NCJ Number
135589
Date Published
1991
Length
424 pages
Annotation
This sourcebook presents 54 articles on race and crime by Dr. William Wilbanks for a course taught at Florida International University.
Abstract
This sourcebook includes excerpts from 4 books and 54 journal articles, book chapters, newspaper articles, unpublished papers, editorials, and newspaper articles about Wilbanks' research on race and crime. Overall, Wilbanks' position is that the criminal justice system and, therefore, its statistics, are not biased by racial discrimination. He concedes that in a typical instance there may be evidence of a race effect against blacks, but such an effect is not characteristic of the criminal justice system and its operations. These conclusions are based on Wilbanks' extensive literature review on racial disparities in the criminal justice system including separate consideration of the literatures on policing, prosecution, sentencing, prison administration, and parole. Articles include discussions of racial issues in the "war on drugs," victim-offender racial patterns in homicides, the application of the death penalty, and the processing of complaints about excessive force by police officers. Eight newspaper articles by authors other than Wilbanks comment on Wilbanks' findings and conclusions.