Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States (From Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration: Comparative and Cross-National Perspectives, P 311-374, 1997, Michael Tonry, ed. - See NCJ-165170)

• NCJ Number: 165176
• Author(s): R J Sampson; J L Lauritsen
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 64 pages
• Sale Source: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Type: Literature Review
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Research on the racial and ethnic disparities in crime and on the response of the criminal justice system is reviewed.

Abstract

The analysis revealed that discrimination sometimes emerges at some stages in case processing, but few data indicate that racial disparities result from systematic, overt bias. Instead, discrimination appears to be indirect and to result from the amplification of initial disadvantages over time, together with the social construction of moral panics and associated political responses. The drug war of the 1980's and 1990's exacerbated the disproportionate representation of blacks in State and Federal prisons. The data also reveal that race and ethnic disparities in violent offending and victimization are pronounced and longstanding. Black people and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic people, experience much higher rates of robbery and homicide victimization than do white people. Homicide is the leading cause of death among young black males and females. These differences result partly from social factors that ecologically concentrate race with poverty and other social dislocations. The findings suggest that research should emphasize multilevel, contextual designs; the concept of cumulative disadvantage over the life course; the need for multiracial conceptualizations; and comparative, cross-national designs. Figures, tables, footnotes, and approximately 150 references (Author abstract modified)