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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:54 am
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Results for racial discrimination
59 results foundAuthor: Equal Justice Initiative Title: Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy Summary: The staff of the Equal Justice Initiative looked closely at jury selection procedures in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee. It reviewed hundreds of court documents and interviewed more than 100 African Americans who had been excluded from juries due to racial bias. It found that some were struck from juries for stated reasons such as low intelligence, wearing glasses, manner of walking, and residing in a predominantly black neighborhood. Alabama's appellate courts found racial discrimination in jury selection in 25 death penalty cases in recent years. The Initiative also found evidence that some district attorney's offices teach prosecutors how to strike racial minorities from juries in a way that seems race-neutral. The report recommends thorough enforcement of anti-discrimination laws bearing on jury selection; penalties for prosecutors found to have engaged in discriminatory exclusions; monitoring of court proceedings and officials' conduct; greater diversity in the judiciary, district attorneys' offices, the defense bar, and law enforcement; and state action to ensure diversity in jury pools, among other remedies. Details: Montgomery, AL: Equal Justice Initiative, 2010. 61p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 118738 Keywords: JuriesJurorsRacial Discrimination |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union. Rights Working Group Title: The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the Untied States: A Follow-up Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Summary: In the 21st century, despite the United States’ obligation to comply with the human rights standards and protections embodied in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the practice of racial profiling by members of law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels remains a widespread and pervasive problem throughout the United States, impacting the lives of millions of people in African American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, Arab and Muslim communities. Data and anecdotal information from across the country reveal that racial minorities continue to be unfairly victimized when authorities investigate, stop, frisk, or search individuals based upon subjective identity-based characteristics rather than identifiable evidence of illegal activity. Victims continue to be racially or ethnically profiled while they work, drive, shop, pray, travel, and stand on the street. Details: New York: ACLU, 2009. 88p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 116252 Keywords: Human RightsMinorities, Civil RightsRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law Enforcement |
Author: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Title: Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate Summary: For 102 years, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has played a pivotal role in shaping a national agenda to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of African Americans and others who face a history of discrimination in the United States. In this new report, Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate, NAACP researchers assembled data from leading research organizations and profiled six cities to show how escalating investments in incarceration over the past 30 years have undermined educational opportunities. Misplaced Priorities represents a call to action for public officials, policymakers, and local NAACP units and members by providing a framework to implement a policy agenda that will financially prioritize investments in education over incarceration, provide equal protection under the law, eliminate sentencing policies responsible for over incarceration, and advance public safety strategies that effectively increase healthy development in communities. Misplaced Priorities echoes existing research on the impact excessive prison spending has on education budgets. Over the last two decades, as the criminal justice system came to assume a larger proportion of state discretionary dollars nationwide, state spending on prisons grew at six times the rate of state spending on higher education. In 2009, as the nation plummeted into the deepest recession in 30 years, funding for K–12 and higher education declined; however, in that same year, 33 states spent a larger proportion of their discretionary dollars on prisons than they had the year before. Details: Baltimore, MD: NAACP, 2011. 57p. Source: Internet Resource: April 25, 2011 at: http://naacp.3cdn.net/01d6f368edbe135234_bq0m68x5h.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://naacp.3cdn.net/01d6f368edbe135234_bq0m68x5h.pdf Shelf Number: 121488 Keywords: Costs of Criminal JusticeEducationMinority GroupsPrison ExpendituresPrisonersRace/EthnicityRacial Discrimination |
Author: Worden, Robert E. Title: Stops by Syracuse Police, 2006-2009 Summary: For the past decade, elected and appointed officials in many states and countless cities have expressed concerns about racially biased policing, or racial profiling. The central concern is that police use citizens’ race as the partial or complete basis for the discretionary application of their authority, particularly in making traffic stops, but also in making other stops and in poststop decisions as well (e.g., to conduct a search or frisk). Although attention to potential racial bias in policing dates historically to at least the 1960s, it was given renewed impetus and new focus by litigation in Maryland and New Jersey in the 1990s, which successfully claimed that state police targeted racial minorities for traffic stops. Contemporary concern has in many places taken the form of the collection and analysis of data on stops by police, as it has in Syracuse, where local legislation mandated data collection in 2001. Earlier this year, we volunteered to analyze the Syracuse Police Department’s data on stops. Here we report our results. First we describe the nature of the stops – the reasons for the stops, as officers recorded them, the spatial and temporal distributions of the stops (that is, where in the city they occur and at what times of the day), the characteristics of the people who are stopped (that is, their race, sex, and age), and for the most recent year, the assignments of the officers who made the stops (to the traffic division, Crime Reduction Teams, or other units). Then we present analysis that is designed to provide clues about whether the stops reflect a racial bias. This is of course the primary goal of any such analysis, but drawing inferences about the source(s) of any racial disparities from data of this kind confronts monumental analytic challenges. Such clues would, ideally, emerge from a comparison of the characteristics of the people stopped by the police with the characteristics of the people who could have been legitimately stopped by the police; any discrepancies between the former and the latter would suggest that police stops were influenced by factors other than the behavior of the citizens involved. Unfortunately, however, complete information on the latter population, which represents a suitable “benchmark,” is practically impossible to come by; this is the benchmarking problem in analyses of racial bias in police stops. Details: Albany, NY: The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc., 2010. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 26, 2011 at: http://finninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Stops-by-Syracuse-Police.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://finninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Stops-by-Syracuse-Police.pdf Shelf Number: 121502 Keywords: Police DiscretionRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementTraffic Stops |
Author: European Roma Rights Centre Title: Imperfect Justice: Anti-Roma Violence and Impunity Summary: In the present study the ERRC monitored the State response in 44 of the most violent anti-Roma attacks reported to police in the Czech Republic (14 cases), Hungary (22 cases) and Slovakia (8 cases). The individual cases presented in this study were defined on the basis of initial reporting on an incident by media and NGO sources. During ERRC follow-up with police, prosecutors and courts, information indicating multiple perpetrators or in some cases even possibly multiple incidents came to light. This information is included in the description of individual case follow-up to the extent possible. In the first phase available information about cases was collected, mostly from media and NGO partners. In the second phase, the ERRC sent a series of requests for information to responsible police departments, prosecutors and courts. The ERRC sought anonymised information related to the status and results of the police investigation, charges brought, sanction of perpetrators and the treatment of racial motive in the investigation and prosecution of the acts. The ERRC attempted to update all cases as this report was being finalised but there may be recent developments not reported in some. The information presented in this study represents the results of the investigation and prosecution of crimes against Roma: it does not aim to assess the quality of these actions as such. A number of shortcomings in the State response to violence against Roma are apparent. Details: Budapest, Hungary: European Roma Rights Centre, 2011. 34p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 26, 2011 at: http://www.errc.org/cms/upload/file/czech-hungary-slovakia-imperfect-justice-06-march-2011.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Europe URL: http://www.errc.org/cms/upload/file/czech-hungary-slovakia-imperfect-justice-06-march-2011.pdf Shelf Number: 121503 Keywords: Bias-Motivated CrimesGypsiesHate CrimesMinority GroupsRacial Discrimination |
Author: Kadar, Andras Title: Control(led) Group - Final Report on the Strategies for Effective Police Stop and Search (STEPSS) Project (2008) Summary: ID check is the most frequently used police measure in Hungary: on average, more than 1.5 million checks have been conducted in recent years. However, the practice of ID checks has not been analyzed so far. Therefore, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee sought to assess the typical grounds of ID checks and the efficiency of this police measure in the framework of a project financially supported by the European Commission’s AGIS Program and the Open Society Institute. It was also examined whether there is a discriminatory tendency regarding ID checks, namely if members of the Roma minority are ID checked in unjustified and disproportionate numbers compared to their non-Roma peers. The current report provides a brief description of the project methodology and the sometimes surprising results of the project. Details: Budapest, Hungary: Hungarian Helsinki Committee, 2008. 84p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 16, 2011 at: http://helsinki.webdialog.hu/dokumentum/MHB_STEPSS_US.pdf Year: 2008 Country: Hungary URL: http://helsinki.webdialog.hu/dokumentum/MHB_STEPSS_US.pdf Shelf Number: 121505 Keywords: GypsiesPolice DiscretionRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingTraffic Stops (Hungary) |
Author: Rights Working Group Title: Reclaiming Our Rights: Reflections on Racial Profiling in a Post-9/11 America Summary: In the summer of 2001, racial justice advocates were in the midst of a flurry of exciting developments. After years of work by advocates to fight back against the racially discriminatory impact of the “war on drugs,” the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA) had been introduced in both houses of Congress. An August hearing in the Senate encouraged hopes for passage within the year. In the private sector, giant corporations Xerox and Microsoft were being sued for racial and gender discrimination, and Coca Cola had just reached, in 2000, a record $192 million settlement in a racial bias case brought by African American employees. The Third World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance was held in early September in Durban, South Africa, to celebrate the end of apartheid and a new global commitment to fighting racial injustice. Then, on September 11th, the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., changed the nation in a single day. The loss of human life was staggering — there were nearly 3,000 victims killed by the attacks including nationals of more than 70 countries of every race and religion. Not only did all of the passengers on the planes used in the attacks die, but thousands more were killed in the crash sites of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania, and hundreds of rescue workers, fire fighters and police officers also gave their lives. Many more residents and rescue workers became ill and some also died in the months and years after the attacks, as debris and dust from the collapsed buildings were proven to be toxic for nearly one year after the attacks. In addition to these terrible losses, another significant loss occurred — the loss of civil liberties and human rights protections for many communities in the U.S. In particular, the problem of racial and religious profiling expanded dramatically under a number of new or revised government policies and programs. The decision in 2001-2002 by the Bush Administration to detain men of Arab, South Asian, or Muslim backgrounds as suspects in the new “war on terrorism” resulted in the arbitrary detention of more than 1,200 individuals. It coincided with a dramatic increase in harassment of and hate crimes against people in those communities. The newly-created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) devoted new and expanded resources toward the detention and deportation of immigrants, increasingly encouraging local police to enforce federal immigration laws and raising concerns about the racial profiling of Latino communities. DHS also joined forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies to dramatically expand surveillance and information-sharing activities through such initiatives as fusion centers and suspicious activity reporting. These activities have led to allegations of racial profiling of Arab, South Asian, Muslim, and Latino communities by federal agencies. Many state governments joined their federal counterparts in implementing racial profiling as a law enforcement technique. In 2007, the Los Angeles Police Department was forced to cancel a mapping program designed to identify potential extremists in Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim communities in Los Angeles after residents protested the plan. In the last two years, a number of states have claimed new authority to enforce federal immigration laws, enacting “papers please” legislation and mandating that local police ask individuals about their immigration or citizenship status. The infamous law enacted in Arizona in 2010—SB 1070—has now been copied and passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah, with Pennsylvania holding legislative hearings on similar legislation. Ten years later, the Rights Working Group (RWG) coalition sees the anniversary of these events as a chance to pause and remember — to reflect on our losses since September 11th and to reclaim those rights lost in the aftermath of the attacks. This collection of essays, from public offi cials, policy advocates, grassroots organizers, law enforcement offi cials, and community leaders, shares personal reflections of the struggle to overcome the pervasive human rights problem of racial profiling. Their stories and suggestions are insightful views into the challenges of the work but also the signifi cance of the struggle. Congressman John Conyers, Jr., who first introduced ERPA in 2001, offers an introduction for this collection of essays, noting why the legislation is needed today more than ever. Karen K. Narasaki reminds us that racial profiling is not new, and that we must remember the historical lessons from World War II and the internment of Japanese Americans in order to avoid making the same errors of targeting a particular community out of fear. Laura W. Murphy shares her personal recollections of the encounters her African American family had with law enforcement, and how her experience drove her and others at the ACLU to promote ERPA as an important response to biased policing. Monami Maulik describes her work as a community organizer who was overwhelmed by the racial and religious profiling targeting her community after September 11th and the steps she took to fight back. Shahid Buttar notes that September 11th was used to justify new government powers of surveillance and information-sharing that have resulted in further racial profiling of Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and other immigrant communities. Nadia Tonova and Christian Ramirez discuss the pervasive use of racial profiling on the northern and southern borders of the United States, where border communities increasingly fear contact with both the police and Customs and Border Protection officers. Pramila Jayapal offers insight into the expansion of immigration enforcement programs that have led to racial profiling of Latino and other immigrant communities across the country, impacting community safety and residents’ trust in the police. Former Police Chief Art Venegas highlights the importance of law enforcement officers taking steps to combat racial profiling within their own departments in order to be effective at promoting community safety. In the concluding essay, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin explains his commitment to reintroducing ERPA later this year, noting that racial profiling is not only an ineffective law enforcement technique but also a violation of our constitutional rights. Rights Working Group is grateful to all of them for contributing to this effort. In considering where we go next in the fight against racial profiling, Rights Working Group has provided a list of recommendations at the end of the report, including urging policymakers and community members to join the RWG Racial Profiling: Face the Truth campaign. Dr. Tracie Keesee has graciously contributed recommendations to law enforcement officers working to end racial profiling within their departments. Details: Washington, DC: Rights Working Group, 2011. 72p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 19, 2011 at: http://www.rightsworkinggroup.org/sites/default/files/RWG_911AnnivReport_2011.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.rightsworkinggroup.org/sites/default/files/RWG_911AnnivReport_2011.pdf Shelf Number: 123406 Keywords: Bias in Law EnforcementHuman RightsImmigrantsRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling (U.S.)Racial Profiling in Law EnforcementTerrorism |
Author: Sveinsson, Kjartan Pall, ed. Title: Criminal Justice v. Racial Justice: Minority Ethnic Overrepresentation in the Criminal Justice System Summary: The conviction of some of the perpetrators of the murder of Stephen Lawrence at the start of 2012 has led to a renewed focus on the institutional racism in our criminal justice system; institutional racism that meant that the Lawrence family had to wait over 18 years for any form of justice. Media comment has focused on the headline grabbing disparities in the use of stop and search, recruitment and retention in the police service, and access to justice for victims of racist violence. These are crucial issues that are addressed in this volume. Solving these disparities is an essential step in improving the lives of people from minority ethnic communities in our society by enabling them to be confident in our justice system. These are necessary steps, but not sufficient ones in reaching solutions to the ongoing and persistent racial inequalities related to crime, policing, prisons and resettlement. As Kjartan Sveinsson notes in his introduction, there are three young African Caribbean men in prison for every one at a Russell Group university. Shocking statistics like this put into perspective the scale of the challenge that we face in addressing racial inequality in our society. When we commissioned these papers at the end of 2010, we wanted to address the scope of racial inequality in the criminal justice system by encouraging contributors to think about the range of solutions available to us. These solutions range from improved monitoring and accountability for decisions, and enabling cultural change within policing, to moving beyond rhetoric in developing human rights approaches in criminal justice, and reducing economic inequality. Steps that have seen little progress (and retrenchment in some cases) over the past two years. Addressing the ongoing disproportionalities in our criminal justice system will take a relentless focus on discrimination – both personal and institutional – and the damage that it does to the system’s effectiveness at protecting victims and dealing with criminals. It will also take a broader effort to reduce inequality in our society. As Danny Dorling (Chapter 3) reminds us “greater equality does not cure racism. . .what greater equality does do is reduce the racism endemic within a society, and the crime committed and suffered by those who are a part that society”. The debate about racism in our criminal justice system needs to include a way of addressing the broader structural inequalities that delineate the opportunity structure for crime. Inequalities in education, employment, health, housing and voice form a backdrop to the way in which ‘race’ influences criminal justice. If we are to change the pattern of racial inequalities in criminal justice, we also have to be alive to the broader patterns of inequality (racial, gender and class-based) in which they are situated, and build the necessary coalitions and partnerships that it will take to address them. Details: London: Runnymede, 2012. 48p. Source: Internet Resource: accessed April 6, 2012 at: http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/CriminalJusticeVRacialJustice-2012.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/CriminalJusticeVRacialJustice-2012.pdf Shelf Number: 124885 Keywords: Race and CrimeRacial DiscriminationRacial Disparities (U.K.) |
Author: Forman, James Title: Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the New Jim Crow Summary: In the last decade, a number of scholars have called the American criminal justice system a new form of Jim Crow. These writers have effectively drawn attention to the injustices created by a facially race-neutral system that severely ostracizes offenders and stigmatizes young, poor black men as criminals. This Article argues that despite these important contributions, the Jim Crow analogy leads to a distorted view of mass incarceration. The analogy presents an incomplete account of mass incarceration’s historical origins, fails to consider black attitudes toward crime and punishment, ignores violent crimes while focusing almost exclusively on drug crimes, obscures class distinctions within the African American community, and overlooks the effects of mass incarceration on other racial groups. Finally, the Jim Crow analogy diminishes our collective memory of the Old Jim Crow’s particular harms. Details: New Haven, CT: Yale University School of Law, 2012. 47p. Source: Internet Resource: Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 243: Accessed June 27, 2012 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1966018 Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1966018 Shelf Number: 125410 Keywords: African American Prisoners (U.S.)Civil RightsDisenfranchisementRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingUrban Poor |
Author: Young, Douglas Title: Disproportionate Minority Contact in the Maryland Juvenile Justice System Summary: More than at any time in its past, Maryland is devoting resources to reducing racial and ethnic disparities in its juvenile justice system. Numerous statewide and locally targeted initiatives have been prompted in part by studies that have uncovered disparities at virtually all stages of the system, from juvenile arrest through disposition and placement. This report, which provides the first comprehensive look at the nature and extent of disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in Maryland, as well as initiatives aimed at reducing DMC, is one product of the state’s increased efforts. Unfortunately, the report repeats much the same message as earlier studies: DMC remains an entrenched problem in the state. Despite expanded efforts to reduce disparities, the state continues to struggle—and in some areas is falling further behind—in providing equal treatment of African American, Latino, and White youth involved in the juvenile justice system. But there is some good news: Certain DMC reduction programs do appear to be effective. And the research reported here represents a substantive advance in knowledge about DMC in Maryland. With results and recommendations in hand, state and local experts and practitioners have the beginnings of a road map for improving current efforts and targeting the additional resources that will surely be needed if the state is serious in its commitment to DMC reduction. Hopefully, the report will also help spur the sense of urgency and assiduous engagement and monitoring that must accompany these expanded efforts. The report and underlying research were prepared and conducted by the Institute for Governmental Service and Research at the University of Maryland, College Park, with funding from the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP). GOCCP staff, the statewide DMC coordinator, and members of the State Juvenile Council contributed valuable input to the report, and the Department of Juvenile Services commendably provided data that underlie much of the report. The report’s presentation and some of its terminology follows from constructs advanced by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), which makes states’ receipt of certain federal funds contingent on fulfilling DMC-related reporting and program mandates. Following the Introduction, the report’s sections (and this Executive Summary) roughly parallel OJJDP’s “DMC Cycle”—identification (of the extent of DMC at different stages in juvenile case processing), assessment (of factors that underlie and contribute to DMC), and program assessment (of the state’s current efforts to reduce DMC). Results from a statewide survey of juvenile justice stakeholders on DMC issues are also included in the full report and this summary. In all sections of the report and summary, statewide information is first presented, followed by available results from the state’s five largest jurisdictions (Baltimore City, and Baltimore, Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Anne Arundel Counties). Results and observations on other counties are presented when numbers are sufficiently large to appear stable and reliable. In the full report, key findings and recommendations are included in each of the chapters. In the summary, results from each of the three primary components of the DMC Cycle are vi UM – IGSR presented and then followed by a discussion of recommendations and priorities for immediate and ongoing DMC-related interventions and monitoring. Details: College Park, MD: Institute for Governmental Service and Research, University of Maryland, College Park, 2011. 164p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 2, 2012 at: http://www.goccp.maryland.gov/documents/DMC-report.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.goccp.maryland.gov/documents/DMC-report.pdf Shelf Number: 125459 Keywords: Juvenile Justice Systems (Maryland)Juvenile OffendersMinorities, JuvenilesRacial DiscriminationRacial Disparities |
Author: Equality and Human Rights Commission Title: Race Disproportionality in Stops and Searches under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 Summary: The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Stop and think report looked at police use of stop and search using the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1994 (PACE). It highlighted that the police carry out a disproportionate number of stops and searches on black and Asian people compared to white people relative to the ethnic profile of the population. New government data shows that people who are black, Asian or of a mixed ethnicity are also disproportionately stopped and searched when the police use the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Section 60 of this Act gives the police the power to stop and search any pedestrians or vehicles for offensive weapons or dangerous instruments within a specified area and during a specified period of time. The Commission asked all 40 police forces in England to disclose the grounds for authorisations using this power from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2011. It asked for data on the number of authorisations made, the time, place and rationale for those authorisations, the number of stops and searches and effectiveness in terms of weapons found and arrests. The response to these questions showed that police forces do not have the data easily available. It found discrepancies between the data provided to the Commission and information published annually by the government. This suggests that police forces could improve their processes for recording and reporting the use of this power to Government. The Commission found evidence that people from some ethnicities are stopped significantly more often than other people. The Metropolitan, Merseyside, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, West Midlands and British Transport Police forces each carried out more than 2,000 Section 60 stops and searches in 2008-11. Of these six forces, Greater Manchester, West Midlands and the British Transport Police had the highest black/white and mixed/white disproportionality ratios. The West Midlands also had the highest Asian/white disproportionality ratio. Cumbria Police found the most weapons (26 during 2008-11) and Warwickshire found the most weapons on average per authorisation (5.25). The Metropolitan Police reported the most arrests for weapons (20 during August–September 2010 alone). Some of the authorisations were directed specifically at criminal activity involving particular minorities. However, the authorisations did not always say if or why a particular ethnic group was to be targeted. This lack of transparency makes it more difficult for the police to justify the disproportionate number of black, Asian and mixed ethnicity people they stop and search. Any activity that creates a disproportionate and unfavourable effect on any ethnic minority (or any other ground protected by the Equality Act 2010) must have a legitimate justification to be lawful. Improving the transparency of their decisions should protect the police from allegations of race discrimination if the reasons for stopping and searching people with a specific ethnic background is legitimate. It will help England’s police forces to meet their pledge to improve in this area. Details: Manchester, UK: Equality ahd Human Rights Commission, 2012. 50p. Source: Internet Resource: Briefing paper 5: Accessed July 9, 2012 at: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/ehrc_-_briefing_paper_no.5_-_s60_stop_and_search.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/ehrc_-_briefing_paper_no.5_-_s60_stop_and_search.pdf Shelf Number: 125511 Keywords: Police DiscretionRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementStop and Search (U.K.) |
Author: Fagan, Jeffrey Title: Race and Selective Enforcement in Public Housing Summary: Drugs, crime and public housing are closely linked in policy and politics, and their nexus has animated several intensive drug enforcement programs targeted at public housing residents. In New York City, police systematically conduct “vertical patrols” in public housing buildings, making tens of thousands of Terry stops each year. During these patrols, both uniformed and undercover officers systematically move through the buildings, temporarily detaining and questioning residents and visitors, often at a low threshold of suspicion, and usually alleging trespass to justify the stop. We use a case-control design to identify the effects of living in one of New York City’s 330 public housing developments on the probability of stop, frisk and arrest from 2004-11. We find that the incidence rate ratio for trespass stops and arrests is more than two times greater in public housing than in the immediate surrounding neighborhoods. We decompose these effects using first differences models and find that the difference in percent Black and Hispanic populations in public housing compared to the surrounding area predicts the disparity in trespass enforcement and enforcement of other criminal law violations. The pattern of racially selective enforcement suggests the potential for systemic violations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition on racial discrimination. Details: New York: Columbia Law School, 2012. 45p. Source: Internet Resource: Columbia Public Law Research Paper No. 12-314: Accessed September 11, 2012 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2133384 Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2133384 Shelf Number: 126298 Keywords: Drugs and CrimePublic HousingRacial DiscriminationRacial DisparitiesRacial Profiling in Law Enforcement |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana Title: Unequal Under the Law: Racial Profiling in Louisiana Summary: Seven years ago, Louisiana passed the state’s first racial profiling law. It made a statement about racial equality under the law, but was a largely empty gesture in that it did not require law enforcement to document officers’ daily conduct. Almost three years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the world watched as thousands of New Orleans residents — most of them poor and black — were left stranded by the rising floodwaters. Then last year, race inequality in Louisiana was once again thrust into the national spotlight when six African-American students were suspended and arrested under dubious circumstances in Jena. Racial profiling erodes our system of justice. It erodes the public’s faith in the police, and the police’s trust in the community. Assumptions take the place of facts—facts which are needed to fight crime and make our neighborhoods safer. The American Civil Liberties Union is dedicated to the principle that all people should be treated equally under the law. In 2007, we began an investigation to find out whether racial profiling is still occurring in Louisiana, and if so, which areas have the worst problem. We collected arrest and booking data for the first three months of 2007 from three parishes in Louisiana, analyzed the numbers, reviewed law enforcement policies and looked into individual complaints of racial profiling. This is a summary of what we found. Racial profiling remains a problem in Louisiana. In the worst areas, in towns like Bunkie and Mansfield, black people are two to three times as likely to be arrested as white people. There remains a common perception that African-Americans are more likely to be driving a stolen car, carrying drugs, or involved in illegal activity when pulled over than white people, but many studies have shown this perception to be untrue. There is a growing body of evidence—studies by Attorney General Offices, watchdog organizations and the U.S. Department of Justice—showing black drivers violate laws less frequently or at the same rates as white drivers. Our report puts three parishes under the magnifying lens. It is a small window into racial profiling in Louisiana and law enforcement policies which have a disparate effect on people of color. We urge Louisiana legislators to amend the current law and require all law enforcement agencies to collect and report racial data on all traffic stops. This would be a vital step towards stopping racial profiling. Armed with this information, police chiefs will have a better idea of how their officers are behaving and how to strengthen law enforcement overall. Details: New Orleans, LA: American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, 2008. 26p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 30, 2012 at http://www.laaclu.org/PDF_documents/unequal_under_law_web.pdf Year: 2008 Country: United States URL: http://www.laaclu.org/PDF_documents/unequal_under_law_web.pdf Shelf Number: 126521 Keywords: LegislationRacial DiscriminationRacial DisparitiesRacial Profiling (Louisiana) |
Author: Lindekilde, Lassee Title: Impact of Counter-Terrorism on Communities: Denmark Background Report Summary: This report provides background information for understanding and assessing the impact and effectiveness of Danish counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation policies on minority ethno-cultural communities, in particular Muslim ones. The report contextualises questions of impact – positive as well as negative – in Denmark in terms of the demographic/socio-economic profile of immigrants; general perceptions of threats from terrorism and perceptions of discrimination experienced by minorities; the legal framework of counter-terrorism; policies of radicalisation prevention and their implementation in practice; key institutional structures of counter-terrorism and division of labour; high profile terrorist court-cases; and developments in the general political climate and public discourse regarding issues of ‘integration’ and security. Part 1 of this report focuses on the demographic and socio-economic profile of minority communities in Denmark and on their perceptions of discrimination. It shows that immigrants from non-Western countries and their descendants, most of whom are of Muslim origin, currently make up 6.8% of the Danish population, a proportion which is expected to increase to around 10% by 2050. These communities are of relatively recent origin: nearly all came after 1967, and 67% arrived in, or were born in, Denmark after 1980. Their socio-economic profile indicates relative disadvantage. Even allowing for the fact that they are younger than the general population, they are disproportionately absent from the labour market: only 50% of those of working age are employed, against 74% of ethnic Danes. 75% of ethnic Danes but only 49% of descendants from non-Western countries complete some form of further or vocational education. Those immigrants and descendants from non-Western countries who are employed are generally found at the lowest levels of the labour market. With regard to discrimination, one regular survey shows perceptions of discrimination on grounds of ethnicity/religion declining from 40% in 2000 to 31% in 2011, with discrimination encountered primarily in the workplace. Official figures for hate crimes report only a handful each year, but these figures are probably not reliable, and one survey reported a suspected racial motive in 10% of cases of violence and vandalism. Part 2 introduces the legal context of counter-terrorism in Denmark. It shows how Danish counterterrorism legislation was introduced in two main packages, one in 2002 and one in 2006, and looks at checks on counter-terrorism powers, both formal and in the shape of reactions in the public debate. In general, the 2002 and 2006 packages simply implement Council of the European Union, Council of Europe and United Nations resolutions, while the definition of terrorism employed is taken almost wordfor- word from the Council of the European Union resolution. Where Danish legislation has gone beyond these international models is primarily in regard to electronic surveillance and data collection, most notably in increasing access by the internal security service to the wealth of centrally linked, very detailed and generally accurate data concerning all individuals resident in Denmark that is held by various government departments and agencies. The use of secret evidence is also permitted in terrorism cases. Police gained stop-and-search powers in specified areas of Denmark in 2004, but in response to gang violence rather than terrorism. These powers are perceived to have been used especially against minority youths. Checks on all these powers consist primarily of international human rights law, which has occasionally been invoked in Danish courts, sometimes with success. There has been much public criticism surrounding the use of secret evidence to land convictions, and notably concern that in at least one case, a police informant may have been acting as an agent provocateur. Part 3 deals with Danish counter-radicalisation policies, while providing an overview of how these are perceived by the general public and by minority communities. This part shows how comprehensive counter-radicalisation measures were implemented in Denmark by one government in 2009 and then tacitly revised by another in 2011-12. The 2009 policy defined extremism very widely to include intolerant ideas and attitudes, and its counter-radicalisation measures included spreading information concerning democracy and citizenship. These and other measures were implemented by a range of local government bodies, building on existing practices, and coordinated and reinforced by a central government body. They included targeted interventions, initially by local government and mentors and ultimately by the internal security service. Of these measures, only the targeted interventions have been retained since the change of government in 2011. Part 3 also covers arrangements for oversight of both the internal security and foreign intelligence services, which are currently being revised following a number of controversial events, only one of which was connected to terrorism. Looking at the level of general trust and experiences of discrimination by the police among ethnic minority groups, it can be concluded that although trust is relatively high in comparative terms, there are groups of predominantly young male immigrant descendants living in urban areas who socialise little with ethnic Danes, who in general have lower average trust in the police and who experience a high level of police discrimination, notably in connection with ‘inspection zones’ in which stop-and-search powers can be used. Part 4 focuses on security threats and cases of terrorism in Denmark. There has been no successful terrorist attack in Denmark since 2001, but there have been thirteen high-profile terrorist cases. Two of these involved the extreme left, while extreme right-wing violence has not so far been prosecuted as terrorism in Denmark, though there are signs of changes in attitudes since the Breivik attacks. Two cases involved attempted attacks on Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist responsible for the best-known cartoon published during the Cartoon Crisis (the one of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban), and four cases involved attempted attacks from outside Denmark against the offices of Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that printed the cartoons. Other cases involved assistance to, or preparation for, terrorism; no targets were actually established. Part 5 offers a brief account of the development of the political climate in Denmark with regard to counter-terrorism and minority communities from 2001 until today. It shows that three events have had a significant impact on majority-minority relations in Denmark since 2001. One was the 2001 election campaign, which focused on ‘new politics’ issues of immigration, identity, and security. The second was the Cartoon Crisis of 2005-06, which took place against the background of the ‘new politics’ issues that had emerged in 2001, and caused a division in the public mind between ‘good Muslims’ and ‘bad Muslims’, as well as playing a part in the development of the original counter-radicalisation policies considered in part 3 of this report. The third was the election of 2011, which marked a turn away from the identity questions that had dominated the political agenda over the previous decade, and led to subsequent modifications in counter-radicalisation policies. Whether this last change will prove temporary or permanent remains to be seen. Part 6 of this report presents and discusses existing academic and official literature dealing with the impact and effectiveness of counter-terrorism measures and of radicalisation prevention policies on minority groups in Denmark. Counter-terrorism measures might be considered a success in the sense that there has been no successful terrorist attack in Denmark, but less so in terms of the possible contribution to the construction of Danish Muslims as a ‘suspect community’. Radicalisation prevention policies may be judged a success in terms of output, but outcomes are harder to assess. Some interventions may have worked, but certain academic studies, notably that of Lindekilde, indicate that counter-radicalisation discourses may have had an opposite impact from that intended, whether through frustrations generated by role-model campaigns or through the exclusion from the public debate of voices that fear accusations of radicalism, leaving the field open to those who have may have less to lose from such accusations. Three methodological challenges are identified: the case-based and anecdotal nature of the available data, which makes generalisation of impacts and valid conclusions on causality difficult; the difficulty of excluding alternative explanations of observed impact; and the often multiple, layered and abstract policy objectives, that create major problems in designing clear indicators of success. Details: London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2012. 73p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 2, 2012 at: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Country_report_Denmark_AD_15_Oct_forwebsite.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Denmark URL: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Country_report_Denmark_AD_15_Oct_forwebsite.pdf Shelf Number: 126852 Keywords: Counter-Terrorism (Denmark)MinoritiesRacial DiscriminationRadical GroupsRadicalizationRight-Wing ViolenceSocio-Economic ConditionsTerrorists |
Author: Eijkman, Quirine Title: Impact of Counter-Terrorism on Communities: Netherlands Background Report Summary: This country report sets the context for research on the impact of counter-terrorism legislation and policies on racial, ethnic and religious minority communities in the Netherlands. Despite the fact that over the last decade various security measures have been assessed, there are few studies on their context-specific effect. This report discusses the Dutch population and community situation, the counter-terrorism legal framework, its policy and policing background as well as security and political perspectives. It concludes that, in the years since 9/11, the Madrid and London terror attacks, and the murder of filmmaker and Islam-critic Theo van Gogh, fear of terrorism has decreased. Furthermore, the general public appears more concerned about the effect that security measures have on their civil rights and liberties. Public security and crime-prevention remain high on the political agenda and various trends, including the emergence of anticipatory criminal justice, the use and availability of ethnic data and the strength of populist parties mobilising around (cr)immigration and integration, have made the risk of side-effects of security measures for minority communities more pertinent. The apparently decreased political and public support for the anti-discrimination framework and the weak socio-economic position and institutional representation of ethnic minorities and migrants, contribute to the necessity of sound empirical research on the impact of security measures on minority, especially Muslim, communities in the Netherlands. Details: London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2012. 80p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 5, 2012 at: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Netherlands_FINAL.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Netherlands URL: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Netherlands_FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 126880 Keywords: Counter-Terrorism (Netherlands)MinoritiesMuslimsRacial DiscriminationRadical GroupsSocio-Economic ConditionsTerrorists |
Author: Ramalingam, Vidhya Title: Impact of Counter-Terrorism on Communities: Sweden Background Report Summary: This report provides an overview of the development of counter-terrorism policies and policing in Sweden, and the impact these have had on minority communities in Sweden, particularly Muslim communities. The report presents existing research and information on demographics and socio-economic contexts of ethnic minority communities, the development of a legal framework to address terrorism, the history of policy and policing with regard to counter-terrorism, the security context and attitudes towards counter-terrorism, and the political context surrounding migration, citizenship and terrorism. Part One outlines the history and current context of immigration and settlement of ethnic minority groups in Sweden, and provides a background on Sweden’s demographics. In recent years, ethnic minorities, and Muslim communities in particular, have been a major focus of counter-terrorism measures and discourse in Sweden. This section provides an overview of Muslim migration to and settlement in Sweden, and the mixed and unfavourable outcomes for Muslims and other minority groups in the labour market, education and housing. It sets out recent data on ethnic and religious discrimination in Sweden, particularly towards Muslims after 9/11. Finally, this section outlines levels of cooperation between the government and Muslim civil society organisations, and notes that there have been high levels of cooperation; Muslim civil society organisations have also received generous funding from the state and Swedish foundations. Part Two details the key legislation used in relation to counter-terrorism in Sweden. Sweden was first confronted with acts of terrorism in the early 1970s, and the government introduced the first anti-terrorist legislation in 1973. It sets out the criminalisation of terrorist attacks, legal definitions of terrorism, and the institution of special laws on criminal responsibility for financing terrorism. This section furthermore discusses the legal framework for investigatory measures and surveillance, including the controversial FRA law which had allowed the National Defence Radio Establishment to monitor all phone and email communications to and within Sweden without warrant, and, after heavy criticism, was amended in 2009 to improve privacy. Part Two ends with a discussion of checks and balances on counter-terrorism measures and laws. Part Three covers the policy context for counter-terrorism, providing an overview of the key policies in place to counter terrorism and violent extremism in Sweden. These include the ‘Action plan to safeguard democracy against violence-promoting extremism’, presented in December 2011, and ‘Sweden’s national counter-terrorism strategy’, presented by the government in February 2012. This section presents the key institutional structures, including the structure of the Swedish Police Service, and roles and responsibilities in countering terrorism in Sweden. It then outlines mechanisms for accountability within for these structures, detailing parliamentary committees and consultations set up to scrutinise the work of the police and other institutions. The section ends with a discussion of police behaviour and incidences of police misconduct and discrimination in Sweden. Several key incidents have drawn attention to the problem of racial profiling by the police in Sweden. Part Four discusses Swedish experiences with terrorism, providing an account of terrorist incidents in Sweden since the early 1970s, when cases of Croatian separatist terrorism brought terrorism onto the political agenda. This section includes the numbers of arrests, trials and convictions for terrorism offences in Sweden, and details several key events in recent years that have contributed to increased concerns about terrorism. This includes the 2007 publication of a series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which sparked protests and violent threats towards Sweden and the cartoonist himself. The most recent significant terrorist attack on Swedish soil was the December 2010 suicide bombing in Stockholm, perpetrated by a Swedish citizen of Iraqi descent. This section also discusses perceptions of the threat of terrorism among the Swedish public. Part Five explains the political climate surrounding minority communities and counter-terrorism in Sweden, and how political parties have addressed issues concerning migration, citizenship, security and terrorism. Though Swedish politics has historically been characterised by consensus across party lines on the subject of immigration, and such issues have not been politicised, recent years have seen the perceived importance of immigration and terrorism as political issues grow. The emergence of the Sweden Democrats -an anti-immigrant party arguing for increased political attention to Islamist extremism and the ‘threat’ posed by Muslim communities- in Parliament has not wavered the positions of mainstream parties on these issues. However, this section notes that the climate has become much harsher and the ‘tough on crime’ card is more often played in election campaigns, and immigrants and Muslim communities in particular are often presented as ‘problem’ communities in this respect. This shift in climate has significantly impacted ethnic and religious minorities in Sweden, and has had a particularly negative impact on Muslim communities, who have increasingly become the victims of suspicion and hatred, manifested in discrimination and violence. This report draws upon existing research on the Swedish population, the development of migrant and minority communities, and in particular Muslim communities. It refers to official government communications and external analyses to paint a picture of the legal and policy approaches to counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism in Sweden. Though there are Ombudsman statistics available on mistreatment by the police, and there has been some recent research to better understand attitudes and discriminatory behaviour within the police, more work must be done to assess the relationship between minority communities and the police. There has been little research directly on the impacts of counter-terrorism measures on Muslim communities in Sweden, and this report lays the groundwork for future inquiries on this issue. Given the existing state of research, it is, however, clear that through a combination of persistent socio-economic disadvantage, shifts in the political climate on security and migrant communities, the occurrence of Sweden’s first suicide bombing by an Islamist extremist, and increased government attention paid to Islamist extremism in Sweden, Muslim communities in Sweden have increasingly been subject both to suspicion and discrimination. Details: London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2012. 53p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 5, 2012 at: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Sweden_paper_SF_FINAL.docx.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Sweden URL: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Sweden_paper_SF_FINAL.docx.pdf Shelf Number: 126884 Keywords: Counter-Terrorism (Sweden)MinoritiesRacial DiscriminationRadical GroupsRadicalizationRight-Wing ViolenceSocio-Economic ConditionsTerrorists |
Author: Camilleri, Raphaelle Title: Impact of Counter-Terrorism on Communities: France Background Report Summary: This report aims to provide an overview of French counter-terrorist and counter-radicalisation policies, and assess their potential impact on the Muslim community in France. Part One focuses on the demographic composition and socioeconomic profile of the French Muslim community; the largest such community in the European Union. It finds that the Muslim community has generally tended to be marginalised in socioeconomic terms in relation to the mainstream French population, and that Muslims frequently report higher rates of discrimination than other immigrant communities in France. This broad finding helps inform subsequent sections, which look specifically at perceived discrimination by French police and security services on the basis of racial or ethnic origin. Part Two focuses on the legal framework within which French counter-terrorism policy is anchored. It reviews the development of counter-terrorist legislation since the mid-1980s, and explains how French legislation has evolved in recent years to tackle the new challenges posed by novel forms of terrorism. This section of the report also outlines the key pieces of legislation governing the operation of law enforcement and intelligence agencies involved in the fight against terrorism in France. It concludes by providing an overview of the main constitutional and institutional mechanisms which place checks and balances on the operation of the police agencies responsible for implementing counter-terrorist policies. Part Three of the report focuses on the law-enforcement agencies responsible for enacting counterterrorist policies ‘on the ground’. It provides a comprehensive list of the key government departments, as well as policing and intelligence agencies, involved in the fight against terrorism, and assesses the nature of their (often troubled) relationship with affected communities. Although more research is needed in this area, initial findings seem to suggest that Muslim communities generally perceive themselves to be unfairly targeted by the police on the basis of their ethnic or religious background. In light of these circumstances, In light of these circumstances, this section of the report also outlines official guidelines on non-discrimination and lists the various governmental and non-governmental institutions charged with protecting the rights of citizens. Part Four of the report looks at the broader security context within which counter-terrorist policies and legislation have been formulated in France. It critically assesses the extent of the terrorist threat in France, both in real and perceived terms. Two significant findings emerge. Firstly, despite the focus on religiouslymotivated Islamist terrorism since 2001, separatism terrorism carried out by Basque and Corsican nationalist groups continues to be the most pressing threat posed to the French state. Secondly, despite the initial trauma caused by Mohammed Merah’s killing spree, French public opinion nevertheless deems the terrorist threat to be quite low, suggesting that the French public does not regard terrorism as a pressing threat. Part Five builds on these initial observations by focusing on the way in which French political parties have framed the terrorist threat (particularly that emanating from suspected Islamists) especially in the aftermath of the Toulouse and Montauban shootings. It examines the impact of the shootings on the presidential race, but finds little evidence that they had any bearing on the final outcome of the election. Nevertheless, the strong performance of the far-right movement of Marine Le Pen (Front National) at the polls is underlined, but it is balanced against the conciliatory tone recently adopted by the left-wing government of François Hollande on security issues. Throughout this report, existing research by academic institutions, think tanks and government bodies on the impact of counter-terrorism policies on the Muslim community is referenced when relevant. Notable gaps in the literature are also highlighted, along with recommendations for further research. A full bibliography is provided for reference at the end of the document, as is an exhaustive list of academics, researchers, policymakers and civil society organisations, which may make a substantial contribution to future research in this area. Details: London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2012. 49p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 29, 2012 at: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Country_report_France_SF_FINAL.pdf Year: 2012 Country: France URL: http://www.strategicdialogue.org/Country_report_France_SF_FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 127033 Keywords: Counter-Terrorism (France)MinoritiesMuslimsRacial DiscriminationRadical GroupsRadicalizationRight-Wing ViolenceSocio-Economic ConditionsTerrorism |
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 BiasRacial Discrimination |
Author: James, Lois Title: The Influence of Suspect Race and Ethnicity on Decisions to Shoot in a Deadly Force Judgment and Decision-Making Simulator Summary: During the past several decades substantial research has addressed the broad public concern that suspect race and ethnicity influences police use of deadly force. Previous research based on incident reports of police shootings and experimental research using still images as stimuli prompts have supported two, contrasting hypotheses: (1) that police in the United States disproportionally shoot Black suspects because of racial bias, or (2) that police disproportionally shoot Black suspects because they were more likely than Whites to constitute a threat. The goal of this dissertation was to shed empirical light on these competing hypotheses by advancing the methodological techniques used to examine the influence of suspect race and ethnicity on police use of deadly force. After developing and testing a novel set of sixty realistic, high definition video deadly force scenarios based on thirty years of official data on officer-involved shootings in the United States, three experiments were conducted testing participant responses to the scenarios in computerized simulators. In each experiment, participants were presented with White, Black and Hispanic suspects in potentially deadly situations. In the first experiment (n = 24), we found that participants took longer to shoot Black suspects than White or Hispanic suspects, were more likely to shoot unarmed White suspects than unarmed Black or Hispanic suspects, and were more likely to fail to shoot armed Black suspects than armed White or Hispanic suspects. In the second experiment (n = 48), we found that participants experienced higher levels of neurophysiological arousal in response to Black suspects than White or Hispanic suspects, but still took longest to shoot Black suspects. In the third experiment (n = 30), we found that across both fatigued and rested conditions participants took longer to shoot Black suspects than White or Hispanic suspects, and were more likely to shoot unarmed White suspects than unarmed Black or Hispanic suspects. In sum, this research demonstrated that neither of the two dominant hypotheses is sufficient to explain racial and ethnic bias in police use of deadly force. Despite evidence of implicit racial bias, participants displayed significant bias favoring Black suspects in their decisions to shoot. The results of these three experiments using a more externally valid research design have challenged the results of less robust experimental designs and have shed additional light on the broad issue of the role that status characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, play in the criminal justice system. Future research should assess whether this finding holds among other populations of research subjects, determine whether bias favoring Black suspects is a consequence of administrative measures (e.g., education, training, policies and laws), and identify the cognitive processes that underlie this phenomenon. Details: Pullman, WA: Washington State University, Department of Criminal Justice, 2011. 138p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed April 16, 2013 at: https://research.wsulibs.wsu.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2376/3010/James_wsu_0251E_10245.pdf?sequence=1 Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: https://research.wsulibs.wsu.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2376/3010/James_wsu_0251E_10245.pdf?sequence=1 Shelf Number: 128384 Keywords: Police Decision-MakingPolice Use of Deadly ForcePolice Use of Force (U.S.)Racial Discrimination |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union Title: The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests Summary: This report is the first to examine marijuana possession arrest rates by race for all 50 states (and the District of Columbia) and their respective counties from 2001 to 2010. The report relies on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program and the United States Census’ annual county population estimates to document arrest rates by race per 100,000 for marijuana possession. The report finds that between 2001 and 2010, there were over 8 million marijuana arrests in the United States, 88% of which were for possession. Marijuana arrests have increased between 2001 and 2010 and now account for over half (52%) of all drug arrests in the United States, and marijuana possession arrests account for nearly half (46%) of all drug arrests. In 2010, there was one marijuana arrest every 37 seconds, and states spent combined over $3.6 billion enforcing marijuana possession laws. The report also finds that, on average, a Black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though Blacks and whites use marijuana at similar rates. Such racial disparities in marijuana possession arrests exist in all regions of the country, in counties large and small, urban and rural, wealthy and poor, and with large and small Black populations. Indeed, in over 96% of counties with more than 30,000 people in which at least 2% of the residents are Black, Blacks are arrested at higher rates than whites for marijuana possession. The report concludes that the War on Marijuana, like the larger War on Drugs of which it is a part, is a failure. It has needlessly ensnared hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system, had a staggeringly disproportionate impact on African- Americans, and comes at a tremendous human and financial cost. The price paid by those arrested and convicted of marijuana possession can be significant and linger for years, if not a lifetime. Arrests and convictions for possessing marijuana can negatively impact public housing and student financial aid eligibility, employment opportunities, child custody determinations, and immigration status. Further, the War on Marijuana has been a fiscal fiasco. The taxpayers’ dollars that law enforcement agencies waste enforcing marijuana possession laws could be better spent on addressing and solving serious crimes and working collaboratively with communities to build trust and increase public health and safety. Despite the fact that aggressive enforcement of marijuana laws has been an increasing priority of police departments across the country, and that states have spent billions of dollars on such enforcement, it has failed to diminish marijuana’s use or availability. To repair this country’s wrecked War on Marijuana, the ACLU recommends that marijuana be legalized for persons 21 or older through a system of taxation, licensing, and regulation. Legalization is the smartest and surest way to end targeted enforcement of marijuana laws in communities of color, and, moreover, would eliminate the costs of such enforcement while generating revenue for cash-strapped states. States could then reinvest the money saved and generated into public schools and public health programs, including substance abuse treatment. If legalization is not possible, the ACLU recommends depenalizing marijuana use and possession for persons 21 or older by removing all attendant civil and criminal penalties, or, if depenalization is unobtainable, decriminalizing marijuana use and possession for adults and youth by classifying such activities as civil, not criminal, offenses. The ACLU also recommends that until legalization or depenalization is achieved, law enforcement agencies and district attorney offices should deprioritize enforcement of marijuana possession laws. In addition, police should end racial profiling and unconstitutional stop, frisk, and search practices, and no longer measure success and productivity by the number of arrests they make. Further, states and the federal government should eliminate the financial incentives and rewards that enable and encourage law enforcement to make large numbers of arrests, including for low-level offenses such as marijuana possession. In sum, it is time to end marijuana possession arrests. Details: New York: ACLU, 2013. 187p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 6, 2013 at: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf Shelf Number: 128970 Keywords: Drug EnforcementDrug LegalizationMarijuana (U.S.)Racial DiscriminationRacial DisparitiesRacial Profiling in Law Enforcement |
Author: Roitman, karem Title: Longos' and 'Cholos' 'Ethnic/Racial' Discrimination Among Mestizos in Ecuador Summary: This paper presents some of the processes of ethnic/racial discrimination taking place in Ecuador but which have thus far remained hidden from research and policy making by representations of Ecuador as a homogenously mixed or ‘mestizo’ state. To uncover these processes, this paper explores how those generally identified as Ecuadorian upper-class 'white-mestizos' in Ecuador's two main cities, Guayaquil and Quito, represent their ethnic identity and that of others in relation to the state's hegemonic discourse of mestizaje or 'mixture'. By looking at the terminology used to refer to certain mestizos, i.e. longo and cholo, this paper argues that the upperclasses' use of mestizaje hides discriminatory practices that inhibit the creation of socio-economic networks among mestizos and, therefore, render the returns from education for certain individuals limited, also checking their opportunities in the labour market and impeding their social mobility. The state's promises of social inclusion and advancement through mestizaje are, therefore, rendered empty. Details: Oxford, UK: CRISE (Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity), 2008. 29p. Source: Internet Resource: CRISE Working Paper No. 58: Accessed July 3, 2013 at: http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/PDF/Outputs/Inequality/wp58.pdf Year: 2008 Country: Ecuador URL: http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/PDF/Outputs/Inequality/wp58.pdf Shelf Number: 129244 Keywords: Racial DiscriminationRacism (Ecuador)Socioeconomic Status |
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 CrimesHate CrimesRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRacism (Australia) |
Author: Great Britain. Law Commission Title: Hate Crime: Should the Current Offences be Extended? Summary: The Governments Hate Crime Action Plan was published in March 2012. It describes the following as core principles underlying the Governments approach to hate crime: (1) preventing hate crime by challenging the attitudes that underpin it, and early intervention to prevent it escalating; (2) increasing reporting and access to support by building victim confidence and supporting local partnerships; (3) improving the operational response to hate crimes by better identifying and managing cases, and dealing effectively with offenders. Police, prosecution and other agencies currently record as a hate crime any offence perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on any of the following five protected characteristics: race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. However, existing criminal offences dealing specifically with hate crime do not cover hostility or hatred in respect of all five of these characteristics. This project has considered whether the hate crime offences should cover all five characteristics. Details: London: The Law Commission, 2014. 230p. Source: Internet Resource: Cm 8865: Accessed June 16, 2014 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/316099/9781474104852_Web.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/316099/9781474104852_Web.pdf Shelf Number: 132465 Keywords: Bias-Motivated Crimes Criminal Law Hate Crime (U.K.) Racial Discrimination |
Author: Ghandnoosh, Nazgol Title: Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice System Summary: A new publication from The Sentencing Project provides a comprehensive review of programs and policies across the nation and identifies a broad range of initiatives that can address racial disparities at all levels of the criminal justice system. Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice System highlights initiatives in more than 20 states designed to address the criminal justice system's high rate of contact with people of color. In the wake of the tragedies in Ferguson and other cities, excessive police contact has been identified as a major cause of the disproportionate rate of fatal police encounters for African Americans and Latinos. The report identifies four key features of the criminal justice system that produce racially unequal outcomes, beyond the conditions of socioeconomic inequality that contribute to higher rates of some crimes in marginalized communities, and showcases initiatives to abate these sources of inequity in adult and juvenile justice systems around the country. Details: Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2015. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 4, 2015 at: http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_Black_Lives_Matter.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_Black_Lives_Matter.pdf Shelf Number: 134529 Keywords: Minorities GroupsRacial DiscriminationRacial Disparities (U.S.) |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island Title: The School-to-Prison Pipeline in Black and White Summary: American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today issued a report calling on state and municipal leaders to examine policies, practices and procedures that lead to discriminatory treatment of black Rhode Islanders, from elementary school through adulthood. The ACLU report, titled "The School-to-Prison Pipeline in Black and White," offers a brief but systematic examination of racial disparities in Rhode Island, and how those interconnected disparities can lead to a lifetime of unequal treatment. The report, presented in a series of twelve charts, comes as the nation celebrates Black History Month, and grapples with recent events that have pushed racial disparity issues back into the forefront. Data has long shown that black Rhode Islanders are disproportionally suspended from school, stopped and searched by police, arrested, and incarcerated. When this data is compiled, as it is in today's report, it becomes clear that the disproportionate singling out, scrutinizing, and punishing of black Rhode Islanders is a persistent and far-reaching problem and one that contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline, a systematic pattern of pushing students, especially minorities, out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system. The series of charts in today's report show how the disparate punishments doled out as early as elementary school lead to more black youth being swept up in the juvenile justice system where they face harsher punishment than their white counterparts. As adults, black Rhode Islanders are disproportionately stopped and searched by police, exacerbating disparities in arrest rates even when black and white individuals commit infractions at roughly the same rate. The end result of these racial disparities is a prison population that is disproportionately black. This racial disparity leaves the black community to bear the brunt of the socioeconomic consequences that follow incarceration, including lack of employment and denial of housing, perpetuating the cycle of unequal treatment. "Despite this growing body of evidence and consistent work by many to address these disparities, Rhode Island has lacked a comprehensive, strong response to resolve these issues. Worse, even as these disparities persist in the background, too many people still refuse to acknowledge their presence and the damaging effects that flow from them," the report stated. The ACLU urged the state and local leaders, particularly law enforcement agencies and school districts, to help stop the school-to-prison pipeline by regularly examining racial impact of their policies and procedures and developing plans to reduce any racial disparities. The ACLU also continues to support strong, comprehensive racial profiling legislation and legislation limiting the use of out-of-school suspensions. Details: Providence, RI: ACLU of Rhode Island, 2015. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 4, 2015 at: http://riaclu.org/images/uploads/School_to_Prison_Pipeline_in_Black_and_White_2015.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://riaclu.org/images/uploads/School_to_Prison_Pipeline_in_Black_and_White_2015.pdf Shelf Number: 134748 Keywords: Racial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingSchool Discipline (Rhode Island)School SuspensionZero Tolerance |
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 PolicyCriminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice SystemsPublic SafetyRacial BiasRacial Discrimination |
Author: Fagan, Jeffrey Title: Stops and Stares: Street Stops, Surveillance and Race in the New Policing Summary: The use of proactive tactics to disrupt criminal activities, such as Terry street stops and concentrated misdemeanor arrests, are essential to the "new policing." This model applies complex metrics, strong management, and aggressive enforcement and surveillance to focus policing on high crime risk persons and places. The tactics endemic to the "new policing" gave rise in the 1990s to popular, legal, political and social science concerns about disparate treatment of minority groups in their everyday encounters with law enforcement. Empirical evidence showed that minorities were indeed stopped and arrested more frequently than similarly situated whites, even when controlling for local social and crime conditions. In this article, we examine racial disparities under a unique configuration of the street stop prong of the "new policing" - the inclusion of non-contact observations (or surveillances) in the field interrogation (or investigative stop) activity of Boston Police Department officers. We show that Boston Police officers focus significant portions of their field investigation activity in two areas: suspected and actual gang members, and the city's high crime areas. Minority neighborhoods experience higher levels of field interrogation and surveillance activity net of crime and other social factors. Relative to white suspects, Black suspects are more likely to be observed, interrogated, and frisked or searched controlling for gang membership and prior arrest history. Moreover, relative to their black counterparts, white police officers conduct high numbers of field investigations and are more likely to frisk/search subjects of all races. We distinguish between preference-based and statistical discrimination by comparing stops by officer-suspect racial pairs. If officer activity is independent of officer race, we would infer that disproportionate stops of minorities reflect statistical discrimination. We show instead that officers seem more likely to investigate and frisk or search a minority suspect if officer and suspect race differ. We locate these results in the broader tensions of racial profiling that pose recurring social and constitutional concerns in the "new policing." Details: New York: Columbia Law School, Public Law & Legal Theory Working Paper Group, 2015. 73p. Source: Internet Resource: Columbia Public Law Research Paper No. 14-479 : Accessed September 5, 2015 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2650154 Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2650154 Shelf Number: 136685 Keywords: Racial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementStop and SearchSurveillance |
Author: Simon, Adam F. Title: Framing and Facts: Necessary Synergies in Communicating about Public Safety and Criminal Justice Summary: It can be argued that nothing is as emblematic of the travails of race in American life as the criminal justice system. Criminal justice advocates have long used facts about the system's racial biases to call for the need for sweeping reforms - advocating for changes to make the system more equitable, efficient and effective in improving public safety for all Americans. The following statistics, for example, have become commonplace in the advocacy discourse and in media coverage more generally: - The United States is the world's No. 1 jailer; - Black men have a 32 percent chance of spending time in prison at some point in their lives, Latino men have a 17 percent chance, and white men have a 6 percent chance of being imprisoned over their lifetime; - Blacks are 17 percent of the juvenile population but 46 percent of juvenile arrests and 41 percent of waivers to adult court. On top of these facts, evidence of the extent and costs of mass incarceration is staggering. In times of fiscal constraints, current levels of prison expenditures are clearly unsustainable. Recent public opinion research suggests that, to some extent, Americans have come to recognize problems with the criminal justice system, particularly in terms of its racial bias. For example, a recent Pew study reports that 70 percent of African Americans and almost 40 percent of whites believe that black Americans receive unequal treatment by the police. The same study also indicates that almost 70 percent of African Americans and 30 percent of whites believe that the courts do not treat black and white Americans equally. In the court of public opinion, the ground seems fertile for the reform of the criminal justice system. So, if the American public believes the system discriminates against men of color, the data underscore the significance of these racial disparities, and the price of incarceration is so clearly unsustainable, why is advocating for reform so difficult? One answer is that the advocacy community is not framing the issue in a way that allows Americans to connect understandings of the system's problems with a set of viable solutions.5 Without such a connection, we argue, momentum for reform is lost when people cannot connect their values for the society to specific system reforms and policy changes. Energy dissipates; opposition manipulates opinion and gains ground while citizens are unable to make the case for the reforms they struggle to articulate. Details: Washington, DC: Frameworks Institute, 2013. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 8, 2016 at: http://www.frameworksinstitute.org/assets/files/pscj_values_and_facts.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.frameworksinstitute.org/assets/files/pscj_values_and_facts.pdf Shelf Number: 137441 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformPublic AttitudesPublic OpinionPublic SafetyRace and CrimeRacial DiscriminationRacial Disparities |
Author: Redfield, Sarah E. Title: School-To-Prison Pipeline: Preliminary Report Summary: In 2014, the American Bar Association (ABA) Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice (COREJ) turned its attention to the continuing failures in the education system where certain groups of students - for example, students of color, with disabilities, or LGBTQ - are disproportionately over- or incorrectly categorized in special education, are disciplined more harshly, including referral to law enforcement for minimal misbehavior, achieve at lower levels, and eventually drop or are pushed out of school, often into juvenile justice facilities and prisons - a pattern now commonly referred to as the School-to-Prison Pipeline (StPP). While this problem certainly is not new, it presented a convergence of several laws, policies, and practices where the legal community's intervention is critical. Joined by the ABA Pipeline Council and Criminal Justice Section, and supported by its sister ABA entities, COREJ sponsored a series of eight Town Halls across the country to investigate the issues surrounding this pipeline. The focus of these Town Halls was to 1) explore the issues as they presented themselves for various groups and various locales; 2) gather testimony on solutions that showed success, with particular focus on interventions where the legal community could be most effective in interrupting and reversing the StPP; and 3) draw attention to the role implicit bias plays in creating and maintaining this pipeline. This report is a result of those convenings. Also a result was the formation of a Joint Task Force among the three convening entities to provide an organizational structure to address Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline (RStPP) To analyze the complexities surrounding the school-to-prison pipeline and identify potential solutions to reverse these negative trends, the Joint RStPP Task Force: 1. Organized and conducted eight Town Hall meetings in various parts of the United States during which several area experts and community members voiced concerns, discussed the problems, and proposed solutions. 2. Analyzed and cumulated national data from the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection and other available local data to gauge the magnitude and scope of the problems. 3. Served as a clearinghouse for information and reports relevant to the RStPP effort and disseminated that information. 4. Examined national and state laws and local school district's policies and practices that have combined to push an increasing number of students out of school and into the justice system. 5. Analyzed laws that several states have enacted to reverse the school-to-prison pipeline. 6. Evaluated evidence-based policies and practices that various schools have implemented to reverse the school-to-prison pipeline. 7. Organized and conducted a roundtable discussion to focus exclusively on mapping out solutions to reverse these negative trends by identifying model programs and successful strategies. 8. Planned for two additional Town Halls focused on LGBTQ (San Diego) and entry points to the pipeline and juvenile justice (Memphis). 9. Drafted this preliminary report and prepared recommendations for consideration by the larger ABA. Details: Chicago: American Bar Association, Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice, 2016. 167p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 22, 2016 at: http://jjie.org/files/2016/02/School-to-Prison-Pipeline-Preliminary-Report-Complete-Final.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://jjie.org/files/2016/02/School-to-Prison-Pipeline-Preliminary-Report-Complete-Final.pdf Shelf Number: 137937 Keywords: Racial DiscriminationRacial DisparitiesRacial Profiling School DisciplineSchool Suspension School-to-Prison PipelineZero Tolerance |
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: JudgesJudicial Decision-MakingJuvenile CourtJuvenile DefendantsJuvenile OffendersRacial BiasRacial Discrimination |
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 CourtsRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law Enforcement |
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 DiscretionRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementTraffic Offenses |
Author: Agan, Amanda Title: Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Statistical Discrimination: A Field Experiment Summary: "Ban-the-Box" (BTB) policies restrict employers from asking about applicants' criminal histories on job applications and are often presented as a means of reducing unemployment among black men, who disproportionately have criminal records. However, withholding information about criminal records could risk encouraging statistical discrimination: employers may make assumptions about criminality based on the applicant's race. To investigate this possibility as well as the effects of race and criminal records on employer callback rates, we sent approximately 15,000 fictitious online job applications to employers in New Jersey and New York City, in waves before and after each jurisdiction's adoption of BTB policies. Our causal effect estimates are based on a triple-differences design, which exploits the fact that many businesses' applications did not ask about records even before BTB and were thus unaffected by the law. Our results confirm that criminal records are a major barrier to employment, but they also support the concern that BTB policies encourage statistical discrimination on the basis of race. Overall, white applicants received 23% more callbacks than similar black applicants (38% more in New Jersey; 6% more in New York City; we also find that the white advantage is much larger in whiter neighborhoods). Employers that ask about criminal records are 62% more likely to call back an applicant if he has no record (45% in New Jersey; 78% in New York City) - an effect that BTB compliance necessarily eliminates. However, we find that the race gap in callbacks grows dramatically at the BTB-affected companies after the policy goes into effect. Before BTB, white applicants to BTB-affected employers received about 7% more callbacks than similar black applicants, but BTB increases this gap to 45%. Details: Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, School of Law, 2016. 69p. Source: Internet Resource: U of Michigan Law & Econ Research Paper No. 16-012 : Accessed June 28, 2016 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2795795 Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2795795 Shelf Number: 139526 Keywords: Ban the BoxCriminal ConvictionsCriminal RecordsEx-offender EmploymentJob DiscriminationRacial Discrimination |
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 ForcePolice ShootingsPolice Use of ForceRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial 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 TransfersJuvenile ProsecutionRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationWaiver (of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction) |
Author: Morrow, Weston Title: Examining the Potential for Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Use of Force During NYPD Stop and Frisk Activities Summary: Since the 1990s, stop and frisk activities have been a cornerstone of the New York Police Department (NYPD). The manner in which the NYPD has carried out stop, question, and frisks (SQFs), however, has been a focal point of discussion, resulting in public outrage and two major lawsuits. Recently, the Federal District Court Judge ruled that the NYPD was engaging in unconstitutional stop-and-frisk practices that targeted predominately Black and Latino New Yorkers. Questions surrounding the NYPD's SQF practices have almost exclusively focused on racial and ethnic disproportionality in the rate of stops without necessarily considering what transpired during the stop. This study will fill that void by examining the prevalence and nature of use of force during those stops, along with testing the minority threat hypothesis. By combining micro-level measures from the NYPD's 2012 "Stop, Question, and Frisk" database with macro-level variables collected from the United States Census Bureau, the current study examines police use of force in the context of SQF activities. The results should help judges, policy makers, police officers, and scholars understand the nature of police use of force in the context of SQFs. Details: Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, 2015. 203p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed August 26, 2016 at: https://repository.asu.edu/attachments/157948/content/Morrow_asu_0010E_15162.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: https://repository.asu.edu/attachments/157948/content/Morrow_asu_0010E_15162.pdf Shelf Number: 140046 Keywords: Police BehaviorPolice DiscretionPolice Use of ForceRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law Enforcement Stop and FriskStop and Search |
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: BiasDiscriminationRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial Disparities |
Author: Great Britain. Home Office Title: Action Against Hate: The UK Government's plan for tackling hate crime Summary: 1. Hate crime has a particularly harmful effect on its victims, as it seeks to attack an intrinsic part of who they are or who they are perceived to be: their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity. The previous Government's plan to tackle hate crime (Challenge It, Report It, Stop It, 2012) delivered real improvements in the way in which hate crime can be reported as well as improving understanding within the Police Service of the impact that hate crime can have on communities. Specific changes following that plan include: - the publication, for the first time, of detailed findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales on the extent of hate crime victimisation in England and Wales; - an improvement in the police recording of hate crime - requiring police forces to capture data on recorded hate crimes under all five of the monitored strands, and publishing that data as Official Statistics; - the funding of a number of projects with voluntary sector organisations working with victims of hate crime under the Ministry of Justice's Victim and Witness Fund; and - amended legislation to provide for enhanced sentencing in a wider range of crimes, including for the first time a victim's transgender identity as an aggravating factor. 2. According to the independent Crime Survey for England and Wales, there were an estimated 222,000 hate crimes on average each year from 2012/13 to 2014/15. This represents a decrease of 56,000 since the previous period covered by the survey. However, despite an increase in the number of hate crimes recorded by the police - from 44,471 in 2013/14 to 52,528 in 2014/15 - the difference between police figures and the crime survey show that hate crimes continue to be significantly underreported. 3. Hate crime victims are more likely to suffer repeat victimisation, more likely to suffer serious psychological impacts as a result, and less likely than the victims of other crime to be satisfied with the police response. 4. This Action Plan focuses five key areas to tackle hate crime from beginning to end - from understanding the drivers of hate crime and dealing with its causes to providing improved support to victims: - Preventing hate crime by challenging the beliefs and attitudes that can underlie such crimes. We will work to give young people and teachers the tools to tackle hatred and prejudice, including through a new programme to equip teachers to facilitate conversations about 'difficult topics' and carry out a new assessment of the level of anti-Muslim, antisemitic, homophobic, racist and other bullying in schools to inform further action to reduce levels of such bullying. We will continue to work with community partners such as the Anne Frank Trust and Streetwise to deliver educational projects that help young people challenge prejudice and discrimination. - Responding to hate crime in our communities with the aim of reducing the number of hate crime incidents. This includes the introduction of a L2.4m funding scheme for security measures at vulnerable faith institutions, measures to tackle hate crime on public transport and in the night-time economy by providing training, raising awareness and making reporting easier, and establishing three community demonstration projects to explore new ways of tackling hate crime in local communities. We will also take action against online hate crime, including a ministerial seminar with social media companies and counter-narrative work. - Increasing the reporting of hate crime, through improving the reporting process, encouraging the use of third party reporting and working with groups who may under-report, such as disabled people, Muslim women, the Charedi community, transgender people, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities, and new refugee communities. We will work with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to ensure that perpetrators are punished, and to publicise successful prosecutions to encourage people to have the confidence that when they report hate crime, action will be taken. - Improving support for the victims of hate crime. We will continue to improve the use of Victim Personal Statements to ensure that victims of hate crime have their voices heard. The CPS will produce new guidance on community impact statements for hate crime, reflecting that hate crime can have an impact beyond individual victims and lead to increased feelings of isolation or fear across whole communities. And to improve the experience of witnesses at court, the CPS will conduct a joint review with the police of Witness Care Units. - Building our understanding of hate crime through improved data, including the disaggregation of hate crimes records by religion. Our Extremism Analysis Unit will conduct a review into neo-Nazi networks and we will continue to develop our networks and relationships with academics to identify opportunities for collaboration, to ensure that we are able to learn from academic insights into hate crime and the ways of combating it. 5. Underlying the plan are two key themes - working in partnership with communities and joining up work across the hate crime strands to ensure that best practice in tackling hate crime is understood and drawn upon in all our work 6. The actions set out in this document have been developed through discussions with those communities most affected by hate crime. It is those communities and the organisations that represent them that often respond to hate crime at the local level, working to tackle hate crime in their area and provide support to victims. 7. This Action Plan represents a partnership between the Government, the criminal justice agencies (the Police Service, the CPS, the courts and the National Offender Management Service) and community groups representing those affected by hate crime. It has been developed with the support of the Independent Advisory Group on hate crime. 8. Delivery of the Action Plan will be overseen by a project board that brings together the criminal justice agencies and relevant government departments as well as the Independent Advisory Group on hate crime. Details: London: Home Office, 2016. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 19,. 2016 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/543679/Action_Against_Hate_-_UK_Government_s_Plan_to_Tackle_Hate_Crime_2016.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/543679/Action_Against_Hate_-_UK_Government_s_Plan_to_Tackle_Hate_Crime_2016.pdf Shelf Number: 140352 Keywords: Bias-Related CrimeHate CrimesRacial Discrimination |
Author: Quintanar, Sarah Marx Title: Man vs. Machine: An Investigation of Speeding Ticket Disparities Based on Gender and Race Summary: This paper analyzes the extent to which police behavior in giving speeding tickets differs from the ticketing pattern of automated cameras. The automated tickets provide an estimate of the population of speeders at a given location, time, and even severity of the violation. The data, obtained from Lafayette, Louisiana, provides a wide range of details concerning characteristics of the violation such as location, date, time of day, legal speed, speed over the limit, day of the week, and also specific details about the ticketed driver. The probability of a ticketed driver being African-American or female is significantly higher when the ticket was given by a police officer in contrast to an automated source, implying that police use gender and race as a determining factor in issuing a speeding ticket. Potential behavioral reasons of this outcome have been discussed. Details: Baton Rouge: Department of Economics Louisiana State University, 2011. 44p. Source: Internet Resource: Working Paper 2009-16: Accessed November 10, 2016 at: http://bus.lsu.edu/McMillin/Working_Papers/pap09_16.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://bus.lsu.edu/McMillin/Working_Papers/pap09_16.pdf Shelf Number: 145089 Keywords: Police BehaviorPolice DiscretionRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementTraffic Enforcement |
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 CrimesHate SpeechInequalityRacial BiasRacial Discrimination |
Author: Buitrago, Katie Title: Cycle of Risk: The Intersection of Poverty, Violence and Trauma Summary: People living in poverty are more likely to become victims of violent crime than higher income earners whether they live in cities, suburbs or rural areas, but the rural poor experience crime at higher rates, according to a Wednesday report by a Chicago research group. Chicago is currently facing a devastating surge in lethal violence in addition to staggering rates of poverty across Illinois. Policymakers and community leaders are struggling with finding short- and long-term solutions to stem the violence and allow neighborhoods to heal. In the meantime, communities are fearing for their own safety and grieving over lost parents, children, friends, and leaders every day. The stakes for getting the solutions right could not be higher. Poverty and violence often intersect, feed one another, and share root causes. Neighborhoods with high levels of violence are also characterized by high levels of poverty, lack of adequate public services and educational opportunity, poorer health outcomes, asset and income inequality, and more. The underlying socioeconomic conditions in these neighborhoods perpetuate both violence and poverty. Furthermore, trauma can result from both violence and poverty. Unaddressed trauma worsens quality of life, makes it hard to rise out of poverty by posing barriers to success at school and work, and raises the likelihood of aggressive behavior. In this way, untreated trauma - coupled with easy gun availability and other factors - feeds the cycle of poverty and violence. In last year's Report on Illinois Poverty: Racism's Toll (2016), we explored the persistent inequity caused by racially discriminatory policies and practices. Many of those themes are critically important to this discussion as well, especially given how the American justice system has been used to systemically deny opportunities and rights to people of color. A past and living legacy of segregation and the perpetuation of racial inequity today have led people and communities of color to experience poverty at higher rates than whites. The harmful policies and practices explored in last year's report have stripped resources and opportunities from many of the communities that are grappling with violence today. Through this report we make the case that, in addition to rapid responses, we must also take a long-term approach to reducing violence. The causes of violence are complex, systemic, and long-standing - and we must take a comprehensive approach to address them effectively. Importantly, we must be cautious that efforts at short- or long-term reform do not perpetuate the very inequities and conditions that have led to violence in our communities. Details: Chicago: Heartland Alliance, 2017. 48p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 6, 2017 at: https://www.heartlandalliance.org/research/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/CycleofRisk2017.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.heartlandalliance.org/research/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/CycleofRisk2017.pdf Shelf Number: 144724 Keywords: Gun ViolenceHomicidesNeighborhoods and CrimePovertyRacial DiscriminationSocioeconomic Conditions and CrimeVictims of CrimeViolent Crime |
Author: Centre for Justice Innovation Title: Building Trust: How our courts can improve the criminal court experience for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic defendants Summary: Widespread distrust among British-born Black, Asian and Minority ethnic (BAME) people towards the British justice system is having a negative impact on the legitimacy of our criminal courts. Our report looks at the origins of the lack of trust in the system, why perceptions of fairness and trust in the justice system matter and what can be done to improve the experience of court for BAME defendants. Why trust matters Trust in the fairness of our courts is key to the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. Our courts are charged with guaranteeing our fair and equal treatment before the law.While the British judicial system has a reputation as one of the fairest in the world, our criminal justice system does not command the trust of our Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) citizens. A majority (51%) of British-born BAME people believe that the criminal justice system discriminates against particular groups and individuals, compared to only 35% of the British-born white population. This lack of trust has two specific negative consequences: It may be leading to BAME defendants receiving more severe sentences by making them less likely to plead guilty. Defendants who plead guilty at the first opportunity receive a one-third reduction in their sentence. But male BAME defendants are 52% more likely to plead not guilty in Crown Courts than similar white defendants. Perceptions of unfair treatment within the court process and lower levels of trust in the courts are likely to increase the chances that BAME offenders will go on to offend again. How to build trust We reviewed approaches to building trust and tackling racial disparity in four similar countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. Having analysed the way other countries address this issue, our report recommends that our courts can improve the experience of court in the following ways: Ministry of Justice should work with Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service(HMCTS) can expand the existing data on racial disparity in the adult criminal court system. The Ministry of Justice should require each local justice area bring together agencies from across the criminal justice system to look at their local rates of racial disparity and produce action plans. HMCTS should ensure that making the court process feel fairer for all defendants is at the heart of its court reform programme by providing clearer explanations of the court process, training judges, magistrates and court staff in better courtroom engagement and introducing more local, pop-up courts in civic buildings in accessible locations. HMCTS court reform programme should ensure that the criminal court system engages and understands the communities within which it works by introducing ways of measuring the perceptions of fairness of victims, witnesses, and defendants in the court process. Details: London: Centre for Justice Innovation, 2017. 44p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 6, 2017 at: http://justiceinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Building-Trust.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://justiceinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Building-Trust.pdf Shelf Number: 144733 Keywords: BiasCourt ReformCriminal CourtCriminal DefendantsMinority GroupsRacial DiscriminationRacial DisparitiesTrust |
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 DiscriminationRacial BiasRacial Discrimination |
Author: Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area Title: Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California's Traffic Court System Summary: California's traffic fines and fees are some of the highest in the country, and new data shows that current California policies disproportionately impact people of color. This report looks at the most recent information available on California's current traffic court system, evaluates its impact on communities of color, examines the statewide fiscal impacts of these policies and practices, and offers some recommendations for how California could improve its traffic court system to become a national model for change. Californians who cannot afford to pay a fine for a traffic citation face harsher consequences than those who can: some Californians mail in a payment, while those who cannot pay experience license suspension, arrest, jail, wage garnishment, towing of their vehicles, and job loss - for the same minor offenses. In 2015, the California Department of Motor Vehicles reported that over 4 million driver licenses had been suspended in recent years for failure to pay or appear on a citation - affecting about one in six California drivers. In April 2017, a DMV point-in-time count showed that 588,939 Californians had lost their licenses because they could not pay or appear in court. To address this significant toll on Californians, Governor Jerry Brown signed an 18-month California Traffic Tickets / Infractions Amnesty Program that reduced fines on pre-2013 traffic tickets by 80% for indigent applicants and allowed people to get on payment plans to get their licenses back. The program allowed nearly 200,000 people to regain their driver licenses. That program ended in April 2017. California now faces the question of what to do next. With the expiration of the amnesty program, there is no longer a pathway by which people who cannot afford to pay fines may pursue license reinstatement. Californians lose the ability to drive legally as a punishment for being unable to pay a fine without any statewide system to make the punishment fit a person's ability to pay or to return a license if the person can make small payments. California has the opportunity to create permanent reforms to this inequitable system. In this report, we present data about the scope of the problem with license suspensions and traffic courts in California and offer some recommendations for policy solutions. We focused our research in the nine Bay Area counties and created fiscal analyses for statewide policy. Findings of note include: California traffic fines and fees are some of highest in country. Although the base fines for California Vehicle Code violations may be lower or comparable to many other states', the add-on fees - and particularly the $300 late penalty - make California one of the states with the steepest fines. 78% of Californians need a driver license to work or to get to work, which means California's current policy of suspending licenses for non-payment is putting at risk the ability of many California families to support themselves. In Bay Area counties, license suspension for failure to pay or appear is exacerbating the racial bias already present in traffic stops. As data show, people of color are more likely to be subjected to traffic stops. Once stopped, people of color are also more likely to be booked on arrests related to failure to appear or failure to pay. The available county-level data shows that African-American people in particular are four to sixteen times more likely to be booked on arrests related to failure to pay an infraction ticket. Even though traffic court is the most common point of contact with the court system - 60% of all court filings statewide are traffic or infraction citations - it is very difficult for someone who cannot afford to pay the full amount to resolve a ticket. None of the nine Bay Area counties surveyed had information about alternative options for low-income people on their websites, available by phone, or in person at the court clerk's office. Details: San Francisco: The Committee, 2017. 61p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 5, 2017 at: https://www.lccr.com/wp-content/uploads/LCCR-Report-Paying-More-for-Being-Poor-May-2017.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.lccr.com/wp-content/uploads/LCCR-Report-Paying-More-for-Being-Poor-May-2017.pdf Shelf Number: 145317 Keywords: BiasFines and FeesPovertyRacial DiscriminationTraffic Fines |
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 BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial Disparities |
Author: Mungan, Murat C. Title: Statistical (and Racial) Discrimination, 'Banning the Box', and Crime Rates Summary: This article presents law enforcement models where employers engage in statistical discrimination, and the visibility of criminal records can be adjusted through policies (such as ban the box campaigns). I show that statistical discrimination leads to an increase in crime rates under plausible conditions. This suggests that societies in which membership to disadvantaged groups is salient (e.g. through greater racial or religious heterogeneity) are, ceteris paribus, likely to have higher crime rates. Attempting to fix the negative impacts of statistical discrimination through policies that reduce the visibility of criminal records increases crime rates further. Moreover, such policies cause a greater negative effect for law abiding members of the disadvantaged group than members of the statistically favored group. Details: Fairfax, VA: George Mason University, 2017. 15p. Source: Internet Resource: George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 17-13: Accessed May 10, 2017 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2940743 Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2940743 Shelf Number: 145399 Keywords: Banning the BoxCriminal ConvictionsCriminal RecordsEx-offenders EmploymentRacial Discrimination |
Author: Sentencing Project Title: Report of The Sentencing Project to the United Nations Human Rights Committee Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System Summary: The United States criminal justice system is the largest in the world. At year-end 2011, approximately 7 million individuals were under some form of correctional control in the United States, including 2.2 million incarcerated in federal, state, or local prisons and jails. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, dwarfing the rate of nearly every other nation. Such broad statistics mask the racial disparity that pervades the U.S. criminal justice system. Racial minorities are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to face stiff sentences. African-American males are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white males and 2.5 times more likely than Hispanic males. If current trends continue, one of every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can one of every six Latino males - compared to one of every seventeen white males. Racial and ethnic disparities among women are less substantial than among men but remain prevalent. The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and minorities. The former is the system the United States describes in its report: a vigorous adversary system replete with constitutional protections for defendants. Yet the experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from that model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the over-representation of such individuals in the system. Details: Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2013. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 19, 2017 at: http://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Race-and-Justice-Shadow-Report-ICCPR.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Race-and-Justice-Shadow-Report-ICCPR.pdf Shelf Number: 131372 Keywords: Minority GroupsRacial DiscriminationRacial DisparitiesSentencing Disparities |
Author: Stacy, Christina Title: Ban the Box and Racial Discrimination: A Review of the Evidence and Policy Recommendations Summary: Ban-the-box policies, for which employers remove questions about criminal history from applications and delay background checks until later in the hiring process, have gained popularity in recent years. These policies are intended to give people with criminal histories the opportunity to display their qualifications in the hiring process before being assessed-and potentially rejected-based on this history. Over 150 cities and counties and 34 states and Washington, DC, have adopted ban-the-box policies (Doleac and Hansen 2016; Rodriguez and Avery 2016). Many private employers have also voluntarily adopted ban-the box-hiring policies, including Walmart, Target, the Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Koch Industries Inc. These policies are also being applied outside the workforce context. Some universities have adopted a ban-the-box approach to school applications, and the District of Columbia's City Council recently approved a law banning the box from housing applications. Even some hospitals have voluntarily adopted ban-the-box laws (Thill, Abare, and Fox 2014). Research on ban the box has shown that it increases callback rates for people with criminal records (Agan and Starr 2016). Agan and Starr (2016) find that ban-the-box policies "effectively eliminate" the effect of having a criminal record on receiving a callback. Case studies from specific cities support these results, showing that hiring rates for people with criminal records increased after ban the box was implemented (Atkinson and Lockwood 2014; Berracasa et al. 2016). Additionally, ban the box as a social movement has drawn attention to the plight of people with criminal records and has increased awareness of the challenges they face beyond employment. But recent research has concluded that ban the box also reduces the likelihood that employers call back or hire young black and Latino men (Agan and Starr 2016; Doleac and Hansen 2016). These findings suggest that when information about a person's criminal history is not present, employers may make hiring decisions based on their perception of the likelihood that the applicant has a criminal history. Racism, harmful stereotypes, and disparities in contact with the justice system may heavily skew perceptions against young men of color. These results do not necessarily mean that ban the box should be eliminated. Additional policies, regulations, and alterations can ensure that ban the box improves employment outcomes for people with criminal histories without causing negative effects on people of color. In this report, we review the evidence on job access for people with criminal records, racial discrimination in the job market and justice system, and the history of ban the box. We also propose policy additions and alterations that may help eliminate the unintended consequences of ban the box on young black and Latino men while maintaining or improving the benefits for people with criminal records. Details: Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2017. 34p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 19, 2017 at: http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/88366/ban_the_box_and_racial_discrimination_1.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/88366/ban_the_box_and_racial_discrimination_1.pdf Shelf Number: 145636 Keywords: Ban the BoxCriminal ConvictionsCriminal RecordsEx-offender EmploymentJob DiscriminationRacial Discrimination |
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: BailJudicial Decision-MakingPretrial ReleaseRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRisk Prediction |
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 BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementStop and FriskStop and Search |
Author: Coen, Rena Title: Electronic Monitoring of Youth in the California Juvenile Justice System Summary: One of the most significant changes in the juvenile justice system in recent decades has been the proliferation of electronic monitoring of youth. Every state except New Hampshire has some form of juvenile electronic monitoring. Electronic monitoring is used in a variety of contexts, including as a condition of pretrial release or probation. Yet despite the rapid proliferation of electronic monitoring of youth, there is little research about how this technology is used, whether it is effective, and how it affects the youth who are tracked. While electronic monitoring may be preferable to incarceration, juvenile electronic monitoring programs are still burdensome and should be utilized fairly and responsibly. In an effort to better understand how juvenile electronic monitoring programs operate in California, the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic, in partnership with the East Bay Community Law Center, sought information from all 58 California counties about the terms and conditions youth must comply with while being monitored electronically. We are releasing the documents we obtained to the public, together with this analysis. This collection of documents and this report are a product of our collaboration with the East Bay Community Law Center, East Bay Children's Law Offices, and the Alameda County Public Defender's Office. These offices defend youth in Alameda County juvenile court. Attorneys and advocates at these organizations expressed concern that juvenile electronic monitoring requirements are unrealistically onerous, disproportionally impact youth of color, and undermine the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile justice system.6 In response, the Clinic investigated electronic monitoring conditions throughout California. This report offers a high-level overview of the terms and conditions commonly used in California. It also highlights written rules and policies that seem particularly burdensome on their face. Our inquiry is currently limited to the information available in the records we obtained, and does not explore how these programs operate in practice. We hope to move beyond the paper record to explore questions of implementation and practice in future work. We also hope that other scholars, practitioners, and advocates will do so as well. We are releasing all of the documents we obtained to the public to facilitate a better understanding of how juvenile electronic monitoring programs are formally structured. This is the first time anyone has comprehensively canvassed juvenile electronic monitoring program rules across an entire state. These documents will allow those working in the field of juvenile justice in California to see how their county's written program rules line up against those in effect elsewhere. All of these programs impose burdens upon youth and their families-no one county has created a model approach. Yet some rules in some counties impose program requirements that are substantially less restrictive and allow youth comparatively greater freedom and flexibility. There is a pressing need for research to evaluate whether electronic monitoring is effective in reducing recidivism rates or improving other outcomes for youth - and, if so, under what circumstances. There is a growing consensus that courts should rely on evidence-based practices when making decisions and formulating policy, and yet there is little evidence thus far demonstrating the effectiveness of juvenile electronic monitoring programs. California's juvenile justice system is expressly intended to promote the correction and rehabilitation of youths. But without access to evidence-based program data, judges and policy-makers are unable to evaluate whether there are rehabilitative effects to these programs or whether these programs are excessively punitive. Moreover, these rules disproportionately affect families of color. Youth of color are overrepresented at every stage of the juvenile justice system.10 And once involved in the system, they are punished more harshly, and for longer, than other comparable youth. As a result, research about the specific ways that electronic monitoring programs disproportionately affect youth of color is urgently needed. Details: Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Law, Samuel Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic, 2017. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 5, 2017 at: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Report_Final_Electronic_Monitoring.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Report_Final_Electronic_Monitoring.pdf Shelf Number: 146729 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationElectronic MonitoringJuvenile OffendersRacial DiscriminationYouthful Offenders |
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 BiasRacial DiscriminationTraffic Violations |
Author: Subramanian, Ram Title: Divided Justice: Trends in Black and White Jail Incarceration, 1990-2013 Summary: The story of mass incarceration in the United States is a story about race. As incarceration rates soared in jails and prisons through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to reach historically unprecedented heights, the burdens of that growth did not fall equally on all communities. For black people in particular, the impact has been devastating, cutting a swath of destruction through the economic and social fabric of communities, ensuring the persistence of systemic inequality that undermines our country's bedrock values. Like all stories about race in America, however, the chronicle of incarceration's shifting path is a complicated one, and we are only just beginning to understand and reckon with it in full. This report sheds a bright new light on a key chapter of that story: the changing picture of race in America's local jails, the municipal and county facilities that hold, primarily, people who have been charged with offenses but have not yet been found guilty. Using the Vera Institute of Justice's (Vera) Incarceration Trends data tool, Vera staff analyzed jail incarceration trends by race nationally as well as by region and jurisdiction size. What we found is that black people continue to be vastly over-represented in the nation's jails, in every region of the country. This is despite declines in incarceration rates for black people in the past 10 years, most significantly in large urban and suburban areas. But this isn't the only story the data tells. In fact, a new headline is that white incarceration rates have increased, particularly in smaller jurisdictions. With the opioid crisis constantly in the news, it is tempting to assume that this epidemic, which has impacted white communities more so than others, explains the growth in jail incarceration for white people. And while it may be a contributing factor, we simply don't know the reasons underlying these trends. As this report notes, a number of understudied phenomena could be influencing the numbers. Is the misidentification of Latino people as white in some jurisdictions masking white incarceration trends? Are criminal justice reforms differently impacting jail incarceration rates for black and white people? Are jail capacity issues including the outsourcing of jail beds from one county to another- impacting racial trends in those areas? To answer these and other questions, researchers and policymakers will need more comprehensive data, because data about race and jails is incomplete, and its collection uneven across jurisdictions. Understanding the changing narrative about race in local justice systems -and how it varies from place to place - is a critical task not only for those who study the justice system and seek to improve it. It matters equally, or even more so, for those on the ground, inside and outside government, who care about equity, justice, and safety. The reasons for the differences in jail incarceration rates between white and black people are more likely because of the criminal justice policies and practices of particular localities. Community stakeholders need to ask how their local trends are measuring up, whether policy choices or practices may be contributing to racial disparities or changes in incarceration rates by race or ethnicity, and why. But to fully answer all of these questions goes beyond what current data can tell us. Further race data and analyses-including qualitative data to measure and understand the racial and ethnic impact of discretionary decision making along the criminal justice continuum-are needed to explain intergroup differences in jail incarceration trajectories. Because race and ethnicity play such a big role in the ways in which localities use their jails, overcoming these gaps in knowledge will be integral to criminal justice reform efforts aimed at reducing the overuse of jails and incarceration generally. Details: New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2018. 48p. Source: Internet Resosurce: accessed February 28, 2018 at: https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/divided-justice-black-white-jail-incarceration/legacy_downloads/Divided-Justice-full-report.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/divided-justice-black-white-jail-incarceration/legacy_downloads/Divided-Justice-full-report.pdf Shelf Number: 149284 Keywords: Jail InmatesMass IncarcerationRacial DiscriminationRacial Disparities |
Author: Eguienta, Ophelie Title: Twenty-First Century Police Brutality against African Americans: The Case of Ferguson, Missouri, and the "Black Lives Matter" Movement Summary: African American history is riddled with violence, as early as Africans' very arrival on the continent as slaves. Their fight for freedom became a fight for equality after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, as the southern states passed segregation laws and racial discrimination, although not institutionalized, remained pervasive in the North. Resulted a century of social, economic, and political inequalities for black people in the entire country, punctuated by lynching, and white supremacist attacks carried in impunity. As the Civil Rights Movement rose in the 1950s, marches and demonstrations for racial equality were met by a virulent opposition, leading to the murders of many civil rights activists and the assassinations of leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Yet, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were passed and effectively made segregation and any other form of racial discrimination illegal. Since then, a variety of policies has been implemented to decrease the opportunity gap between black and white Americans, and, with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, a substantial part of the population has come to believe that racism mostly is an issue of the past, and that equality for African Americans has finally been reached. However for some scholars, this colorblindness has led to another form of blindness about racism, which only has deepened racial inequalities as policies instituted to decrease them have been reduced or abandoned. Yet as the death of an unarmed black young man by a police officer spurred massive protests in the small Missouri city of Ferguson in 2014, the debate on racism in America started again through the notion of a systemic racist police brutality. Police brutality is a societal issue that has been the subject of many studies, by academics but also former officers, who have tried to understand its origins, its extent, its perpetuation, its repercussions on society, and how society reacts to it. Research on racially biased police brutality has also been prolific, especially during the second-half of the twentieth century, as some instances sparked demonstrations and even riots. However, secondary sources are still scarce on the events that followed Michael Brown's death - and thus on the Black Lives Matter movement - since they only happened a few years ago, and at the time, nothing indicated that the protest movement would be lasting and would reach such a scale. I chose to research this issue because even though I have never considered myself to be ignorant of racism and police brutality anywhere in the world, I was deeply shocked by the events that occurred in Ferguson, Mo, in 2014. I remember reading different online newspapers regularly, Le Monde and Le Nouvel Obs for the French ones, the BBC and The Guardian for the British ones, and The New York Times and The Washington Post for the American ones. Indeed, I heard about what had happened through social media at first, and was hoping to have had a distorted version of the facts, as it often happens; and then I was anxious to get different perspectives (namely from other countries), in order not to have too biased sources and try and balance the flow of information available. I closely followed the events for months, and watched the Black Lives Matter movement rise, with astonishment, wonder and fascination. I witnessed demonstrations and protests being organized, support coming from the entire country and the entire world, but also saw the opposition to this tsunami of indignation increase, with various movements such as All Lives Matter, White Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter. Thus, in order to fully understand the importance and the scale of racist police brutality and the protests that ensued, I decided to make them my research project this year. This thesis explores the factors that led Michael Brown's death to spark a string of nation-wide protests: the context of tensions between police officers and black people, the disproportionate rate at which black people are killed by officers, and the lack of repercussions when these deaths are questionable. It also focuses on the stakes and the impact of the Ferguson protests on society, studying the Black Lives Matter movement - its origins, the novelty in its goal and actions, etc. - as well as the other movements that emerged first on social media to oppose it. This research will help analyze how divided the American population is and how such divisions can be accounted for. In order to assess the relationship between African Americans and the police, it was essential to rely on the multiplicity of secondary sources on African American history, and on police brutality in the United States; the vast number of studies available allowed for a balanced overview. However secondary sources are lacking on the events at the core of the research, namely the anti-police brutality protests that started in 2014. Indeed, because these events are recent, it is complex for scholars to analyze the scope of the BLM movement and the shift in media representation of such events, while they are still occurring. On the other hand, primary sources are abundant: every black and mainstream news outlet covered the protests at length, as did individual people via social media - sharing accounts, pictures and videos of the events as well as their reactions to them, and various organizations issued reports on the situation (and a number of organizations were even created as a result). These sources were confronted and taken with a necessary step back to determine any possible bias. Following the increased news coverage of police killings of black people, many opinion polls have been conducted, which helps establish how divided the American population is on the question of police behavior, but also on the role of the government in this matter. To conduct this research, I relied on secondary sources when establishing the historical context of today's African Americans' place in society, and a mix of primary and secondary sources when studying the racial inequalities that persist, the debate over a postracial society, and the relationship between police officers and black people - i.e. the lack of black people in the police force and its consequences, racial bias, distrust, etc. On the other hand, primary sources were almost exclusively used when dealing with what happened at Ferguson in 2014, and with the BLM movement. Indeed, news articles from various outlets and a few social networks allowed to analyze the social and political repercussions of the protests. The relation between mainstream news and the opinion of most of the population - as they influence each other - was analyzed, especially since the influence that the protests had on the news is relatively unusual. Moreover, a detailed research of the significance of social media in the BLM movement was conducted: given the importance social media have in everyday life nowadays, it seemed relevant to analyze the presence of BLM on Twitter - which is at the origin of the movement - and Facebook - the most used social medium among Americans. Some of the few available secondary sources on the topic have been of great help for this part. The research on Twitter --a social media platform that played an important role in the protests - provided significant pieces of information on this social medium which requires payment to give access to some of its user data. As there were no statistics or data available on the matter, and since Facebook's search engine did not allow for a filtered search, I created a database categorizing the thousands of Facebook groups and pages which concerned Black/All/White/Blue Lives Matter, according to a few criteria (number of people, frequency of posts, etc.). This database enabled a comparative study of these movements on Facebook, and allowed me to articulate theories about their importance. However, this research has limitations, as some more detailed indications could have helped paint a more precise picture: very little information is obtainable about closed groups and there are hidden groups only visible to members; some pieces of information are extremely difficult to retrieve (especially for a single person with a limited amount of time), such as the date of creation of the group/page, the number of active members out of the total amount, and the periods when people joined a group or liked a page. Thus, in order to address the issue of police brutality against African Americans in the twenty-first century, this work will start with a brief presentation of the place occupied by the black community in society through a selection of key events in history and their impact on today's society; the second part will be an overview of police brutality, zooming in on brutality against black people; third, the circumstances of Michael Brown' death and the aftermath will be under scrutiny, from the protests, their representation in the news, and their consequences, to the change of this representation in the media; finally, the BLM ALM WLM and BlueLM movements will be analyzed, alongside the role that social media played in these movements. Details: Toulouse: University of Toulouse II Jean Jaures, 2017. 165p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed March 27, 2018 at: http://dante.univ-tlse2.fr/4122/1/Eguienta_Oph%C3%A9lieM22017.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: http://dante.univ-tlse2.fr/4122/1/Eguienta_Oph%C3%A9lieM22017.pdf Shelf Number: 149587 Keywords: African AmericansBlack Lives MatterDeadly ForcePolice BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice Use of ForcePolice-Minority RelationsRacial DiscriminationSocial Media |
Author: Scarborough, William Title: A Tale of Diversity, Disparity, and Discrimination: The State of Racial Justice for Asian American Chicagoans Summary: Relatively little attention has been directed to documenting the experiences of racial discrimination and inequities for Asian Americans in Chicago. Not only does this group make up a much smaller share of the city's population than whites, blacks, and Latinxs, but stereotypes about Asian Americans as the "model minority" often frame this group as high-achievers unaffected by racial discrimination and inequity. The harmful and pernicious effects of discrimination against Asian Americans are therefore often overlooked. Even in cases where the challenges facing Asian Americans are recognized, little support is offered due to harmful presumptions that Asian Americans (even 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation Americans of Asian origin) are not "truly" American, what scholars refer to as the "forever foreigner" stereotype. The data in this report illustrate the diverse and often divergent experiences of Asian Chicagoans who have to navigate the complexity and contradiction of model minority and forever foreigner stereotypes. Asian Americans are both imagined as hard working and high achieving, and at the same time are often treated as permanent outsiders. Complexity and contradiction are a defining feature of the Asian American experience. In this report, we examine the state of racial justice for Asian Americans in Chicago. Our analysis revealed three primary findings: First, the diversity of Asian Americans in Chicago is one defining characteristic of this group. Originating from over 15 different countries, Asian American ethnic groups in Chicago have vastly different economic and educational outcomes. As a result, many social indicators reported here have bimodal distributions with Asian American Chicagoans having widely ranging and divergent outcomes. For example, while some Asian American national origin groups have among the highest levels of college attainment in Chicago, others have the highest rate of individuals with less than a high school degree. Second, the opportunities and life experiences of Asian American Chicagoans are greatly affected by racial inequity. Residential segregation between Asian Americans and other racial groups is high. Asian Americans also experience significant racial wage gaps and have higher unemployment and lower median household income than whites. Third, our report shows that Asian Americans often must work harder to achieve the same benefits as whites. They are held to higher standards in loan applications, receive lower returns on their education, and are less likely to be found in management positions than similarly situated whites. These themes are interwoven throughout the report, which contains four sections focusing on different social domains. Details: Chicago: Institute for Research on Race & Public Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2018. 108p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 24, 2018 at: http://stateofracialjusticechicago.com/a-tale-of-diversity-disparity-and-discrimination-the-state-of-racial-justice-for-asian-american-chicagoans/ Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: http://stateofracialjusticechicago.com/a-tale-of-diversity-disparity-and-discrimination-the-state-of-racial-justice-for-asian-american-chicagoans/ Shelf Number: 149877 Keywords: Asian AmericansMinority GroupsRacial DiscriminationRacial 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 BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementTraffic Enforcement |
Author: Agnew, Emma R.E. Title: Discourse, Policy, Gangs: An Analysis of Gang Members' Talk and Policy Summary: European academics have historically been reluctant to conduct explicit gang research on the premise that it risks stereotyping communities. Subsequently, notions about gangs in the UK have been transposed from American literature, which is primarily based within a criminological perspective and focuses on personal characteristics of gang members, such as their violent tendencies (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). Alternatively, underpinned by a community psychology perspective, this research explores how young people involved in gangs construct their identities and experiences, and to what extent these constructions reproduce or resist political discourse. Semi-structured interviews with six self-identified gang members, as well as the UK policy 'Ending Gang and Youth Violence' (Home Office, 2011) were analysed using a hybrid approach of discursive psychology and critical discourse analysis. The four main discursive sites identified in the policy were: i) The demonization of gangs, ii) the inevitability of gangs, iii) gangs: the product of 'troubled families', iv) the racialization of gangs. The four main discursive sites within the interviews were: i) experiences of racism, ii) the inevitability of gang membership, iii) problematized identities, iv) individual and family responsibility. The analysis indicated that, at times, the participants reproduced problematising ideological discourse, at other times they constructed reimagined personal narratives which resisted hegemonic discourses about gang members, and at other times they exposed the oppressive mechanisms of political discourse, by detailing how being labelled a 'gang member' and racial discrimination had shaped their subjectivities and lived experiences. The findings indicate the need for an overhaul of elitist policy production, for authentic participation of young people with experiences of living in deprived areas, and for a shift from the 'criminological' framework of gang policy towards 'welfare'. Furthermore, the findings highlight the need to direct political attention to addressing racial discrimination. Clinically, community psychology approaches are recommended, as well as working at macro levels to change cultural narratives around this group. Details: London: University of East Londong, 2016. 152p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed May 17, 2018 at: http://roar.uel.ac.uk/5384/1/Emma_Agnew._U1331745._Thesis._Discourse%2C_Policy_and_Gangs..pdf Year: 2016 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://roar.uel.ac.uk/5384/1/Emma_Agnew._U1331745._Thesis._Discourse%2C_Policy_and_Gangs..pdf Shelf Number: 150525 Keywords: CommunicationGang ViolenceGang-Related ViolenceGangsRacial Discrimination |
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 BlackPolice BrutalityRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial DisparitiesRacial Profiling in Law Enforcement |
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: GangsNeighborhoods and CrimeRace RelationsRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementRiotsUrban Areas and Crime |