NCJ Number
178472
Date Published
1999
Length
75 pages
Annotation
Three papers address racial discrimination in America's criminal justice system in the areas of prosecution, drug law enforcement, and corrections.
Abstract
The first paper examines prosecutorial discretion, which the author alleges is a major cause of racial inequality in the criminal justice system. Based on his 12 years of experience as a public defender in Washington, D.C., the author observes that defendants and victims were treated differently by prosecutors based on race. Almost always, this disparate treatment was the result of action taken by the prosecutor at the charging, bargaining, trial, or sentencing stage of the case. The author proposes the use of racial impact studies in prosecution offices to advance the responsible, nondiscriminatory exercise of prosecutorial discretion. The second paper looks at the impacts of domestic drug interdiction operations in the United States. The author argues that many new types of drug interdiction operations adversely affect the interests of innocent people, particularly racial minorities and the working class. The paper examines a number of alternatives to the current methods of drug interdiction and addresses various criteria that should guide policymakers in implementing police procedures so as to achieve proper balance between the interests of law enforcement and individual civil liberties. The third paper argues that current corrections policy in America is a "throwback" to the 18th century "classical school," which emphasized the exercise of human free will in criminal behavior and demanded that pain and punishment should accordingly fit the crime. This policy is labeled by the author as "dungeons and terror." In regressing to the incipient classical stage of penal policy, the author notes that racial and ethnic minorities receive the brunt of this punitive philosophy of lengthy and harsh incarceration.