Previous research shows that people who have criminal legal (CL) contact are less likely to vote, but there is little information about whether or not CL contact influences protest participation. While people with CL contact may be more likely to engage in critiques of the state, they are also more vulnerable to the risks associated with protesting. Because the CL system is highly racialized in the United States, race is central to an analysis of CL contact. In this article, I analyze the relationship between protest participation, CL contact, and race in Illinois. With survey data from the 2014 Chicago Area Study, I show how race and CL contact interact to increase the likelihood of protesting for Black respondents with CL contact, suggesting that one’s experience of a personal perceived injustice is a driving factor in deciding to protest. I also find that non-Black respondents with CL contact are equally as likely to participate in protests as their counterparts without CL contact. This article contributes to literature on political participation and criminology, showing how race and CL contact interact in a way that is associated with participation rates for protest.

先前的研究表明，与法律（CL）接触的人投票的可能性较小，但是关于CL接触是否影响抗议参与的信息很少。与CL接触的人可能更可能对国家进行批评，但他们也更容易遭受与抗议相关的风险。由于在美国，CL系统高度种族化，因此种族对于分析CL接触至关重要。在本文中，我分析了伊利诺伊州抗议活动的参与，CL接触与种族之间的关系。借助2014年芝加哥地区研究的调查数据，我展示了种族和CL接触如何相互作用，以增加对有CL接触的黑人受访者进行抗议的可能性，这表明个人对个人不公的经历是决定抗议的驱动因素。我还发现，与非CL接触的非黑人受访者参加抗议活动的可能性与未与CL接触的非黑人受访者一样。本文为有关政治参与和犯罪学的文献做出了贡献，展示了种族和CL接触如何以与抗议参与率相关的方式相互作用。