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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue

Time: 12:02 am

Results for racial bias

55 results found

Author: Alesina, Alberto F.

Title: A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing

Summary: This paper proposes a test of racial bias in capital sentencing based upon patterns of judicial errors in lower courts. We model the behavior of the trial court as minimizing a weighted sum of the probability of sentencing an innocent and that of letting a guilty defendant free. We define racial bias as a situation where the relative weight on the two types of errors is a function of defendant and/or victim race. The key prediction of the model is that if the court is unbiased, ex post the error rate should be independent of the combination of defendant and victim race. We test this prediction using an original dataset that contains the race of the defendant and of the victim(s) for all capital appeals that became final between 1973 and 1995. We find robust evidence of bias against minority defendants who killed white victims: In Direct Appeal and Habeas Corpus the probability of error in these cases is 3 and 9 percentage points higher, respectively, than for minority defendants who killed minority victims.

Details: Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011. 38p.

Source: Internet Resource: NBER Working Paper Series; Working Paper 16981: Accessed May 3, 2011 at: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16981

Year: 2011

Country: United States

URL: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16981

Shelf Number: 121584

Keywords:
Capital Punishment
Judicial Error
Minorities
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
Sentencing

Author: Baradaran, Shima

Title: Race, Prediction & Discretion

Summary: Many scholars and political leaders denounce racism as the cause of disproportionate incarceration of black Americans. All players in this system have been blamed including the legislators who enact laws that disproportionately harm blacks, police who unevenly arrest blacks, prosecutors who overcharge blacks, and judges that fail to release and oversentence black Americans. Some scholars have blamed the police and judges who make arrest and release decisions based on predictions of whether defendants will commit future crimes. They claim that prediction leads to minorities being treated unfairly. Others complain that racism results from misused discretion. This article explores where racial bias enters the criminal justice system through an empirical analysis that considers the impact of discretion and prediction. With a close look at the numbers and consideration of factors ignored by others, this article confirms some conventional wisdom but also makes several surprising findings. This article confirms what many commentators have suspected—that police arrest black defendants more often for drug crimes than white defendants. It also finds, contrary to popular belief, that there is little evidence to support the belief that drugs are linked to violent crime. Also, judges actually detain white defendants more than similarly-situated black defendants for all types of crimes. The important and surprising findings in this article challenge long-held conventions of race and help mitigate racial disparity in criminal justice.

Details: Unpublished paper, 2012. 64p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 9, 2012 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2035064

Year: 2012

Country: United States

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2035064

Shelf Number: 124888

Keywords:
Discretion
Prediction
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Phillips, Scott

Title: Continued Racial Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment? The Rosenthal Era

Summary: Given the substantial amount of research that has been conducted throughout the United States regarding the relationship between race and capital punishment, one might assume that much of the attention has been focused on Harris County, Texas. After all, Harris County -- home to Houston and surrounding areas -- is the capital of capital punishment. Indeed, if Harris County were a state it would rank second in executions after Texas. Yet only one study has examined whether race influences the death penalty in Houston. Specifically, Phillips (2008) reports that death was more likely to be imposed against black defendants, and more likely to be imposed on behalf of white victims, during the period from 1992 to 1999 -- the final years of Johnny Homes tenure as District Attorney. After Holmes retired, Charles Rosenthal served as District Attorney from January 1, 2001 to February 15, 2008. Did racial disparities continue during the Rosenthal administration? The current research suggests that the impact of defendant race disappeared, but the impact of victim race continued: death sentences were imposed on behalf of white victims at 2.5 times the rate one would expect if the system were blind to race, and death sentences were imposed on behalf of white female victims at 5 times the rate one would expect if the system were blind to race and gender. Such disparities are particularly troubling because Rosenthal was forced out of office in a scandal that included racist emails. Given the disparities, coupled with racist emails from the elected official who decides whether to seek the death penalty, the paper contemplates a key question: Should the state of Texas be allowed to execute inmates who were sentenced to death in Harris County during the Rosenthal administration?

Details: Denver: University of Denver Sturm College of Law, 2012. 30p.

Source: Internet Resource: U Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No. 12-05: Accessed May 10, 2012 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2033905##

Year: 2012

Country: United States

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2033905##

Shelf Number: 125242

Keywords:
Capital Punishment (Texas)
Death Penalty
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Staats, Cheryl

Title: State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review 2013

Summary: This report - State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review - provides access to the scientific work highlighting the connection between unconscious racial association and human decision-making and outcomes.

Details: Columbus, OH: IKirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Ohio State University, 2013. 102p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 5, 2013 at: http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/docs/SOTS-Implicit_Bias.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: United States

URL: http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/docs/SOTS-Implicit_Bias.pdf

Shelf Number: 127833

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination

Author: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission

Title: Reporting Racism: What You Say Matters

Summary: Racism takes many different forms, ranging from discriminatory treatment, property damage or offensive materials to abusive language and even violence. Racism reduces people to stereotypes and reinforces social prejudice and inequality – this behaviour can also be against the law. Reporting racism: what you say matters, completes the first stage of a multi-tiered project to raise awareness of racism in the community and to build capacity for victims and bystanders to report racism and vilification when they experience it. The report sets out eight key actions the Commission will undertake in partnership with other agencies to respond to the issues raised. These range from working with community groups to deliver targeted community information sessions about rights; supporting bystanders on public transport who observe instances of racist behaviour, and partnering with schools, youth groups, sporting organisations, local governments, employers and other agencies to promote and implement the Anti-Hate campaign messages (see below for more information about this campaign) into existing programs and curriculum.

Details: Carlton, VIC: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, 2013. 68p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 18, 2013 at: http://www.humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au/media/k2/attachments/Reporting_Racism_Web_low_res.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Australia

URL: http://www.humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au/media/k2/attachments/Reporting_Racism_Web_low_res.pdf

Shelf Number: 129439

Keywords:
Bias Crimes
Hate Crimes
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racism (Australia)

Author: Ghandnoosh, Nazgol

Title: Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Policies

Summary: The American criminal justice system is at a critical juncture. In recent years, federal policymakers have called for reforms, following the lead of states that have reduced prison populations without compromising public safety. Nationwide prison counts have fallen every year since 2010, and the racial gap in imprisonment rates has also begun to narrow. Yet the recent tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri - where the killing of an unarmed African American teenager has sparked outrage - highlight the ongoing relevance of race in the criminal justice system. To guide and give greater momentum to recent calls for reform, this report examines a key driving force of criminal justice outcomes: racial perceptions of crime. A complex set of factors contributes to the severity and selectivity of punishment in the United States, including public concern about crime and racial differences in crime rates. This report synthesizes two decades of research establishing that skewed racial perceptions of crime - particularly, white Americans' strong associations of crime with racial minorities - have bolstered harsh and biased criminal justice policies.

Details: Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2014. 44p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 10, 2014 at: http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_Race_and_Punishment.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_Race_and_Punishment.pdf

Shelf Number: 133263

Keywords:
Criminal Justice Reform
Minorities and Crime
Punishment
Race and Crime (U.S.)
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Mauer, Marc

Title: Incorporating Racial Equity into Criminal Justice Reform

Summary: There are few areas of American society where racial disparities are as profound and as troubling as in the criminal justice system. In fact, racial perceptions of crime and race influenced policy development have been intimately tied to the development of mass incarceration. Yet there is growing evidence that the high rate of minority imprisonment is excessive for public safety goals and damaging for family and community structures in high incarceration neighborhoods. This briefing paper provides an overview of racial disparities in the criminal justice system and a framework for developing and implementing remedies for these disparities. We first describe the rationale for incorporating racial equity as a goal of an overall criminal justice reform strategy. We then document trends in racial disparity and assess the various causal factors that have produced these outcomes. Next, we identify a selection of best practices for addressing disparities, along with recommendations for implementation. Finally, we provide a guide for establishing rigorous metrics for success.

Details: Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2014. 22p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 10, 2014 at: http://sentencingproject.org/doc/rd_Incorporating_Racial_Equity_into_Criminal_Justice_Reform.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: http://sentencingproject.org/doc/rd_Incorporating_Racial_Equity_into_Criminal_Justice_Reform.pdf

Shelf Number: 134017

Keywords:
Criminal Justice Reform
Discrimination
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities (U.S.)

Author: Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area

Title: Not Just a Ferguson Problem: How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California

Summary: A recent Department of Justice report found that courts and law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, are systematically and purposefully taking money from the pockets of poor people - disproportionately from black people - to put into court coffers. The context may be different in California, but many of the practices are chillingly similar. As a result, over four million Californians do not have valid driver's licenses because they cannot afford to pay traffic fines and fees. These suspensions make it harder for people to get and keep jobs, further impeding their ability to pay their debt. They harm credit ratings. They raise public safety concerns. Ultimately they keep people in long cycles of poverty that are difficult, if not impossible to overcome. This report highlights the growing trend of license suspensions, how the problem happens, the impact on families and communities, and what can and should be done about it.

Details: San Francisco: The Committee, 2015. 30p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 15, 2015 at: http://www.lccr.com/wp-content/uploads/Not-Just-a-Ferguson-Problem-How-Traffic-Courts-Drive-Inequality-in-California-4.9.15.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://www.lccr.com/wp-content/uploads/Not-Just-a-Ferguson-Problem-How-Traffic-Courts-Drive-Inequality-in-California-4.9.15.pdf

Shelf Number: 135221

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
Traffic Fines

Author: Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

Title: Unequal Justice: Mobilizing the Private Bar to Fight Mass Incarceration

Summary: This report marks the beginning of Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law's Criminal Justice Initiative, created to mobilize the private bar in the fight against mass incarceration. Mass incarceration - a term that refers to the cluster of issues associated with the historic scale of present-day American incarceration - presents the greatest contemporary threat to civil and human rights in the United States today. Two key facts about this phenomenon gird its importance to the Lawyers' Committee's mission: (1) mass incarceration is a racially, spatially, and socioeconomically targeted phenomenon that disproportionately affects lower-class African-American and Hispanic residents of degraded urban spaces, and (2) mass incarceration results in large part from aggregate policy choices, rather than from poor personal decisions or increases in overall levels of crime, meaning solutions too will be legal and policy in nature. There is no single solution to the problem of mass incarceration. This is because there is no single cause. Many issues are subsumed under the heading of "mass incarceration," some with deep historical roots. It is the combination of various factors working in tandem that produces the result. There is consensus that the criminal justice system is broken. Or in the words of one participant at a listening session, the criminal justice system does exactly what it is designed to do: to punitively punish large swaths of society's most disadvantaged individuals. Experts, academics, practitioners, and formerly incarcerated individuals alike agreed that the criminal justice system is unnecessarily punitive, fails wholesale to rehabilitate through its method of incarceration, destroys any opportunity for success after release from incarceration due to the thousands of collateral consequences, decreases public safety, and undermines public trust in the ability of the system to deliver justice. A key fact will guide the Lawyers' Committee's work in this area: nationally, 95% of criminal cases end in guilty pleas; of cases in the federal court system, that figure is 97%. In considering how best to harness the resources of the private bar, the importance of the criminal justice system's negotiated nature cannot be overstated. Glaring racial disparities are often absent from reform discourse. There is no question that the criminal justice system treats individuals differently based on the color of their skin. This is especially true when combined with other disadvantage factors like income, education, geography, and access to healthcare. However, this fact is often absent in public discourse and almost never formally addressed in reform efforts. This is particularly troubling since racial disparities in incarceration are often the result of implicit racial bias and structural or institutionalized racial discrimination, deep-rooted species of dysfunction which can only begin to be addressed by the acknowledgement and recognition that it exists.

Details: Washington, DC: The Committee, 2015. 87p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 9, 2015 at: http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/admin/site/documents/files/0553.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/admin/site/documents/files/0553.pdf

Shelf Number: 135537

Keywords:
Criminal Justice Reform
Imprisonment
Mass Incarceration
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority

Title: Public Safety, Crime and Justice Report

Summary: Every day, thousands of dedicated men and women in blue risk their lives to keep the residents of the sprawling Chicago metropolitan region safe. Their service and sacrifice are deeply appreciated. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system in the Chicago metropolitan region and across the United States has been heavily criticized for not always meeting the "Big Three Es" Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Equity. The system is slow in administering justice and expensive to maintain. Too often the system that is supposed to rehabilitate offenders is unable to prevent them from returning to crime. And too often the system that is supposed to dispense justice is accused of enforcing laws in a manner that discriminates against persons of color and the poor. Indeed, research has documented racial bias in decisions regarding arrests, searches, prosecutions, and sentencing, thus yielding today's problem of disproportionate minority contact. Furthermore, research has documented some abusive encounters between the police and the public. This has resulted in reduced public confidence in the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. In an attempt to enhance safety in our communities, American society has become heavily reliant on punitive, zero tolerance strategies. This has resulted in the rapid growth of prison populations over the past two decades, mostly affecting persons of color with limited means, and often involving non-violent offenders. The result is that United States now has the highest rate of imprisonment per capita in the world. In addition to enhancing the existing system, this report suggests a need to seriously consider alternative models of justice, such as the Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) approach - which gives balanced attention to public safety, individual accountability to victims and the community, and development of skills to help offenders live law abiding and productive lives. The report also suggests the need to create an independent system of measurement to monitor the fairness of the criminal justice system and measure public safety outcomes that are important to the community, but are not captured in current indicators. Besides crime rates, the public cares about the quality of life in their neighborhoods as measured by levels of physical and social disorder, fear of crime, and their freedom to use the local environment without concern for safety. The community also cares deeply about equity and fairness during encounters with the police and other agents of the criminal justice system.

Details: Chicago: Chicago Community Trust; Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority; University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Center for Research in Law and Justice, 2009. 127p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 15, 2015 at: http://www.issuelab.org/resource/public_safety_crime_and_justice_report

Year: 2009

Country: United States

URL: http://www.issuelab.org/resource/public_safety_crime_and_justice_report

Shelf Number: 136057

Keywords:
Criminal Justice Policy
Criminal Justice Reform
Criminal Justice Systems
Public Safety
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination

Author: U.S. Department of Justice. Civil Rights Division

Title: Investigation of the St. Louis County Family Court, St. Louis, Missouri

Summary: Following a comprehensive investigation, the Justice Department today announced its findings regarding the Family Court of the Twenty-First Judicial Circuit of the state of Missouri, commonly known as the St. Louis County Family Court. The Justice Department found that the family court fails to provide constitutionally required due process to children appearing for delinquency proceedings, and that the court's administration of juvenile justice discriminates against Black children. The investigation was conducted under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which gives the department the authority to seek a remedy for a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the constitutional or federal statutory rights of youths in the administration of juvenile justice. "The findings we issue today are serious and compelling," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division. "Missouri was at the forefront of juvenile corrections reform when it closed its large juvenile institutions and moved to a smaller, treatment-focused system and we are hopeful that Missouri will rise to this challenge to, once again, be a leader in juvenile justice reform. This investigation is another step toward our goal of ensuring that children in the juvenile justice system receive their constitutionally guaranteed rights to due process and equal protection under the law." Since opening this investigation in November 2013, the Civil Rights Division has analyzed data relating to nearly 33,000 juvenile cases, including all delinquency and status offenses resolved in St. Louis County Family Court between 2010 and 2013; and has reviewed over 14,000 pages of documents, including family court records, transcripts, policies, procedures and external reports. In June 2014, Justice Department attorneys and its consultants-a law school clinical professor and experienced juvenile defense attorney and a nationally-recognized expert on measuring juvenile justice disparities through statistical analysis-visited the family court and interviewed a number of court personnel, including all of the judges and commissioners as well as the heads of many of family court programs and services. They also collected information from both the state and local public defender's offices, private attorneys with experience in the family court and the parents of youth who had been involved in delinquency proceedings with the family court. The Justice Department found a number of constitutional violations, including: -Failure to ensure youth facing delinquency proceedings have adequate legal representation; -Failure to make adequate determinations that there is probable cause that a child committed the alleged offense; -Failure to provide adequate due process to children facing certification for criminal prosecution in adult criminal court; -Failure to ensure that children's guilty pleas are entered knowingly and voluntarily; -An organizational structure that is rife with conflicts of interest, is contrary to separation of powers principles and deprives children of adequate due process; and -Disparate treatment of Black children at four key decision points within the juvenile justice system. The department has opened four cases examining whether juvenile justice systems comply with children's rights since 2009. In 2012, the department settled its first investigation of this kind, reaching an agreement with the Juvenile Court of Shelby County, Memphis, Tennessee that calls for comprehensive due process, equal protection and facility reforms. On June 19, 2015, the Justice Department announced a partial settlement of its lawsuit alleging violations of children's due process rights in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. In March 2015, the department announced its investigation of due process and disability discrimination issues in the Dallas County Truancy Court and Juvenile District Courts.

Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, 2015. 60p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 16, 2015 at: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2015/07/31/stlouis_findings_7-31-15.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2015/07/31/stlouis_findings_7-31-15.pdf

Shelf Number: 136300

Keywords:
Child Protection
Due Process
Family Courts
Juvenile Justice Systems
Juvenile Offenders
Problem-Solving Courts
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Advancement Project

Title: Power in Partnerships: Building Connections at the Intersections to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Summary: OVER THE LAST DECADE, the school-to-prison pipeline has gone from a fringe educational issue to a national youth-led movement anchored by grassroots communities across the country. Because of the school-to-prison pipeline's unique effects on students of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) students, and especially LGBTQ students of color, the issue has provided an opportunity for powerful intersectional work among the racial justice community and the LGBTQ community. And while we have made a lot of progress by harnessing our joint power, we would like to - and desperately need to - build even more. This is essential if we are going to win. Power in Partnerships is a resource for all racial justice and LGBTQ groups to help build or continue to build that power. We begin by sharing the latest information on what the school-to-prison pipeline is and how it especially affects youth of color and LGBTQ youth. We then make the case for collaboration by hearing from youth about the importance of intersectionality, and take a step back to talk about the historical parallels of racial justice and LGBTQ movements. We also include a guide to basic terminology that empowers us to speak each other's languages. Next, we engage in a candid discussion of the barriers to collaboration that have prevented us from working effectively together in the past, and discuss best practices for collaboration. We then provide some tools to help move us forward, including effective strategies for fighting against school pushout and core messages to use when talking about this issue. Whether a group is only learning about the school-to-prison pipeline for the first time or is deep into a restorative justice campaign this publication serves as a resource to take this work - and our collective movement - to the next level.

Details: Advancement Project, 2015. 35p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 24, 2015 at: http://b.3cdn.net/advancement/85066c4a18d249e72b_r23m68j37.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://b.3cdn.net/advancement/85066c4a18d249e72b_r23m68j37.pdf

Shelf Number: 136868

Keywords:
Discrimination
Gays, Crimes Against
Racial Bias
School-to-Prison Pipeline

Author: Depew, Briggs

Title: Judges, Juveniles and In-Group Bias

Summary: We investigate the existence of in-group bias (preferential treatment of one's own group) in court decisions. Using the universe of juvenile court cases in a U.S. state between 1996 and 2012 and exploiting random assignment of juvenile defendants to judges, we find evidence for negative racial in-group bias in judicial decisions. All else the same, black (white) juveniles who are randomly assigned to black (white) judges are more likely to get incarcerated (as opposed to being placed on probation), and they receive longer sentences. Although observed in experimental settings, this is the first empirical evidence of negative in-group bias, based on a randomization design outside of the lab. Explanations for this finding are provided.

Details: Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016. 38p.

Source: Internet Resource: NBER Working Paper 22003: Accessed February 24, 2016 at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22003.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22003.pdf

Shelf Number: 137952

Keywords:
Judges
Judicial Decision-Making
Juvenile Court
Juvenile Defendants
Juvenile Offenders
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination

Author: American Civil Liberties Union of Florida

Title: Racial Disparities in Florida Safety Belt Law Enforcement

Summary: Black motorists in Florida are stopped and ticketed for seatbelt violations in far greater numbers than white motorists - nearly twice as often statewide and up to four times as often in certain counties, according to this January 27, 2016 report by the ACLU of Florida and the ACLU Racial Justice Project. The report is based on publicly available data reported by law enforcement agencies across the state, and raises serious concerns about racial profiling on Florida roads. Not only does the report find statewide racial disparities in enforcement of the law, it also highlights counties where the disparity is even worse than the statewide average, finds an alarming drop-off in compliance with the law's reporting requirement, and makes recommendations for future reforms.

Details: Miami: ACLU of Florida, 2016. 44p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 6, 2016 at: https://aclufl.org/resources/racial-disparities-in-florida-safety-belt-law-enforcement/

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: https://aclufl.org/resources/racial-disparities-in-florida-safety-belt-law-enforcement/

Shelf Number: 138106

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Bias in Law Enforcement
Racial Disparities

Author: Vagle, Jeffrey L.

Title: Tightening the OODA Loop: Police Militarization, Race, and Algorithmic Surveillance

Summary: This Article examines the role military automated surveillance and intelligence systems and techniques have supported a self-reinforcing racial bias when used by civilian police departments to enhance predictive policing programs. I will focus on two facets of this problem. First, my research will take an inside-out perspective, studying the role played by advanced military technologies and methods within civilian police departments, and how they have enabled a new focus on deterrence and crime prevention by creating a system of structural surveillance where decision support relies increasingly upon algorithms and automated data analysis tools, and which automates de facto penalization and containment based on race. Second, I will explore these systems - and their effects - from an outside-in perspective, paying particular attention to racial, societal, economic, and geographic factors that play into the public perception of these policing regimes. I will conclude by proposing potential solutions to this problem, which incorporate tests for racial bias to create an alternative system that follows a true community policing model.

Details: Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2016. 54p.

Source: Internet Resource: U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 16-9 : Accessed March 14, 2016 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2737451

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2737451

Shelf Number: 138214

Keywords:
Broken Windows Theory
Community Policing
Law Enforcement
Police Militarization
Predictive Policing
Racial Bias
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement

Author: ArchCity Defenders

Title: It's Not Just Ferguson: Missouri Supreme Court Should Consolidate the Municipal Court System

Summary: The Missouri Supreme Court's unprecedented decision to take control of Ferguson's Municipal Court was based primarily on issues raised during sustained protest following the killing of Mike Brown and reports published by ArchCity Defenders and the Department of Justice. These reports highlighted racial disparity in traffic stops, excessive revenue generation, and excessive warrants and arrests and confirmed the lived experiences of poor and Black people in St. Louis: there is a racially discriminatory and profit-driven approach to law enforcement made possible only by the collaborative efforts of local government, police, and courts. These condemned practices are not unique to Ferguson. Rather, many St. Louis municipalities are demonstrably worse than Ferguson with respect to the highlighted factors. And while there have been legal victories in the past year, new legislation, and the sustained efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Supreme Court should seize the opportunity to bring meaningful and transformative change to the region by following the recommendation of the Ferguson Commission, ArchCity Defenders, SLU Law Legal Clinics, Better Together, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, and the Organization for Black Struggle: Order the consolidation of our 81 courts into a full-time, professional regional court system.

Details: St. Louis, MO: ArchCity Defenders, 2016. 16p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 14, 2016 at: http://www.archcitydefenders.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Its-Not-Just-Ferguson-Consolidate-the-Municipal-Courts.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://www.archcitydefenders.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Its-Not-Just-Ferguson-Consolidate-the-Municipal-Courts.pdf

Shelf Number: 138220

Keywords:
Municipal Courts
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement

Author: Taniguchi, Travis A.

Title: A test of racial disproportionality in traffic stops conducted by the Raleigh Police Department

Summary: Recent research has raised questions regarding the Raleigh Police Department's (RPD) use of race as a proxy for criminal behavior. News reports going back to 2000 make claims of racial bias based on the disparity between the racial composition of stopped motorists and the racial composition of the city (Associated Press, 2000). Critically, these kinds of analyses typically use census population estimates to establish a benchmark for the driving population. Census estimates, however, demonstrate only where people reside and serve as a poor proxy for the actual driving population. Therefore, census population cannot accurately measure the population at risk (i.e., the driving population that is likely to be involved in a traffic stop). RTI International conducted a series of analyses to address this methodological limitation. This research was funded internally by RTI to serve the community and to contribute to a growing body of scientific research on this topic.

Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2016. 6p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2016 at: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_raleigh_final.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_raleigh_final.pdf

Shelf Number: 138322

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Stop and Search
Traffic Stops

Author: Taniguchi, Travis A.

Title: Exploring racial disproportionality in traffic stops conducted by the Durham Police Department

Summary: Recent research has generated questions regarding the Durham Police Department's (DPD) use of race as a proxy for criminal behavior. For example, Baumgartner and Epp's (2012) analysis of DPD traffic stop data suggested racial bias in traffic enforcement. Critically, Baumgartner and Epp used census population estimates to establish a benchmark for the driving population. Census estimates, however, demonstrate only where people reside and therefore serve as a poor proxy for the actual driving population. The DPD, in an effort to promote transparency and achieve an improved understanding of its operations and their impact on the community, provided RTI International with access to 6 years of traffic stop data. In turn, RTI proposed a series of analyses that would address the methodological limitations noted above. This research was funded internally by RTI to serve the community and to contribute to a growing body of scientific research on this topic. The study was conducted independently, and the DPD provided no financial support for the project.

Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2016. 23p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2016 at: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_durham_final.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_durham_final.pdf

Shelf Number: 138323

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Stop and Search
Traffic Stops

Author: Taniguchi, Travis A.

Title: A test of racial disproportionality in traffic stops conducted by the Fayetteville Police Department

Summary: Recent research has generated questions regarding the Fayetteville Police Department's (FPD) use of race as a proxy for criminal behavior. A recent New York Times article highlighted the racial disproportionality in traffic stops in both Greensboro and Fayetteville (LaFraniere & Lehren, 2015). Critically, these kinds of analyses typically use census population estimates to establish a benchmark for the driving population. Census estimates, however, demonstrate only where people reside and serve as a poor proxy for the actual driving population. Therefore, census population cannot accurately measure the population at risk (i.e., the driving population that is likely to be involved in a traffic stop). RTI International conducted a series of analyses to address this methodological limitation. This research was funded internally by RTI to serve the community and to contribute to a growing body of scientific research on this topic.

Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2016. 5p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2016 at: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_fayetteville_final.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_fayetteville_final.pdf

Shelf Number: 138324

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Stop and Search
Traffic Stops

Author: Taniguchi, Travis A.

Title: A test of racial disproportionality in traffic stops conducted by the Greensboro Police Department

Summary: Recent research has generated questions regarding the Greensboro Police Department's (GPD) use of race as a proxy for criminal behavior. For example, a recent New York Times article highlighted the racial disproportionality in traffic stops in Greensboro (LaFraniere & Lehren, 2015). Critically, these kinds of analyses typically use census population estimates to establish a benchmark for the driving population. Census estimates, however, demonstrate only where people reside and serve as a poor proxy for the actual driving population. Therefore, census population cannot accurately measure the population at risk (i.e., the driving population that is likely to be involved in a traffic stop). RTI International conducted a series of analyses to address this methodological limitation. This research was funded internally by RTI to serve the community and to contribute to a growing body of scientific research on this topic.

Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2016. 6p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2016 at: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_greensboro_final.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_greensboro_final.pdf

Shelf Number: 138325

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Stop and Search
Traffic Stops

Author: Mercadal, Gertrudis

Title: Prison Privatization in the United States: A New Strategy for Racial Control

Summary: There has been a stunning build-up of prisons and a growing trend in prison privatization in the last 30 years, including the rise of maximum security units. The goal of my dissertation is to understand the ideological, historic, political, and economic processes behind the changes in the criminal justice system of the United States. I analyze this problem from multiple angles - labor and policy history, discourse and public opinion, and race in America. The aim of this analysis is to uncover the reasons why crime legislation became progressively more punitive, reaction to African Americans gains in post-Civil Rights more hostile, and the manifold ways in which these phenomena drive the expansion of the prison system and its increasing privatization. In the process of this expansion, a racial caste system which oppresses young African Americans and people of color has become recast and entrenched. Specifically, I offer the notion that in the last three decades, punitive crime legislation focused on African Americans and served to deal with labor needs and racial conflict with harsher penal legislation; in doing so, it depoliticized race, institutionalized racial practices, and served the interests of private prison businesses in new ways oppressive ways. Using interdisciplinary methods which weave together qualitative and quantitative analysis, I find that punitive crime policies in the last thirty years used the concept of crime as political currency by government officials in order to appear tough on crime, and by business representatives interested in exploiting the prison industry. The conflation of business and political interests, and the recasting of crime as a race problem, served to taint public institutions and media dissemination with racist imperatives which stereotyped poor African Americans. The end result is a constant re-positioning of young black males as fodder for economic exploitation. The dissertation also addresses the high cost of imprisonment and the multiple social problems brought from shifting inmates from wards of the State to profit-making opportunities in the hands of private entrepreneurs. The result is high numbers of recidivism, and a growing underclass of people who will always be unemployed or underemployed and return to low income communities that suffer from the endless cycle of poverty and imprisonment.

Details: Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic University, 2014. 245p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed March 28, 2016 at: https://fau.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fau%3A13688/datastream/OBJ/view/Prison_privatization_in_the_United_States__a_new_strategy_for_racial_control.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: https://fau.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fau%3A13688/datastream/OBJ/view/Prison_privatization_in_the_United_States__a_new_strategy_for_racial_control.pdf

Shelf Number: 138447

Keywords:
African Americans
Prisoners
Private Prisons
Privatization
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Dumont, Robyn

Title: Disproportionate Contact: Youth of Color in Maine's Juvenile Justice System

Summary: Research staff at the USM Muskie School work in partnership with Maine's Juvenile Justice Advisory Group (JJAG) in support of the goal of producing information to enhance Maine's understanding of disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in the state. This research documents the rate of disproportionate minority contact (DMC) for youth involved in Maine's juvenile justice system, differences in pathways to detention for youth of color, and the experiences of youth and families of color who have had contact with Maine's juvenile justice system. It uses a relative rate index (RRI) to demonstrate how youth of color are treated in comparison to their white counterparts throughout nine separate contact points in the juvenile justice system. This Maine-focused research report aligns with several federal, state, and local efforts aimed at promoting equity for youth of color throughout the juvenile justice system. In part, this report fulfills a federal grant requirement from the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to identify DMC within the juvenile justice system in Maine. In order to assist states in their efforts to comply with the DMC requirements of the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), the OJJDP funds state-based advisory groups to understand and reduce DMC in their jurisdictions. Maine's Juvenile Justice Advisory Group (JJAG) has partnered with the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine to conduct this research to inform these efforts.

Details: Portland, OR: University of Southern Maine, Muskie School of Public Service, 2015. 55p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 5, 2016 at: http://muskie.usm.maine.edu/justiceresearch/Publications/Juvenile/DMC.FINAL.05.15.2015.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://muskie.usm.maine.edu/justiceresearch/Publications/Juvenile/DMC.FINAL.05.15.2015.pdf

Shelf Number: 138570

Keywords:
Disproportionate Minority Contact
Juvenile Justice Systems
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: University of California School of Law - Berkeley. Policy Advocacy Clinic

Title: High Pain, No Gain: How Juvenile Administrative Fees harm Low-Income Families in Alameda County, California

Summary: National attention is focused on racial and economic discrimination in the criminal justice system. Racially disproportionate interaction with the system leaves people of color with significantly more court-related debt. While criminal court debt has been described and condemned in the adult system, this issue has received virtually no attention in the juvenile system, where fees undermine rehabilitative goals. This report presents research findings about the practice of assessing and collecting fees on families with youth in the juvenile system in Alameda County, California. The County charges these fees to thousands of families who are already struggling to maintain economic and social stability, and the financial burden appears to fall most heavily on families of color. Although the fees are supposed to help the county recoup expenses, its own data suggest that the County barely recovers the most direct costs of collection. The report calls for an immediate moratorium and repeal on the assessment and collection of these regressive and racially discriminatory fees (NB: On March 29, 2016, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors imposed a fees moratorium and asked the relevant county departments to prepare for a full repeal by June 28, 2016).

Details: Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley Law, Policy Advocacy Clinic, 2016. 26p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 5, 2016 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2738710

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2738710

Shelf Number: 138571

Keywords:
Court Fees
Debt
Juvenile Delinquency,
Juvenile Fees
Juvenile Fines
Juvenile Justice Systems
Racial Bias

Author: Weber, Robin

Title: Race and Sentencing in Vermont

Summary: Vermont correctional facilities have seen an increase in the incarceration of minority populations that does not match the increase in the minority population in Vermont. This is especially true for African American defendants who have comprised just about 10% of the incarcerated population for the last seven years. According to the United States Census, only 1.2% of Vermont's population identifies as Black or African American. In response to this apparent disparity, in 2012 the Vermont Legislature passed Act 134, mandating the Vermont Center for Justice Research (VCJR) conduct research to determine if a defendant's race influences the sentencing decision. This report was submitted by the Crime Research Group (CRG) as a revision of the original report submitted in 2014.

Details: Northfield Falls, VT: Vermont Center for Justice Research and Montpelier, VT: Crime Research Group, 2015. 32p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 13, 2016 at: http://www.crgvt.org/reports/reportscrimjust/reports/racesentencingrpt_files/Race%20Sent%20Rpt%202015.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: http://www.crgvt.org/reports/reportscrimjust/reports/racesentencingrpt_files/Race%20Sent%20Rpt%202015.pdf

Shelf Number: 138663

Keywords:
Minority Groups
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
Sentencing

Author: East Bay Community Law Center

Title: Stopped, Fined, Arrested: Racial Bias in Policing and Traffic Courts in California

Summary: Across the country, low-income people who commit minor offenses are saddled with fines, fees and penalties that pile up, driving them deeper into poverty. What's worse, they are arrested and jailed for nonpayment, increasing the risk of losing their jobs or their homes. Stopped, Fined, Arrested - Racial Bias in Policing and Traffic Courts in California brings to light a disturbing truth that remains ever present in the lives of Californians: there are dramatic racial and socioeconomic disparities in driver's license suspensions and arrests related to unpaid traffic fines and fees. Public records from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and U.S. Census data demonstrate that in primarily Black and Latino communities, driver's license suspension rates range as high as five times the state average. Moreover, data collected from 15 police and sheriff's departments across California show that Black motorists are far more likely to be arrested for driving with a suspended license for failure to pay an infraction citation than White motorists. Never before has this volume of data been available for the public to analyze. This new data and interactive maps show: - Rates of driver's license suspensions due to a failure to appear or pay a ticket are directly correlated with poverty indicators and with race. The highest suspension rates are found in neighborhoods with high poverty rates and high percentages of Black or Latino residents. - The Bay View/Hunter's Point neighborhood in San Francisco, zip code 94124, has a relatively high rate of poverty (23.5%), the highest percentage of Black residents in San Francisco (35.8%) and a suspension rate of 6.7%, more than three times the state average. Neighboring zip code 94123, which includes the Marina District, has a substantially lower poverty rate (5.9%), a low percentage of Black residents (1.5%) and a suspension rate five times below the state average (0.4%.). - Black and Latino motorists are disproportionately arrested for driving with a suspended license and for warrants for failure to appear or pay on an infraction citation. - In the City and County of San Francisco, the population is 5.8% Black, yet 48.7% of arrests for a "failure to appear/pay" traffic court warrant are of Black drivers (over-represented by 8.4x). White people are 41.2% of San Francisco's residents, yet only 22.7% of those arrested for driving with a suspended license (underrepresented by 0.6x). - In Los Angeles County, Black people are 9.2% of the population yet 33% of those arrested for driving with a suspended license (over-represented by 3.6x). White people are 26.8% of the county's residents, yet only 14.8% of those arrested for driving with a suspended license (under-represented by 0.6x). Stopped, Fined, Arrested situates license suspensions and arrests in the broader context of systemic racial bias in policing and courts, and builds upon the findings of our first report, which showed the harsher impacts that low-income people face in California's "pay-to-play" justice system. Stopped, Fined, Arrested also highlights the immediate and long-lasting detrimental impacts of these current policies and practices on California's residents, families, communities, economy and public trust in law enforcement and the courts. From income and job loss to reduced health, psychological harm and family separation, arrests and incarceration due to unpaid infraction debt carries significant collateral consequences that burden California's economy and judicial system while doing very little to further public safety or the interests of justice. Over-policing, license suspensions and the subsequent arrests due to inability to pay come at a great cost to our state's resources, to public safety, to the fair administration of justice and, as this report documents, to people and communities across the state. These great costs demand comprehensive changes to California's court system and policing policies.

Details: s.l.: East Bay Community Law Center, Bank on the Road, 2016. 52p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 14, 2016 at: http://ebclc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Stopped_Fined_Arrested_BOTRCA.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://ebclc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Stopped_Fined_Arrested_BOTRCA.pdf

Shelf Number: 138682

Keywords:
Police Discretion
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Traffic Offenses

Author: Ross, Cody T.

Title: A Multi-Level Bayesian Analysis of Racial Bias in Police Shootings at the County-Level in the United States, 2011-2014

Summary: A geographically-resolved, multi-level Bayesian model is used to analyze the data presented in the U.S. Police-Shooting Database (USPSD) in order to investigate the extent of racial bias in the shooting of American civilians by police officers in recent years. In contrast to previous work that relied on the FBI's Supplemental Homicide Reports that were constructed from self-reported cases of police-involved homicide, this data set is less likely to be biased by police reporting practices. County-specific relative risk outcomes of being shot by police are estimated as a function of the interaction of: 1) whether suspects/civilians were armed or unarmed, and 2) the race/ethnicity of the suspects/civilians. The results provide evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being {black, unarmed, and shot by police} is about 3.49 times the probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} on average. Furthermore, the results of multi-level modeling show that there exists significant heterogeneity across counties in the extent of racial bias in police shootings, with some counties showing relative risk ratios of 20 to 1 or more. Finally, analysis of police shooting data as a function of county-level predictors suggests that racial bias in police shootings is most likely to emerge in police departments in larger metropolitan counties with low median incomes and a sizable portion of black residents, especially when there is high financial inequality in that county. There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates

Details: PLOS One, 2015. 34p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 30, 2016 at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0141854.PDF

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0141854.PDF

Shelf Number: 139900

Keywords:
Deadly Force
Police Shootings
Police Use of Force
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement

Author: Ridolfi, Laura

Title: The Prosecution of Youth as Adults: A county-level analysis of prosecutorial direct file in California and its disparate impact on youth of color

Summary: This report examining the prosecution of youth as adults in California documents variations by county in the use of "direct file" and its disproportionate impact on youth of color. Direct file refers to a decision, made solely at a prosecutor's discretion, to charge a youth in adult, criminal court. The report was produced by the Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice (CJCJ), National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) and W. Haywood Burns Institute.

Details: San Francisco: Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 2016. 21p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 1, 2016 at: http://youthlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/The-Prosecution-of-Youth-as-Adults.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://youthlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/The-Prosecution-of-Youth-as-Adults.pdf

Shelf Number: 139933

Keywords:
Juvenile Court Transfers
Juvenile Prosecution
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Waiver (of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction)

Author: Simoiu, Camelia

Title: Testing for Racial Discrimination in Police Searches of Motor Vehicles

Summary: In the course of conducting traffic stops, officers have discretion to search motorists for drugs, weapons, and other contraband. There is concern that these search decisions are prone to racial bias, but it has proven difficult to rigorously assess claims of discrimination. Here we develop a new statistical method-the threshold test-to test for racial discrimination in motor vehicle searches. We use geographic variation in stop outcomes to infer the e↵ective race-specific standards of evidence that officers apply when deciding whom to search, an approach we formalize with a hierarchical Bayesian latent variable model. This technique mitigates the problems of omitted variables and infra-marginality associated with benchmark and outcome tests for discrimination. On a dataset of 4.5 million police stops in North Carolina, we find that the standard for searching black and Hispanic drivers is considerably lower than the standard for searching white and Asian drivers, a pattern that holds consistently across the 100 largest police departments in the state.

Details: Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2016. 32p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 30, 2016 at: https://5harad.com/papers/threshold-test.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: https://5harad.com/papers/threshold-test.pdf

Shelf Number: 140099

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Stop and Search
Traffic Stops

Author: Equality and Human Rights Commission

Title: Healing a Divided Britain: The need for a comprehensive race equality strategy

Summary: This report represents the biggest ever review into race inequality in Great Britain, providing a comprehensive analysis on whether our society lives up to its promise to be fair to all its citizens. It looks across every area of people's lives including education, employment, housing, pay and living standards, health, criminal justice, and participation. It examines where we are making progress, where we are stalling and where we are going backwards or falling short.

Details: London: The Commission, 2016.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 2, 2016 at: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/healing_a_divided_britain_-_the_need_for_a_comprehensive_race_equality_strategy_final.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United Kingdom

URL: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/healing_a_divided_britain_-_the_need_for_a_comprehensive_race_equality_strategy_final.pdf

Shelf Number: 140123

Keywords:
Race and Crime
Race and Inequality
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Staats, Cheryl

Title: State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review 2016

Summary: The 2016 State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review is the fourth edition of this annual publication. By carefully following the latest scholarly literature and public discourse on implicit bias, this document provides a snapshot of the field, both in terms of its current status and evolution as well as in the context of its relevant antecedents. As in previous editions, this publication highlights the new 2015 academic literature through the lenses of five main domain areas: criminal justice, health and health care, employment, education, and housing. Accompanying these five content areas is a discussion of the latest research-based strategies for mitigating the influence of implicit biases, as well as a recognition of major contributions that expand beyond these domain-specific boundaries. Given that implicit bias has become such a "hot topic" that it has begun to appear in seemingly innumerable arenas, our team set some parameters to limit the scope of pieces included in this publication. These parameters include: 1) With few exceptions, included articles and chapters must have focused on implicit racial and/or ethnic bias. 2) While we sought to be exhaustive whenever possible, we focused our efforts on articles and chapters published through formal channels (e.g., academic journals or publishing houses). This parameter admittedly excludes some scholarship, including Honors and Masters Theses, independent studies, and dissertations, at least some of which we anticipate including in subsequent editions once they are formally published. 3) Finally, while we aim to capture as many 2015 articles as possible, those that were published late in the year may be instead addressed in the subsequent year's edition of the State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review.

Details: Columbus, OH: Kirwin Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Ohio State University, 2016. 108p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 17, 2016 at: http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/implicit-bias-2016.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/implicit-bias-2016.pdf

Shelf Number: 140321

Keywords:
Bias
Discrimination
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Disparities

Author: Roshani, Niousha

Title: Grassroots Perspectives on Hate Speech, Race, & Inequality in Brazil & Colombia

Summary: Across Latin America, online and digitally mediated racist speech directed at Afro-descendant youth has intensified existing racial stigma and contributed to the marginalization of minority groups in both online and offline contexts. Racist speech is not a new phenomenon in the region. However, such speech is often amplified through digital media platforms, including social media, and some claim its increasing prevalence may be contributing to the normalization of racism. While racist speech online is prominent in both Brazil and Colombia, studies focused on Latin America are extremely limited and have addressed the overarching theme of online hate speech. Through interviews with leaders of civil society organizations (CSOs) and a review of existing literature, this study discusses efforts and interventions that CSOs have employed to counter racial stigma faced by the collective population of Afro-descendant youth in an attempt to understand and examine signs of impact related to hate speech in Brazil and Colombia, distinct from existing overarching studies of online hate speech. Informed by in-depth conversations with practitioners working in the field, and working closely with collaborating institutions that directly serve Afro-descendent youth, the case study presents an overview of the environment and context within which Afro-descendent youth impacted by racist speech exist. The interviews illustrate that most CSOs view digital racism as an extension of historical racial inequality. This case study documents the efforts of CSOs in the region who are helping to support the actions of young Afro-descendants to occupy roles historically denied to them, thereby deconstructing negative perceptions and re-claiming representations of their identities and realities.

Details: Cambridge, MA: Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Research, 2016. 22p.

Source: Internet Resource: Research Publication No. 2016-18: Accessed December 14, 2016 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2882234

Year: 2016

Country: Latin America

URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2882234

Shelf Number: 144912

Keywords:
Hate Crimes
Hate Speech
Inequality
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination

Author: Strong, Suzanne M.

Title: Racial Conflict and Bias Crimes Across US Cities: An Analysis of the Social Threat Perspective

Summary: This research examines racially biased crimes across US cities, utilizing social threat and a general criminality perspective based on social disorganization and strain theories. Racially biased crime is compared to violent crime in general and to unbiased racially disaggregated homicide to further examine the effects of social threat and general crime variables on different forms of violent crime. Data is compiled mainly from the 1990 and 2000 US Censuses, the 1996-2000 Uniform Crime Reports and the 1996-2000 Supplemental Homicide Reports. The research shows bias crimes cannot be explained utilizing general crime predictors. In particular, anti-Black violent bias crimes committed by Whites are mainly driven by economic forces, though not necessarily economically threatening conditions. Anti-White violent bias crimes committed by Blacks are more similar to homicides of Whites committed by Blacks, which is consistent with prior research. Additionally, the research shows the importance of complying with hate crime reporting requirements and region, again consistent with prior research. That is, the more frequently a city reports data, the higher the counts of bias crimes. Cities located in the South are less likely to have high counts of bias crimes, suggesting a lack of compliance with reporting requirements. These findings pertaining to reporting compliance offer support for social constructionist perspectives in the study of bias crimes.

Details: Albany, NY: State University of New York at Albany, 2015. 165p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed April 10, 2017 at: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/1666453286.html?FMT=ABS

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/1666453286.html?FMT=ABS

Shelf Number: 144762

Keywords:
Bias-Motivated Crime
Hate Crime
Racial Bias
Social Disorganization

Author: Olinger, Jillian

Title: Challenging Race as Risk: How Implicit Bias undermines housing opportunity in Americ and what we can do about it

Summary: The ability to exercise agency over where one lives is a hallmark of freedom. And yet, this privilege has not been equally afforded to all. Race has been -and continues to be - a potent force in the distribution of opportunity in American society. Despite decades of civil rights successes and fair housing activism, who gets access to housing and credit, on what terms, and where, remains driven by race. This is important to our shared future, because investments in homeownership are multiple and generational. Indeed, research shows that the biggest factor in the Black-White wealth gap is years of homeownership, showing how critical positive home equity is to building wealth. Racialized systems that generate lasting inequality may perpetuate self-fulfilling expectations, where "structural disadvantages (e.g., poverty, joblessness, crime) come to be seen as cause, rather than consequence, of persistent racial inequality, justifying and reinforcing negative racial stereotypes." There is a clear record of the impact of structural racism on opportunities for people of color in home-buying and credit access today. Structural racism describes the process by which policies, organizations, institutions, systems, culture and history interact across institutional domains to produce and sustain racial inequality. In terms of housing and credit, racial residential segregation has been a critical structural force. For example, historically, people of color have been restricted from buying homes in particular neighborhoods, regardless of their ability to pay, through practices such as racial covenants or redlining. Today's exclusions are less overt, but segregation remains, thus limiting people from the benefits that we know attends living in neighborhoods of high opportunity. W.E.B. DuBois acknowledged one hundred years ago that the health of minority populations is heavily influenced by the social institutions around them. Not only do housing and credit form the lifeline for our national economy, but they serve as the economic lifeline for many of us individually. Housing and credit can influence our daily lives: the better one's access to safe, affordable housing, the better one's outcomes tend to be along a range of indicators of individual, family, and community well-being.

Details: Columbus, OH: Kirwin Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Ohio State University, 2017. 84p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 28, 2017 at: http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/implicit-bias-housing.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL: http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/implicit-bias-housing.pdf

Shelf Number: 145187

Keywords:
Housing Discrimination
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination

Author: Irwin-Rogers, Keir

Title: Fairness in the criminal justice system: What's race got to do with it?

Summary: This report draws data from focus groups with people serving sentences of imprisonment inside an English prison. It focuses on prisoners' perceptions of (un)fairness spanning the breadth of our criminal justice system. The report has been produced as part of David Lammy MP's review into the system. Over the past year Catch22 ran a series of focus groups in a UK prison to understand prisoners' experience of racial bias in the criminal justice system. The findings show that that both black and white prisoners, as a whole, consider the criminal justice system to show widespread racial bias. The report lays out a set of recommendations for how this can be rectified, including; clarity around decision making, representation of all races at a senior level across the criminal justice system and treating people, as people. Key findings show: There was a widespread perception that at sentencing, a number of stakeholders including the police, the prosecution and the judiciary came together to 'conspire' against the interests of defendants, undermining people's rights to a fair and impartial trial process. There is a lack of diversity in police forces, particularly in relation to senior positions. Participants were concerned about a perceived lack of diversity on juries and among members of the judiciary, particularly in terms of race, but also in terms of age and social class. This lack of diversity was thought to preclude an adequate understanding of the daily challenges faced by many defendants. Participants were frustrated with opaque decision-making across the criminal justice system, from being stopped for a crime through to sentencing and how they were treated in prison. Opacity led them to believe that there were racial implications to decisions. There is a lack of trust in lawyers: There was a marked lack of trust and confidence in legal aid lawyers from both white and BAME prisoners. Participants believed the primary motivation of legal aid lawyers to be profit, rather than prioritising the interests of their clients. This lack of trust and confidence in legal aid lawyers meant that people were less likely to trust the advice they were given, particularly involving decisions around whether or not to plead guilty. This has huge implications for the length of sentence many people receive. By far, the main policing grievance was stop and search. There was a widespread perception that the best, and sometimes the only, way to get prison staff to act on prisoner requests or concerns was to behave aggressively - quiet prisoners, participants reported, were almost always ignored. There was a perceived breakdown of order and safety in prisons, which many participants attributed to the loss of significant numbers of prison staff, or the replacement of older, experienced staff members with younger members of staff who lacked the competence or confidence to perform their roles effectively.

Details: London: Catch 22, 2017. 46p.

Source: Intetner Resource: Accessed May 8, 2017 at: https://www.catch-22.org.uk/news/catch22-report-fairness-in-the-criminal-justice-system-whats-race-got-to-do-with-it/

Year: 2017

Country: United Kingdom

URL: https://www.catch-22.org.uk/news/catch22-report-fairness-in-the-criminal-justice-system-whats-race-got-to-do-with-it/

Shelf Number: 145357

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Disparities

Author: Arnold, David

Title: Racial Bias in Bail Decisions

Summary: This paper develops a new test for identifying racial bias in the context of bail decisions - a high-stakes setting with large disparities between white and black defendants. We motivate our analysis using Becker's (1957) model of racial bias, which predicts that rates of pre-trial misconduct will be identical for marginal white and marginal black defendants if bail judges are racially unbiased. In contrast, marginal white defendants will have a higher probability of misconduct than marginal black defendants if bail judges are racially biased against blacks. To test the model, we develop a new estimator that uses the release tendencies of quasi-randomly assigned bail judges to identify the relevant race-specific misconduct rates. Estimates from Miami and Philadelphia show that bail judges are racially biased against black defendants, with substantially more racial bias among both inexperienced and part-time judges. We also find that both black and white judges are biased against black defendants. We argue that these results are consistent with bail judges making racially biased prediction errors, rather than being racially prejudiced per se.

Details: Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017.

Source: Internet Resource: NBER Working Paper No. 23421: Accessed May 22, 2017 at: https://www.princeton.edu/~wdobbie/files/racialbias.pdf; http://www.nber.org/papers/w23421

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL: https://www.princeton.edu/~wdobbie/files/racialbias.pdf

Shelf Number: 145664

Keywords:
Bail
Judicial Decision-Making
Pretrial Release
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Risk Prediction

Author: Christensen, Don

Title: Racial Disparities in Military Justice: Findings of Substantial and Persistent Racial Disparities Within the United States Military Justice System

Summary: Protect Our Defenders (POD) is dedicated to exposing and eradicating bias within the military justice system and to ensuring that all service members are afforded a fair, efficient, and impartial system of justice. Through our work, we have witnessed what appeared to be indications of racial disparities in the military justice system. These indicators were consistent with the experiences of POD's President, Col Don Christensen (ret.), as a military attorney and with data he knew had been tracked by the Air Force for decades. The military leadership has vigorously opposed any suggestions that the commander-controlled justice system is hindered by conflicts of interest or bias and has gone to great lengths to tout the fairness of the system. A system of justice is fundamentally unfair if, due to inherent bias, it fails to effectively deliver justice. In the military justice system, commanders control who will and will not be punished. When objective evidence demonstrates that the military justice system is fraught with prejudice and bias, that system cannot effectively deliver justice. On March 7, 2016, because of these apparent racial and ethnic disparities within the military justice system, POD submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to each military service branch seeking demographic information on military justice and disciplinary proceedings. POD received responses from four of the service branches, each of which provided data on service members' annual military justice and disciplinary involvement broken down by racial and ethnic demographics. This report analyzes this previously unpublished data to examine whether and to what extent there are racial and ethnic disparities within military disciplinary and justice systems. All FOIA responses can be seen in Appendix D, and the full details of POD's analysis and calculations are included in Appendices B and C. The data shows that, for every year reported and across all service branches, black service members were substantially more likely than white service members to face military justice or disciplinary action, and these disparities failed to improve or even increased in recent years. Depending on the service and type of disciplinary or justice action, black service members were at least 1.29 times and as much as 2.61 times more likely than white service members to have an action taken against them in an average year. Findings for other racial groups varied, with some evidence that non-black people of color may have higher military justice or disciplinary involvement than white service members. The primary exception was Asian service members, who appear to have lower military justice or disciplinary involvement.

Details: Burlingame, CA ; Protect Out Defenders, 2017. 35p., app.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 14, 2017 at: http://www.protectourdefenders.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Report_20.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL: http://www.protectourdefenders.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Report_20.pdf

Shelf Number: 146094

Keywords:
Military Justice
Military Offenders
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Goel, Sharad

Title: Combatting Police Discrimination in the Age of Big Data

Summary: The exponential growth of available information about routine police activities offers new opportunities to improve the fairness and effectiveness of police practices. We illustrate the point by showing how a particular kind of calculation made possible by modern, large-scale datasets - determining the likelihood that stopping and frisking a particular pedestrian will result in the discovery of contraband or other evidence of criminal activity - could be used to reduce the racially disparate impact of pedestrian searches and to increase their effectiveness. For tools of this kind to achieve their full potential in improving policing, though, the legal system will need to adapt. One important change would be to understand police tactics such as investigatory stops of pedestrians or motorists as programs, not as isolated occurrences. Beyond that, the judiciary will need to grow more comfortable with statistical proof of discriminatory policing, and the police will need to be more receptive to the assistance that algorithms can provide in reducing bias.

Details: Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University, 2017. 52p.

Source: Internet Resource: Stanford Public Law Working Paper No. 2787101: Accessed June 26, 2017 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2787101

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2787101

Shelf Number: 146381

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Stop and Frisk
Stop and Search

Author: Haight, Konrad

Title: An Examination of Ethnic Disparities in Arizona's Juvenile Justice System: Final Technical Report

Summary: Research on disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system has generally concluded that Black youth are subject to disparate treatment such that they typically are more likely than White youth to face more formal and more punitive treatment at the various decision points in the juvenile court process. Research on disparate treatment for Latino youth in the juvenile justice system has been relatively rare, and the results of those studies have provided inconsistent evidence on the nature of disparities between Latino and White youth. This study sought to address such gaps in the research with a comprehensive assessment of juvenile justice case processing for a two-year period in the state of Arizona. Using a data set particularly well-suited for this examination, we believe the results of this study contribute meaningfully to the literature on ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system. Using data from the state of Arizona that included 75,316 referrals to the juvenile justice system over the two-year period from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2014, we applied five research questions to data on eight distinct decision points. We controlled for key legal factors such as the referral offense, the number of prior referrals, and whether the youth was involved in dependency court in addition to juvenile court. The level of detail in the data allowed us to investigate whether disparity varied depending on the type of referral offense and the county in which the youth was referred. Does disparity affecting Latino youth exist statewide in Arizona? If we look at rates of referral to juvenile court, we find that White youth are actually more likely to be referred to juvenile court than Latino youth. This is in contrast to the patterns of referral rates for Black and Native American youth-both groups are more likely than White youth to be referred to juvenile court, with Black youth referred more than twice as often as White youth. Once they are referred to juvenile court, however, there are a number of ways that Latino youth experience their processing in the juvenile justice system disproportionately more punitive than White youth. Latino youth are underrepresented in diversions from formal court processing, and overrepresented in direct filings to adult court, in pre-adjudicatory secure detention, in petitions filed for formal juvenile court processing, and in commitments to correctional facilities at disposition. Does observed disparity affecting Latino youth remain when we control for other factors that might impact juvenile justice decision making? Based on multivariate analyses that controlled for the influence of age, gender, number of priors, most serious current offense, and dependency status, we find that the disparities identified above remain even after taking into account these other factors. Across the state, if they were referred to juvenile court, Latino youth were less likely than White youth to receive an opportunity to avoid formal court processing and more likely to experience more punitive treatment at the various decision points. Does disparity affecting Latino youth vary by county? We did find a pattern of results that was generally consistent across the different counties. This pattern is that Latino youth are less likely than White youth to be referred to juvenile court and to be diverted from formal court processing, but more likely to be securely detained prior to adjudication, have a petition filed for formal court processing, and be committed to a correctional facility after disposition. We did find some counties where this pattern was not detected, and those were the counties in which the Latino youth were the largest racial/ethnic group in the general population. Does disparity affecting Latino youth vary based on the type of offense for which the youth was referred? By considering each decision point broken down by the type of offense, we find there are complexities to the patterns of disparities for Latino youth in juvenile courts in Arizona. For example, Latino youth are overall less likely to be referred to juvenile court than White youth, except in the case of violent felonies, status offenses, and violations, for which we find Latino youth to be more likely than White youth to be referred to court. Also, Latino youth are overrepresented in secure detention placements, except when the offense was a violation or a violent misdemeanor. In addition, the biggest disparities for Latino youth with regard to the filing of petitions for formal court processing are in the case of property misdemeanors and for drug felonies. Finally, while we find that Latino youth are more likely to be committed to correctional placements after disposition, the disparities are greatest for violent misdemeanors and felonies and for drug felonies. Does disparity affecting Latino youth differ depending on whether the county of referral is participating in JDAI? We find that at several of the decision points, the disparities between Latino and White youth in the JDAI counties are smaller than what we find in the non-JDAI counties, particularly at the decision points of direct file, diversion, petition, and probation. There are other decision points where the differences between JDAI and non-JDAI counties are rather small, namely secure detention and adjudication. Placement in correctional facilities is one decision point where Latino youth in the JDAI counties fare worse than in non-JDAI counties. Key findings from this study include: - Latino youth are not overrepresented in referrals to juvenile court, but they do experience disparate treatment once they are in the system. - Latino youth are more likely than White youth to experience the most severe and restrictive punishments that the juvenile justice system has to offer. This includes direct filings in adult court, placement in pre-adjudicatory secure detention, and placement in confinement following disposition. - When it comes to severe and restrictive punishments, Black youth experience greater levels of disparity than Latino youth. - In most cases, legal factors that we controlled for do not account for the observed disparities. - Patterns of disparity are consistent across counties for Black youth, but this is not true of Latino youth, where disparity appears to vary with the proportion of the population that are Latino. - Disparity varies depending on the type of offense and this is consistent across racial and ethnic groups. The data used for this study are particularly well-suited for examining the extent to which Latino youth experience disparate treatment in the juvenile justice system. As such, the results can help guide future research and help policy makers in their efforts to address ethnic disparities. Implications for policy and practice include: - Ongoing assessment of disparity should move beyond a statewide only approach, focusing on areas with the greatest levels of disparity to ensure more efficient use of resources while generating greater reductions in disparity. - In counties where one race/ethnicity experiences greater disparity than other, it may make sense to work with those communities to determine the root of the problem. Where disparity is experienced across race/ethnicity groups, it may make more sense to look at official policies and procedures that might contribute to disparity across the board. - Future studies should augment their focus on county-level relative rates of risk with a county-level understanding of the juvenile justice system. Policies and practices at the county level can impact disparity and are vital to not only understanding why disparity exists, but also how to address it. - Future studies should incorporate a more complete understanding of previous offense histories, risk assessment scores, and include data collected over a longer period of time. - Whenever possible, it is important to consider ways that responses to particular offenses may introduce disparities in processing of youth through the court progression.

Details: Indianapolis, IN: American Institutes for Research, 2016. 84p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 26, 2017 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/grants/250803.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/grants/250803.pdf

Shelf Number: 146384

Keywords:
Disproportionate Minority Contact
Juvenile Court
Juvenile Justice Systems
Latino Youth
Minority Youth
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Delay, Dennis

Title: Disproportionate Minority Contact in New Hampshire: Juvenile Justice DMC Assessment

Summary: National data suggests that minorities are overrepresented in juvenile justice systems across the country, and that DMC increases as youth move through the system. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division recently completed an investigation into the operations of the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, and found extensive racial disparities in the treatment of African American children: African American youth are twice as likely as white youth to be recommended for transfer to adult court. Our analysis indicates that DMC does exist in the New Hampshire juvenile justice system. However, there are significant hurdles, both in terms of data reliability and statistical precision, in calculating trustworthy DMC measurements in New Hampshire, particularly outside of the state's larger municipalities. The Division for Juvenile Justice Services (DJJS) currently calculates DMC measurements along the nine points of contact for the cities of Manchester, Nashua and Rochester annually. We recommend that DJJS extend the detailed DMC calculation to the municipalities of Concord and Salem, and that consideration be given to establishing regional DMC committees in those municipalities. We also recommend that DMC data collection be improved in New Hampshire. Some of these efforts to gather better DMC data are already underway, including improvements in the design of the juvenile petition. The importance of more reliable DMC data cannot be overstressed, as identifying the reasons for DMC are critical as New Hampshire moves from identification of DMC, to assessment and finally to methods and approaches for reducing DMC in New Hampshire.

Details: Concord, NH: New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, 2013. 53p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 18, 2017 at: http://www.nhpolicy.org/UploadedFiles/Reports/DMCAssessment2013.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: United States

URL: http://www.nhpolicy.org/UploadedFiles/Reports/DMCAssessment2013.pdf

Shelf Number: 148223

Keywords:
Disproportionate Minority Contact
Ethnic Disparities
Juvenile Justice systems
Juvenile Offenders
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Delay, Dennis

Title: Juvenile Justice in New Hampshire; Disproportionate Minority Contact Identification 2013

Summary: National data suggests that minorities are overrepresented in juvenile justice systems across the country, and that DMC increases as youth move through the system. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division recently completed an investigation into the operations of the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, and found extensive racial disparities in the treatment of African American children: African American youth are twice as likely as white youth to be recommended for transfer to adult court. Our analysis indicates that DMC does exist in the New Hampshire juvenile justice system. However, there are significant hurdles, both in terms of data reliability and statistical precision, in calculating trustworthy DMC measurements in New Hampshire, particularly outside of the state's larger municipalities. The Division for Juvenile Justice Services (DJJS) currently calculates DMC measurements along the nine points of contact for the cities of Manchester, Nashua and Rochester annually. We recommend that DJJS extend the detailed DMC calculation to the municipalities of Concord and Salem, and that consideration be given to establishing regional DMC committees in those municipalities. We also recommend that DMC data collection be improved in New Hampshire. Some of these efforts to gather better DMC data are already underway, including improvements in the design of the juvenile petition. The importance of more reliable DMC data cannot be overstressed, as identifying the reasons for DMC are critical as New Hampshire moves from identification of DMC, to assessment and finally to methods and approaches for reducing DMC in New Hampshire.

Details: Concord, NH: New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, 2013. 63p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 18, 2017 at: http://www.nhpolicy.org/UploadedFiles/Reports/DMCIdentification2013.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: United States

URL: http://www.nhpolicy.org/UploadedFiles/Reports/DMCIdentification2013.pdf

Shelf Number: 148224

Keywords:
Disproportionate Minority Contact
Ethnic Disparities
Juvenile Justice systems
Juvenile Offenders
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Cox, Robynn

Title: Financing the War on Drugs: The Impact of law Enforcement Grants on Racial Disparities in Drug Arrests

Summary: We estimate the effectiveness of the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program, a grant program authorized under the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act to combat illicit drug abuse and to improve the criminal justice system, on racial bias in policing. Funds for the Byrne Grant program could be used for a variety of purposes to combat drug crimes, as well as violent and other drug related crimes. The event-study analysis suggests that implementation of this grant resulted in an increase in police hiring and an increase in arrests for drug trafficking. Post-treatment effect implies a 107 percent increase in white arrests for drug sales compared to a 44 percent increase for blacks 6 years after the first grant is received. However, due to historical racial differences in drug arrests, the substantial increase in white drug arrest still results in large racial disparities in drug arrests. This is supported by weighted least squares regression estimates that show, for every $100 increase in Byrne Grant funding, arrests for drug trafficking increased by roughly 22 per 100,000 white residents and by 101 arrests per 100,000 black residents. The results provide strong evidence that federal involvement in narcotic control and trafficking lead to an increase in drug arrests; disproportionally affecting blacks.

Details: Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 2017. 45p.

Source: Internet Resource: CESR-Schaeffer Working Paper No. 2017-005: Accessed November 20, 2017 at:

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL:

Shelf Number: 148280

Keywords:
Arrests
Drug Enforcement
Drug Offenders
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
War on Drugs

Author: West, Jeremy

Title: Racial Bias in Police Investigations

Summary: Endogenous selection into police encounters typically complicates evaluations of law enforcement discrimination. This study overcomes selection concerns by examining automobile crash investigations, for which officer dispatch is demonstrably exogenous to drivers' race. I find State Police officers issue significantly more traffic citations to drivers whose race differs from their own. This bias is evident for both moving and nonmoving violations, the latter indicating a preference for discriminatory leniency towards same-race individuals. I show this treatment is unmitigated by socioeconomic factors: officers cite other-race drivers more frequently regardless of their age, gender, vehicle value, or characteristics of the local community.

Details: Santa Cruz, CA: University of California at Santa Cruz, 2018. 37p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 19, 2018 at: https://people.ucsc.edu/~jwest1/articles/West_RacialBiasPolice.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: =https://people.ucsc.edu/~jwest1/articles/West_RacialBiasPolice.pdf

Shelf Number: 149173

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Traffic Violations

Author: Bryan, Tacicia

Title: Black Lives Matter Toronto: A Qualitative Study of Twitter's Localized Social Discourse on Systemic Racism

Summary: This Major Research Paper examines the Twitter discourse of Black Lives Matter Toronto (BLMTO), a chapter of the Black Lives Matter Movement which addresses issues of racism and police brutality. BLMTO protested in front of police headquarters between April 1st and April 15th, 2016 and used Twitter to document their protest during this time. This paper provides a content and sentiment analysis of 346 tweets collected during this time frame. The analysis of the Twitter content is based on concepts drawn from the scholarly literature on the public sphere, identity and social identity, and framing theory. My findings indicate the following: 1. Black Lives Matter Toronto uses media framing techniques, as well as logical and moral appeals, to build credibility as a strong subaltern counterpublic, an information resource for community building and an influencer online, through sharing relevant statistics, news stories and persuasive rhetoric. 2. BLMTO incorporates calls to action to create publicity and facilitate community mobilization. 3. Key themes in the tweets include the exercise of power in society, the need to build community and create a common sense of right and wrong, and maintaining solidarity

Details: Toronto: Ryerson University, 2016. 69p.

Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed April 26, 2018 at: http://digital.library.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A5401

Year: 2016

Country: Canada

URL: http://digital.library.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A5401

Shelf Number: 149916

Keywords:
Police Brutality
Police Use of Force
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
Social Media
Twitter

Author: Hinton, Elizabeth

Title: An Unjust Burden The Disparate Treatment of Black Americans in the Criminal Justice System

Summary: The evidence for racial disparities in the criminal justice system is well documented. The disproportionate racial impact of certain laws and policies, as well as biased decision making by justice system actors, leads to higher rates of arrest and incarceration in low-income communities of color. However, there is no evidence that these widely disproportionate rates of criminal justice contact and incarceration are making us safer. This brief presents an overview of the ways in which America's history of racism and oppression continues to manifest in the criminal justice system, and a summary of research demonstrating how the system perpetuates the disparate treatment of black people. The evidence presented here helps account for the hugely disproportionate impact of mass incarceration on millions of black people, their families, and their communities.

Details: New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2018. 20p.

Source: Internet Resource: Vera Evidence Brief: Accessed May 11, 2018 at: https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/for-the-record-unjust-burden/legacy_downloads/for-the-record-unjust-burden-racial-disparities.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/for-the-record-unjust-burden/legacy_downloads/for-the-record-unjust-burden-racial-disparities.pdf

Shelf Number: 150157

Keywords:
African Americans
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities

Author: Kalinowski, Jesse

Title: Endogenous Driving Behavior in Veil of Darkness Tests for Racial Profiling

Summary: : Several prominent applications of the Veil of Darkness (VOD) test, where solar variation is used to identify racial profiling in traffic stops, have found reverse discrimination in cities widely purported to disproportionately target minorities. We develop a theoretical model of traffic enforcement and demonstrate that the VOD test for racial profiling cannot distinguish between discrimination and reverse discrimination. In our model, this problem arises because motorists rationally alter their driving behavior when faced with discriminatory policing. For groups that face discrimination, our model implies that motorists who previously did not speed choose to speed in darkness, when demography cannot be observed, thus creating the possibility that the share of stopped minority motorists increases in darkness. We develop a follow-up test for identifying the direction of differential treatment by examining the speed distribution of motorists across daylight and darkness. Using data on traffic stops in Massachusetts made by State and Local Police, we reject the VOD test for equal treatment and demonstrate that driving speeds of stopped AfricanAmericans are higher in darkness consistent with discrimination.

Details: Chicago: University of Chicago, 2017. 82p.

Source: Internet Resource: Working Papers 2017-017, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group, 2017: Accessed May 16, 2018 at: https://www.albany.edu/economics/doc/seminar-files/Kalinowski_Ross_Ross_2017_driving-veil-darkness.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL: https://www.albany.edu/economics/doc/seminar-files/Kalinowski_Ross_Ross_2017_driving-veil-darkness.pdf

Shelf Number: 149683

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Traffic Enforcement

Author: Southern Poverty Law Center

Title: Racial Profiling in Louisiana: Unconstitutional and Counterproductive

Summary: Racial profiling - the unconstitutional practice of law enforcement targeting individuals due to the color of their skin - remains an egregious and common form of discrimination and continues to taint the legitimacy of policing in the United States. It is both pervasive and hard to prove. Stopping an individual merely for "driving while black" violates the U.S. and Louisiana constitutions, but few cases have been brought in state or federal courts in Louisiana to challenge racially discriminatory policing. Racial profiling is also problematic from a public safety perspective because it undercuts effective police work by damaging trust in law enforcement. Racial profiling is likely a major driver of Louisiana's high incarceration rate. Although Oklahoma has now surpassed Louisiana as the world's No. 1 incarcerator, Louisiana remains a close second. By expanding the pool of people who come under police surveillance, racial profiling leads police to refer a disproportionate number of people of color for criminal prosecution, often for low-level crimes such as drug possession. Police officers' disproportionate focus on people of color means that they are disproportionately ticketed, arrested, prosecuted, and ultimately imprisoned. In 2016, for instance, black adults comprised only 30.6% of Louisiana's adult population but 53.7% of adults who were arrested and 67.5% of adults in prison. Overall, black adults are 4.3 times as likely as white adults to be serving a felony prison sentence in Louisiana. The SPLC has found large racial disparities in arrest rates across the state that would be difficult to explain by different rates of crime commission alone. For example, in 2016, black people were 2.9 times as likely as white people to be arrested for marijuana possession in Louisiana, despite evidence that black people and white people use marijuana at similar rates. The disparities are much greater in some areas: A black person was six times as likely as a white person to be arrested by the Baton Rouge Police Department (BRPD) for marijuana possession in 2016. Gretna, previously labeled the "arrest capital of the United States" for its sky-high arrest rate, continues to target black people disproportionately for arrests: In 2016, black people comprised two-thirds of people arrested in Gretna but only one-third of the city's population.15 And 67% of the arrests of black people in Gretna were for the nonviolent offenses of drug possession (not sale), drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and other offenses that the FBI does not track due to their relatively minor nature. The death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, at the hands of two white BRPD officers on July 5, 2016 highlighted decades-long tensions in Louisiana's capital over police treatment of Louisianans of color, especially African Americans. From the department's crackdown on civil rights marchers in the 1960s, to its illegal searches and arrests in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (which raised alarm bells among out-of-state police officers dispatched to the city to assist with public safety), to its militarized response to the protests over Alton Sterling's death,20 the BRPD has consistently over-policed the city's black community and violated the First Amendment rights of people who speak out against police brutality. If the BRPD ever hopes to resolve these longstanding tensions and earn the trust and respect of the city's black residents, who comprise a majority of its population, combatting racial profiling will be an essential first step. Notwithstanding the well-known harms of racial profiling in Baton Rouge and across the state, both for over-policed communities and for public safety more generally, a surprising number of Louisiana police departments do not have policies to address it. The SPLC's investigation revealed that more than a third of the state's law enforcement agencies lack any policy on racial profiling. And the policies that do exist usually fail to explain clearly to officers what racial profiling is and what conduct is prohibited. While the much-needed sentencing reforms Louisiana began implementing in 2017 are projected to reduce the state's prison population by 10% over the next 10 years, resulting in savings of $262 million, none of the reforms focus on the disproportionate policing of Louisianans of color. Eliminating racial profiling must be a priority if Louisiana wants to shed its status as one of the world's most prolific incarcerators. To address these harms, Louisiana law enforcement agencies must adopt and enforce effective policies against racial profiling and take other steps to ensure constitutional policing. For their parts, the Legislature and the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice should institute a host of reforms to curb this unconstitutional and counterproductive practice.

Details: Montgomery, AL: SPLC, 2018. 52p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 20, 2018 at: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/leg_special_report_racial_final.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/leg_special_report_racial_final.pdf

Shelf Number: 151597

Keywords:
Driving While Black
Police Brutality
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Disparities
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement

Author: National Association of Social Workers

Title: The Color of Youth Transferred to the Adult Criminal Justice System: Policy and Practice Recommendations

Summary: n the United States, the vestiges of slavery are embedded in the criminal justice system and codified in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Individuals who have been convicted of criminal offenses in the United States may be treated and punished as enslaved people under the Constitution. In the United States, in every state, youth under age 18 are eligible to be transferred from juvenile court to adult court. In adult court, these youth receive public criminal records, get locked behind bars in adult jails, and receive lengthy sentences in facilities that were not made to take their social or brain development into account. Upon conviction in the criminal justice system, they become eligible to be treated and punished as enslaved people. Advocates seeking to understand and reduce disproportionate representation of black youth in the adult criminal justice system must start by looking through the lens of the Thirteenth Amendment. Despite significant declines in juvenile arrest rates and the total number of youth being sent to adult court, adult jails, and adult prisons, juvenile court judges are transferring black youth to adult courts at some of the highest percentages in thirty years of data collection. Black youth are approximately 14% of the total youth population, but 47.3% of the youth who are transferred to adult court by juvenile court judges who believe the youth cannot benefit from the services of their court. Black youth are 53.1% of youth transferred for person offenses despite the fact that black and white youth make up an equal percentage of youth charged with person offenses, 40.1% and 40.5% respectively, in 2015. Researchers, system stakeholders, and advocates have reported on the disproportionate representation of black youth at nearly every contact point in the juvenile justice system. Some research indicates that even when accounting for the type of offense, black youth are more likely to be sent to adult prison and receive longer sentences. Although stakeholders acknowledge these findings, they are rarely contextualized beyond the justice system. In this brief, the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) outline how black youth end up at the front door of adult courts through three state case studies of Oregon, Florida, and Missouri. We dive into the historical context of racial terror inflicted on black communities that has shaped the foundation of systemic policies, practices, and procedures that compound disproportionality. From this context, we highlight what advocates and local and state officials are doing to overcome the impact of historic and ongoing racism. Finally, we make recommendations for what social workers and advocates can do to redress racial disproportionality in black youth transferred to adult court through clinical practice and policy advocacy.

Details: New York: NASW, 2018. 28p.

Source: Internet Resource: Social Justice Brief: Accessed September 25, 2018 at: http://cfyj.org/images/pdf/Social_Justice_Brief_Youth_Transfers.Revised_copy_09-18-2018.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: http://cfyj.org/images/pdf/Social_Justice_Brief_Youth_Transfers.Revised_copy_09-18-2018.pdf

Shelf Number: 151663

Keywords:
Juvenile Court Transfers
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
Waiver (of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction)

Author: Miller, Eric J.

Title: Reasonably Radical: Terry's Attack on Race-Based Policing

Summary: In this article celebrating the 50th anniversary of Terry v. Ohio, I argue that the criminal justice system is not an integrated system, but a fragmented one. One way it is fragmented, the Terry Court recognizes, is between crime control and public-order policing. Crime control has high-judicial visibility, allowing illegally-gained evidence to be excluded at trial. Public-order policing has low-judicial visibility. What happens on the street stays on the street, and rarely makes it to the courtroom. Read this way, Terry tells lawyers something uncomfortable. In a fragmented criminal justice system, there are some forms of police misconduct that the Court, and the exclusionary rule, just cannot remedy. Doing social activism through law is not enough. The Fourth Amendment lacks the resources to protect us from race-based policing. For the most part, the race-based criticism of Terry focuses, understandably enough, on the Court's failure to engage with a race-conscious approach to the problems of race-based policing. Many of these critiques are urgent and important. However, in an attempt to place the blame for subsequent doctrinal novelties at the feet of the Terry Court, they generally embargo and explain away the Court's explicit discussion of race-based policing and the Court's references-express and implied-to the recently published Challenge of Crime in a Free Society. To reclaim a sense of Terry's powerful engagement with race and reasonableness, I want to separate out Terry from its progeny and suggest that the Court was engaged in a conversation with the 1967 President's Commission Report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society. I begin by discussing the President's Commission's radical critique of race-based policing and its even more radical recommendations for reform: recommendations that have largely been ignored and unfulfilled. I then explain how Terry's approach to stop and frisk responds to race-based harassment by, not only adopting, but rendering more stringent, the President Commission's recommendations on the use of stops and frisks. I suggest that Terry's precise, rule-like approach to stop-and-frisk policing precludes its use as a device for low-level racial harassment and limits its use to investigating crimes of violence. This precision enabled the Court to tackle head-on a problem identified by both the Terry Court and the Report: the central place occupied by physical displays of police authority - often called "command presence" - to dominate racial minorities. I conclude by suggesting that critics, frustrated at the way the reasonable suspicion standard has been co-opted by a pro-police agenda, miss the Court's central regulatory claims. Three claims are particularly important: (1) that there is not one criminal justice system, but many overlapping systems; (2) that the police conduct is highly visible in minority communities; but (3) that same conduct is low visibility in the courts that are supposed to regulate their behavior. Constitutional litigation is thus a limited resource against the sort of low-visibility policing that remains separate from the process of criminal prosecution and so incapable of judicial oversight.

Details: Los Angeles: Loyola Law School, 2018. 36p.

Source: Internet Resource: Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2018-31: Accessed September 26, 2018 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3238801

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3238801

Shelf Number: 151698

Keywords:
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Stop and Frisk
Stop and Search
Terry v. Ohio

Author: Schleifer, Rebecca

Title: Drug Courts in the Americas

Summary: Executive Summary Drug courts in the United States are presented as an alternative to incarceration for people arrested for minor drug offenses where drug use is considered an underlying cause of the crime, thus theoretically serving as a tool for reducing prison and jail populations. The United States has nearly thirty years of experience with these courts, which have spread to all fifty states as well as US territories. Many countries around the world have looked to the United States' experience with drug courts as a model to be adopted, and the US government has also promoted them abroad as an alternative to incarceration. Perhaps the most organized efforts to expand this policy are those currently underway in Latin America and the Caribbean. The considerable influence of the United States on the region's drug control policies has certainly encouraged many of its countries to view drug courts as such an alternative, and the growing number of countries implementing them signals that these efforts are moving ahead with full force there. The Canadian government has also worked to support the expansion of drug courts, particularly in the Caribbean, but this report does not focus on the Canadian model. Proponents of drug courts assert that they are cost-effective; they reduce recidivism as well as time spent in detention (prison or jail); and they offer drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration to people whose drug use fuels their criminal activity. To evaluate these assertions, this report reviews key findings from the United States' experience which, despite major institutional, legal, and cultural differences, may usefully inform debates about drug courts, along with other alternatives to incarceration for low-level drug crimes, in other countries - in particular, in countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that have either established, or are looking to establish, drug courts. This report also presents a brief overview of where and how drug courts have been implemented in Latin America and the Caribbean to identify, to the extent possible, the different experiences and challenges faced by those countries. One main difficulty in this exercise is the limited availability of data that would allow strong parallels to be drawn. As is the case with the United States, with rare exceptions, drug courts in Latin America and Caribbean are not independently monitored and evaluated, and most were established relatively recently. Nevertheless, we have found the information available points to fundamental problems with the implementation of drug courts; the findings from the United States experience could, at the very least, offer insight into whether and under what circumstances they provide a more desirable option than incarceration. The US section is based on review of the existing research on drug courts and treatment for substance use disorders and evaluations of drug court efficacy conducted and published by the US government, major research institutions, advocacy organizations, and leading scholars whose work focuses on drug courts specifically or on criminal justice, substance use disorders, drug treatment, and drug policy more broadly. The Latin America and Caribbean sections are based on a review of their available information on drug courts (which is significantly more limited than the vast literature available in the United States), as well as on research on criminal justice, incarceration, drug treatment, and drug policy, responses to requests for information, and interviews. Also reviewed for each country are laws, official documents (including memoranda of understanding, government documents and web pages, judiciary reports, PowerPoint presentations made by authorities, and international organization documents, among others), studies and evaluations (when available), and, in a few cases, news reports. The substantial diversity among drug court models complicates efforts to evaluate their impact on the problems they aim to address, but our review of the existing evidence shows the claim that drug courts provide an alternative to incarceration is debatable. We found that drug courts, as implemented in the United States, are a costly, cumbersome intervention that has limited, if any, impact on reducing incarceration. Indeed, for many participants, they may have the opposite effect by increasing criminal justice supervision and subjecting those who fail to graduate to harsher penalties than they might otherwise have received, thus becoming an adjunct rather than an alternative to incarceration. Moreover, evidence about their effectiveness in reducing cost, recidivism, and time spent in prison is mixed. The financial and human costs to drug court participants are also steep and disproportionately burdensome to the poor and racial minorities. The evidence also does not support drug courts as an appropriate public health intervention. Drug court judges are empowered to make treatment decisions that should be the domain of health care professionals, choosing from limited or counterproductive options that may threaten the health and lives of participants as well as expose confidential information about their health and drug use. One of the main stated objectives of drug courts is to ensure access to comprehensive substance abuse treatment for those who need it. Our review of the available evidence shows, however, that, in practice, many drug court participants do not need treatment; at the same time, treatment may be unavailable to or inappropriate for those who do. Evidence we have found indicates the resort to drug courts may be an appropriate measure for certain offenders - that is, people charged with serious crimes linked to their drug dependence who would otherwise serve prison terms. What is often not considered is that most drug courts do not meet this definition. More important, we must remember that drug dependence treatment is a type of medical care. People who are dependent on drugs have a right, under international human rights law, to relevant health care services that are available, physically and economically accessible without discrimination, gender appropriate, culturally and ethically acceptable, designed to respect confidentiality, scientifically and medically appropriate, and of good quality. By mediating treatment through the criminal justice system, drug courts aggressively insert the penal system into people's private and family lives and into their decisions about their health and medical care, reproducing and perpetuating the criminalization of people who use drugs and those involved in low-level drug-related crimes. As an overall framework through which to think about drug courts, we should not lose sight of the fact that no individuals, regardless of their criminal records, should be punished for their medical conditions, nor should they have to allow courts to make their medical decisions for them or rely on the criminal justice system for access to treatment that could perhaps have prevented their incarceration in the first place. The primary lessons learned from US drug courts that should be considered by other countries in the Americas as they look at this model are the following: Drug courts are not an alternative to incarceration: - Defendants remain in criminal proceedings at every step in the drug court program, risk incarceration, both as a sanction while in the program and for failure to complete it, and, in some cases, spend more time behind bars than they would have had they chosen to pursue criminal justice proceedings instead of drug court. Drug courts may increase the number of people under supervision of the criminal justice system in the following ways: - By requiring them to plead guilty as a condition of getting access to drug court. - By processing discretionary crimes that police might have not enforced had drug court not been an option. - By mediating treatment through the criminal justice system. Drug courts are not a rights-based health intervention: - Drug court judges maintain control over treatment decisions for drug court participants, in some cases ordering treatment that is at odds with accepted medical practice. - Participants who fail drug court risk incarceration and face abrupt interruption of treatment and other health risks attendant to incarceration. - Access to treatment comes at the cost of forfeiting fundamental legal and human rights. Drug courts may perpetuate racial bias in the criminal justice system: - Drug courts point to drug dependence as the factor that puts people at risk of criminal justice involvement, ignoring the racial bias in drug policing and prosecution in the United States that leads African Americans and Latinos into long-term criminal justice supervision at much higher rates than their white counterparts. Further complicating this scenario is the concerted effort to export drug courts as a model that should be adopted by other countries. Despite the evidence from the United States experience cited above, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have embraced drug courts as a promising solution to the over-incarceration problem that plagues the region. This development is problematic not only because governments in the region apparently are not conducting proper investigations before adopting drug courts as a public policy model, but also because the very specific social, economic, and political context of Latin American and Caribbean countries immediately complicates the adoption of public policies designed by other, more developed countries with different legal systems. The lack, for example, of scientifically and medically appropriate treatment options and the reliance on private providers is a serious issue in the Latin America and Caribbean region, where numerous cases of abuse and human rights violations by treatment providers have been documented. Furthermore, health systems do not have enough capacity to provide health and social services to all the people who need them; in these cases, private and religious institutions with scarce knowledge about drug dependence, treatment, and medical standards are used. A reliance on abstinence-based treatment programs and drug testing is also of concern. On the criminal justice side of the issue, many drug courts in the region still focus on simple drug possession as a crime, contributing to the criminalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs. Research about drug courts in Latin America and the Caribbean also underscores the need for a more rigorous data management system that can provide sufficient information for a comprehensive assessment of their effectiveness in the region. Currently, research is too dependent on anecdotal evidence and not focused on evidence-based analysis. This report's main findings about drug treatment courts in Latin America are as follows: - Generally speaking, detailed and current data are lacking in almost all the Latin American countries studied, and independent evaluations are scarce. - The model is more advanced in three countries (Chile, Mexico, and Costa Rica) and in a pilot phase in four others (Argentina, Panama, Dominican Republic, and Colombia). Ecuador and Peru are also considering whether to establish drug courts. - Most programs in the region were established in 2012 or later, except for the Chilean model, which was implemented in 2004. - Drug courts in Latin America function as specific programs within the legal jurisdictions where they have been established rather than as special courts. They function under the conditional suspension of criminal proceedings mechanism and adopt a pre-plea approach that diverts participants before conviction. - Candidates must meet two basic requirements to enter the programs: they must be prosecuted for an eligible offense, and they must receive a diagnosis of problematic drug use related to the commission of the crime. - Only people charged with what the local jurisdictions consider to be minor and/or nonviolent rimes (charges carrying sentences of no more than three to five years in prison) are accepted in the programs. - Many programs carry harsh penalties as sanctions during the course of treatment. - In most programs, participants must be first-time offenders. - In contrast to the US experience, Latin American drug treatment courts graduate few participants. - The drug courts in the region most commonly address crimes against property, domestic violence, and drug possession. Based on available information, simple possession is one of the most frequent crimes in drug court programs that include drug offenses (those in Chile, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Panama). - Most participants in drug court programs are male. - Juvenile courts have been established in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico, and other countries plan to create such programs. - Much as in the United States, participation in Latin American drug courts typically requires that participants remain drug free and sometimes sanction them for positive drug tests. - Most countries clearly lack the capacity to provide appropriate treatment to all program participants. This report's main findings about drug treatment courts in the English-speaking Caribbean are as follows: - Much as in Latin America, detailed and current data are lacking in almost all the Caribbean countries studied, and no independent evaluations of drug courts have been done. The information available is mostly from government sources. - The earliest drug court programs in the Caribbean were established in 2001 in Bermuda and Jamaica (making these the oldest programs in the Latin America and Caribbean region), with other countries (the Cayman Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Belize) establishing drug courts in 2012 or later. - The drug court model is more advanced in three countries (Bermuda, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands) and in an initial phase in three others (Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Belize). The Bahamas seems to be interested in establishing drug courts. - Drug courts in the Caribbean are not specialized courts as in the United States but, rather, operate as specific programs under local lower (parish/magistrate�s) courts, as in Latin America. The drug treatment courts in Caribbean countries operate under different legal structures. Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Jamaica have enacted specific legislation, while Barbados, Belize, and Trinidad and Tobago have signed memoranda of understanding with the Organization of American States' Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD). The Canadian government has directly supported the implementation of drug courts in a few Caribbean countries. - The basic requirements for admission to drug court are to be charged with an eligible offense and receive a diagnosis of problematic drug use related to the commission of the crime. - Only people charged with what the local jurisdictions consider to be minor and/or nonviolent crimes are accepted in the programs, with the exception of Jamaica, where people charged with certain more serious crimes may be eligible. Participants must be first-time offenders. - Jamaica is the only country in the English-speaking Caribbean where a guilty plea is not a requirement for admission. - The information available suggests that few participants graduate from Caribbean drug courts. - The drug courts in the region most commonly address crimes against property and drug possession. Based on available information, simple possession is one of the most frequent crimes in drug court programs that include drug offenses. - Most participants in drug court programs are male. - Juvenile courts have been established in Jamaica, and reports indicate the Cayman Islands and Trinidad and Tobago are exploring the possibility of establishing such programs. - Many programs carry harsh penalties as sanctions during the course of treatment. - Participation in Caribbean drug courts typically requires that participants remain drug free, and they rely on drug testing to assess compliance, with sanctions imposed for positive drug tests. - Information about treatment standards and options available is scarce, but our research suggests most countries in the region lack the capacity to provide appropriate treatment to all program participants. Undoubtedly, the creation of alternatives to the criminal justice system for drug-related offenses is urgently needed, and countries should focus on moving away from an excessive reliance on incarceration as a panacea. Nonetheless, a close examination of the United States as a case study does not support the drug court model as the most appropriate solution for governments genuinely focused on addressing this issue, since in some respects it continues to criminalize drug consumption and prioritize a criminal approach to drug dependence over a health approach. Hence, this report presents a series of recommendations that should be seriously considered by countries concerned with mass incarceration and intent on moving away from over-reliance on criminal justice responses to drug use. We developed the recommendations with two groups in mind: countries that have not established drug courts or in which they are in early stages, and countries in which drug courts are more established and their continuation is overwhelmingly supported, thus making it difficult (but not impossible) to address the issues raised here.

Details: New York, NY: Social Science Research Council, 2018. 126p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 20, 2019 at: https://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/drug-courts-in-the-americas/

Year: 2018

Country: International

URL: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ssrc-cdn1/crmuploads/new_publication_3/DSD_Drug+Courts_English_online+final.pdf

Shelf Number: 154312

Keywords:
Alternatives to Incarceration
Caribbean
Data Management System
Drug Courts
Drug Crimes
Drug Offenses
Drug Possession
Drug Treatment Courts
Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICA
Jail Population
Latin America
Prison Population
Public Health Intervention
Racial Bias
Recidivism
Substance Use
Supervision
Treatment

Author: Richardson, Rashida

Title: Dirty Data, Bad Predictions: How Civil Rights Violations Impact Police Data, Predictive Policing Systems, and Justice

Summary: Law enforcement agencies are increasingly using algorithmic predictive policing systems to forecast criminal activity and allocate police resources. Yet in numerous jurisdictions, these systems are built on data produced within the context of flawed, racially fraught and sometimes unlawful practices ('dirty policing'). This can include systemic data manipulation, falsifying police reports, unlawful use of force, planted evidence, and unconstitutional searches. These policing practices shape the environment and the methodology by which data is created, which leads to inaccuracies, skews, and forms of systemic bias embedded in the data ('dirty data'). Predictive policing systems informed by such data cannot escape the legacy of unlawful or biased policing practices that they are built on. Nor do claims by predictive policing vendors that these systems provide greater objectivity, transparency, or accountability hold up. While some systems offer the ability to see the algorithms used and even occasionally access to the data itself, there is no evidence to suggest that vendors independently or adequately assess the impact that unlawful and bias policing practices have on their systems, or otherwise assess how broader societal biases may affect their systems. In our research, we examine the implications of using dirty data with predictive policing, and look at jurisdictions that (1) have utilized predictive policing systems and (2) have done so while under government commission investigations or federal court monitored settlements, consent decrees, or memoranda of agreement stemming from corrupt, racially biased, or otherwise illegal policing practices. In particular, we examine the link between unlawful and biased police practices and the data used to train or implement these systems across thirteen case studies. We highlight three of these: (1) Chicago, an example of where dirty data was ingested directly into the city's predictive system; (2) New Orleans, an example where the extensive evidence of dirty policing practices suggests an extremely high risk that dirty data was or will be used in any predictive policing application, and (3) Maricopa County where despite extensive evidence of dirty policing practices, lack of transparency and public accountability surrounding predictive policing inhibits the public from assessing the risks of dirty data within such systems. The implications of these findings have widespread ramifications for predictive policing writ large. Deploying predictive policing systems in jurisdictions with extensive histories of unlawful police practices presents elevated risks that dirty data will lead to flawed, biased, and unlawful predictions which in turn risk perpetuating additional harm via feedback loops throughout the criminal justice system. Thus, for any jurisdiction where police have been found to engage in such practices, the use of predictive policing in any context must be treated with skepticism and mechanisms for the public to examine and reject such systems are imperative.

Details: Unpublished paper, 2019. 30p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 19, 2019 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3333423

Year: 2019

Country: United States

URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3333423

Shelf Number: 154662

Keywords:
Civil Rights
Police Data
Police Misconduct
Policing
Predictive Policing
Racial Bias

Author: Perera, Jessica

Title: The London Clearances: Race, Housing and Policing

Summary: After the 2011 'riots' in England and Wales, prime minister David Cameron, London mayor Boris Johnson and Department, Works and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith laid the blame squarely on 'gangs', described as a 'major criminal disease that has infected streets and estates' and an obstacle to 'neighbourhood rejuvenation, community action and business development'. An existing discussion about what was to be done about London's so-called 'sink estates' was transformed overnight into a 'race' debate, underpinned as it was by a highly racialised alarmist language about 'gangs' and 'gang nominals' (today's equivalent of yesterday's muggers). A stigma began to be attached to black and multicultural neighbourhoods and council estates, linked now to dangerous black youth subcultures like Grime and Drill. All this happened at around the same time that the Home Office was introducing its Ending Gang and Youth Violence (EGYV) strategy, which provides local authorities financial incentives to gather data on young people in gangs or at risk of gang involvement. The Conservative government's existing Estate Regeneration Programme was also accelerated; involving the selling off of local authority-owned housing estates to private partnerships and the decanting of social housing tenants outside the capital in a process that has been described by Simon Elmer and Geraldine Dening as the 'London Clearances'. Politicians could have looked to the real causes of the riots, such as social pressures due to austerity-induced welfare benefit cuts, the closing of youth clubs, aggressive police operations and ill-thought out policies like the ending of the Educational Maintenance Allowance. Housing experts had long warned that the gradual social cleansing of London was eroding community bonds, leading to young people being dispossessed of family, community and social identity. Community workers like Stafford Scott and criminologists like Patrick Williams and Becky Clarke were charting the links between the criminalisation of young working-class BAME people in London and Manchester due to the joint enterprise doctrine, the Gangs Matrices and the moral panic around 'gangs'. Urbanisation scholars and housing activists were linking the social cleansing of the capital with the benefits accruing to another cohort of young people, this time middle-class gentrifiers. In The London Clearances: race, housing and policing the IRR seeks to build on the existing research in ways that foreground more emphatically the connections between urban policy, housing and policing. Our aim is to link knowledge which focuses on institutional racism in policing policy with that which focuses on housing dispossession, regeneration, inequality and exclusion. The purpose is not only to explore the connective tissue between housing and policing, but to develop a much-needed race and class perspective on these issues. After all, London has the largest BAME population in the country with that population predominantly concentrated in social housing. If we are to provide a wider evidence base for NGOs and community campaigns combating institutional racism in policing and/or resisting housing injustice and the race/ class social cleansing of the capital, it is ital that we examine issues of race and class simultaneously.

Details: London: Institute of Race Relations, 2019. 40p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 21, 2019 at: http://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wpmedia.outlandish.com/irr/2019/02/19145750/London-Clearances.pdf

Year: 2019

Country: United Kingdom

URL: http://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wpmedia.outlandish.com/irr/2019/02/19145750/London-Clearances.pdf

Shelf Number: 154683

Keywords:
Gangs
Neighborhoods and Crime
Race Relations
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Riots
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Reclaim Chicago

Title: Exercising Full Powers: Recommendation to Kim Foxx on Addressing Systemic Racism in the Cook County Criminal Justice System

Summary: In 2016, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx was elected in a landslide victory that was widely seen as a referendum on Cook County's criminal justice system. Voters rejected the "tough on crime" stance of Anita Alvarez as well as her cover-up of the police murder of Laquan McDonald. Voters chose, instead, a candidate who ran on a platform of holding police accountable and reversing some of the policies that led to massive increases in the number of African American and Latinx people incarcerated in Cook County. Changing practices in such a large criminal justice system is a big order. The People's Lobby and Reclaim Chicago - which organized a significant portion of Kim Foxx's electoral operation - have been working with Chicago Appleseed to report regularly on Foxx's progress to reduce incarceration. The following is a report on the first nine months of 2018 data released by the State's Attorney's Office. It includes key recommendations for how Foxx can strengthen her decarceration efforts and be a leader in rolling back the failed policies of over-policing and mass incarceration. In this report we evaluate the performance of Foxx's State's Attorney Office on four major criteria we believe are vital to the advancement of criminal justice reform and overturning decades of systematic racism in the Cook County court system. We look at the role of felony charging by the prosecutor's office and highlight limited successes in a context of rising felony charging by Foxx's office. How people are charged within the criminal justice system has far reaching consequences not just for sentencing, but also for people's ability to avoid pre-trial detention. We analyze how wealth and class effect pre-trial detention in light of recent reforms by Chief Judge Evans and attempts by Foxx to find alternatives to incarceration. This type of research and evaluation is only possible with regular, detailed access to data from the court system, so we evaluate Foxx's efforts at transparency in a court system renowned for antiquated and incomplete record keeping. The most recent data release also provides a clearer window into how gun crimes are charged and adjudicated. The data suggest that a "war on guns" is now adding to the "war on drugs" with equally disastrous results.

Details: Chicago: Authors, 2019. 12p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 25, 2019 at: http://www.uupmi.org/uploads/1/1/2/1/112170071/2019-report-kim-foxx_forweb.pdf

Year: 2019

Country: United States

URL: http://www.uupmi.org/uploads/1/1/2/1/112170071/2019-report-kim-foxx_forweb.pdf

Shelf Number: 154739

Keywords:
Criminal Justice Reform
Discrimination
Mass Incarceration
Racial Bias
Racism

Author: Chicago. Office of Inspector General

Title: Review of the Chicago Police Department's "Gang Database"

Summary: The Public Safety Section of the City of Chicago's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has concluded a review of the Chicago Police Department's gang-related data, commonly referred to by the public as the "gang database." OIG's review found that while the Chicago Police Department (CPD or the "Department") deploys a host of strategies, tactics, and technology in relation to gangs, it does not have a unified, stand-alone "gang database" as publicly perceived. Instead, the Department collects and stores information on individual and geographic gang involvement through a multitude of internal databases, forms, visualization tools, and repositories. CPD also receives gang-related data generated by external agencies. Therefore, any effort to address public concern over the purpose and practices associated with the Department's collection and use of gang information must begin with an accurate understanding of the various components and current technological limitations. OIG's review found that: 1) CPD lacks sufficient controls for generating, maintaining, and sharing gang-related data; 2) CPD's gang information practices lack procedural fairness protections; 3) CPD's gang designations raise significant data quality concerns; and 4) CPD's practices and lack of transparency regarding its gang designations strain police-community relations. OIG offers 30 recommendations on the utility, collection, maintenance, sharing, impacts, and data quality of CPD's gang designations. In response, CPD agreed with OIG's findings and largely concurred with many of OIG's recommendations and partially concurred or disagreed with others.

Details: Chicago: Author, 2019. 164p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 12, 2019 at: https://igchicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/OIG-CPD-Gang-Database-Review.pdf

Year: 2019

Country: United States

URL: https://igchicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/OIG-CPD-Gang-Database-Review.pdf

Shelf Number: 155367

Keywords:
Criminal Justice Data
Gang Violence
Gangs
Information Database
Police-Community Relations
Racial Bias
Youth Gangs

Author: Picard, Sarah

Title: Beyond the Algorithm: Pretrial Reform, Risk Assessment, and Racial Fairness

Summary: Pretrial detention, often resulting from a defendant's inability to afford bail, is one of the primary drivers of incarceration nationwide. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that two out of three people in local jails in 2016 were held while awaiting trial, having not yet been convicted of a crime. Jurisdictions looking to safely reduce their use of bail and pretrial detention have increasingly turned to automated or actuarial risk assessments. These tools employ a mathematical formula, or algorithm, to estimate the probability of a defendant incurring a new arrest or failing to appear in court. Typically, in a risk assessment, defendants' criminal history, criminogenic needs, and/or basic demographic information, such as age and gender, are weighted and combined, generating a score which can be used to group defendants into risk categories ranging from low to high. With the aid of better information about the defendants who appear before them, judges, in theory, can make more consistent decisions regarding pretrial release and bail. For example, jurisdictions that use risk assessments may be more likely to consider pretrial release for defendants in lower-risk categories, or pretrial supervision in the community for higher-risk defendants. In cases where victim or community safety is a concern, risk assessment may provide guidance regarding the need for bail or detention hearings. The appeal of pretrial risk assessment - especially in large, overburdened court systems - is of a fast and objective evaluation, harnessing the power of data to aid decision-making. Research suggests that actuarial risk assessments are more accurate than decisions made by criminal justice officials relying on professional judgment alone. By intervening in a process historically driven by subjective decision-making, risk assessments arguably act as a corrective to a system plagued by bias, as witnessed in the racial disparities long seen in incarceration rates across the country. That said, important objections have been raised that, far from disrupting racial biases in the criminal justice system, risk assessments unintentionally amplify them, only this time under the guise of science. The debate is still unresolved, but from a justice system practitioner's perspective - let alone that of a defendant - the stakes are urgent. What follows are the results of an empirical test of racial bias in risk assessment and, based on an original analysis, a consideration of whether there are policy-level solutions that could conserve the benefits of risk assessment, while also addressing valid concerns over racial fairness.

Details: New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2019. 20p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 2, 2019 at: https://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/2019-06/beyond_the_algorithm.pdf

Year: 2019

Country: United States

URL: https://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/2019-06/beyond_the_algorithm.pdf

Shelf Number: 156825

Keywords:
Bail
Court Reform
Pretrial Detention
Pretrial Justice
Pretrial Reform
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
Risk Assessment

Author: Poyker, Michael

Title: Do Private Prisons Affect Criminal Sentencing?

Summary: This paper provides causal evidence of the effect of private prisons on criminal sentencing. Our identification strategy uses state-level changes in private-prison capacity and compares changes in sentencing across trial court pairs that straddle state borders. We find that a doubling of private prison capacity raises sentence lengths by 1.1 percent, but not the likelihood of conviction. The effect is not driven by changes in state legislation, and we find no evidence for 'judicial capture'. We do find some evidence that judges may internalize the lower cost of imprisonment in private prisons. Lastly, private prisons do not appear to accentuate existing racial biases in sentencing decisions.

Details: Cambridge, Massachusetts: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2019. 46p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 19, 2019 at: https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty_pages/christian.dippel/privateprisons_sentencing.pdf

Year: 2019

Country: United States

URL: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25715

Shelf Number: 156914

Keywords:
Criminal Sentencing
Judicial Discretion
Prison
Private Prison
Racial Bias

Rutgers - School of Law, Newark

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