butler points out the problems of mass incarceration, the purpose and limits of punishment, and side effects of drug criminalization policy. He also suggests hip-hop citizens exercise their jury nullification power for Black defendants, participate in ‘stop snitching’ campaigns, and facilitate diversion programs as an alternative to imprisonment. Butler’s hip-hop criminal justice is not an entirely new concept, rather a mixture of Critical Race Theory and a few other criminal justice reform theories. Nonetheless, his theory successfully demonstrates the power of unity and dynamics of hip-hop culture that can challenge the status quo of criminal justice system. There are several limitations though, i) it only considers the African-American community when discussing group criminal justice system reform; and ii) is on the premise that it only applies to non-violent and mala prohibita crimes. Future studies should advance hip-hop criminal justice to become a symbol of intercultural criminal law. This can be achieved by inviting a wider group of people across heterogeneous races, classes and cultural identities and eradicating the boundary between mainstream culture and subcultures, and Black and non-Black groups.