The Politics of Racial Disparity Reform: Racial Inequality and Criminal Justice Policymaking in the States

Racial inequalities in criminal justice are pressing problems for policymakers. Prior literature suggests elected officials promulgate punitive, racially disparate criminal justice policies due to partisanship and racial fears, but scholarship has yet to explain how and why elected officials address racial problems in criminal processing. This article introduces the framework of racial disparity reform policymaking. A racial disparity reform is a policy that seeks to reduce distinctions in criminal justice institutions’ treatment of racial groups. Elected officials pursue these policies due to ideological beliefs in civil rights ideals and political interests in appearing to solve social problems. Using an original database of policy enactments, this article first presents the distribution and types of reform measures adopted by elected officials in all 50 states between 1998 and 2011. It then examines social and political explanations for when state legislatures and executives adopt racial disparity reforms. Policy enactment is predicted by worsening problems of racial disproportion in criminal processing, Democratic control of elected branches, and the absence of judicial efforts to improve racial fairness within a state’s criminal justice system. Similar dynamics encourage the development of different measures types within policies. Such ideological and problem-solving explanations for racial disparity reform show a potential for elected officials to forge more racially just criminal justice practices.     

Prevalence and Correlates of Intimate Partner Violence Among a Sample of Construction Industry Workers

This study assessed the prevalence and correlates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among a sample of unionized construction industry workers, and tested the reliability of new measures of IPV normative beliefs. Study participants (n=100) voluntarily completed confidential and anonymous self-administered questionnaires that measured occupational factors, hazardous drinking, and normative beliefs. Measurement of past-year IPV was based on the Conflict Tactics Scale, Form R. Measures of IPV normative beliefs showed good reliability (Cronbach’s α 0.94–0.95). Past-year IPV prevalence was 26%. Logistic regression models were developed to assess the contribution of each factor to risk of past-year IPV perpetration. Perceived workplace racial/ethnic discrimination, job strain, interpersonal workplace conflict, normative beliefs, and hazardous drinking were positively associated with elevated IPV risk.Construction industry workers may have higher rates of IPV compared to general population samples that represent various occupations and social classes. Occupational factors appear to be significant correlates of IPV among these workers.     

Missing pieces: Notes on crime,poverty, and social policy

A long and impressive criminological tradition links crime to what social scientists call ‘persistent poverty’-and, in particular, to the corrosive effects of inadequate labor markets on a variety of social institutions. But few anticrime policies have seriously confronted those conditions, even at the height of the Great Society of the 1960s. With only scattered exceptions, those policies have sought to enhance the individual capacities of children and youth without substantially altering the surrounding economic institutions. An anticrime strategy for the next century that is both more effective and consistent with what we know about the roots of crime must involve measures that more directly address the labor market itself. Among other things, these measures include direct public job creation, systematic efforts to up grade wages, and greater support for labor organization. This essay is a revised version of a background paper presented at The Social Science Research Council Policy Conference on ‘Persistent Poverty’ in Washington D.C., November, 1993.     

Legitimacy in corrections

Research Summary
To extend research on legitimacy to the correctional system, we study a sample of 202 adult inmates randomly assigned to serve their 6-month sentence at one of two institutions—a traditional prison or a military-style correctional boot camp. Findings show that perceptions of justice system legitimacy changed during the course of incarceration, that the prison (but not the boot camp) proved delegitimizing, and that certain regime characteristics explained why.
Policy Implications
Across academic disciplines, studies continue to link compliance with perceived legitimacy. Compliance with the law, for instance, is related closely to the legitimacy of the justice system and its actors. These findings suggest implementing legitimacy-building policies such as procedurally fair treatment and decision making by police officers and judges. This article, by finding legitimacy to be malleable even at the final stage of the justice process, proposes the efficacy of similar policies in the correctional system. As research from England and Wales has shown, legitimizing strategies in this context could increase compliance both during and after incarceration.     

‘Schooling’ and the ‘Naturalization’ of racial injustice

Despite various government initiatives that have emerged in response to Canada's increasing racial diversification, the unjust treatment of racial minorities remains a problem. By examining the contracdictions between ideology and practice within an educational context, this paper provides an explanation of why government efforts direced towards the eradication of racial injustice have been relatively ineffective. The continued mistreatment of racial minorities is, in part, attributable to the promotion of a particular form of justice that ‘naturalizes’ racism. First, a reformulation of the relationship among the concepts of justice, ideology, and complementarity generates an analytical framework within which to address the problem of ‘naturalization’. The latter part of the paper examines the ‘naturalization’ of inequality generally, and racial inequality specifically, within education. A critical review of the teaching of Canadian history and Philippe Rushton's controversial theory demonstrates how education currently—but not inevitably—reinforces negative racial stereotypes, inviting the unjust treatment of racial minorities to remain unquestioned.     

Crime,deportation and the regulation of immigrants in Canada

Criminality is now one of the most frequently used provisions for deporting non-citizens from Canada. Individuals who are convicted of crimes outlined in current immigration policies can find themselves subject to deportation proceedings after they have served their sentences unless they are eligible to make an appeal and can do so successfully. This paper examines 177 reported immigration appeal hearings in Canada involving non-citizens who are ordered deported on the basis of criminality. Using documentary analysis along with basic statistics to analyze the appeal hearing decisions, I demonstrate how gender and racial ideologies shape the outcome of these decisions. Theories of moral regulation, social control and governmentality are employed to develop an understanding of the state's treatment of immigrants. That a significant number of immigrants in this study were not deported, but were granted stays with strict conditions highlights how deportation hearings are one mechanism for differentiating between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ immigrants. This study illustrates how, through the use of racial and gender ideologies, deportation practices are as much about differential exclusion as they are about enforced assimilation. Concerns around criminality rationalizes the ongoing regulation and surveillance of immigrants and the threat of deportation ensures their compliance.This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC Grant No. 31-632203). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the British Society of Criminology Annual Meetings in Bangor, Wales, July 2003 and at the Canadian Law and Society Association Annual Meetings in Halifax, Canada, June 2003.     

Legitimating Racial Discrimination: Emotions, Not Beliefs, Best Predict Discrimination in a Meta-Analysis

Investigations of racial bias have emphasized stereotypes and other beliefs as central explanatory mechanisms and as legitimating discrimination. In recent theory and research, emotional prejudices have emerged as another, more direct predictor of discrimination. A new comprehensive meta-analysis of 57 racial attitude-discrimination studies finds a moderate relationship between overall attitudes and discrimination. Emotional prejudices are twices as closely related to racial discrimination as stereotypes and beliefs are. Moreover, emotional prejudices are closely related to both observed and self-reported discrimination, whereas stereotypes and beliefs are related only to self-reported discrimination. Implications for justifying discrimination are discussed.

Analyzing Criminal Trajectory Profiles: Bridging Multilevel and Group-based Approaches Using Growth Mixture Modeling

Over the last 25 years, a life-course perspective on criminal behavior has assumed increasing prominence in the literature. This theoretical development has been accompanied by changes in the statistical models used to analyze criminological data. There are two main statistical modeling techniques currently used to model longitudinal data. These are growth curve models and latent class growth models, also known as group-based trajectory models. Using the well known Cambridge data and the Philadelphia cohort study, this article compares the two “classical” models—conventional growth curve model and group-based trajectory models. In addition, two growth mixture models are introduced that bridge the gap between conventional growth models and group-based trajectory models. For the Cambridge data, the different mixture models yield quite consistent inferences regarding the nature of the underlying trajectories of convictions. For the Philadelphia cohort study, the statistical indicators give stronger guidance on relative model fit. The main goals of this article are to contribute to the discussion about different modeling techniques for analyzing data from a life-course perspective and to provide a concrete step-by-step illustration of such an analysis and model checking.

The peculiar case of age discrimination: Americanising the European social model?

The Lisbon Strategy commits the EU to making labour market regulation more employment friendly with commentators anticipating some resulting convergence on the US model. Surprisingly, part of this post-Lisbon convergence has taken the form of a major extension of EU Social Policy with the expansion of anti-discrimination policies to address the case of age discrimination. We argue that unlike the US experience, it is the current preoccupation with raising European employment rates that has led to this expansion of ‘hard law’ Social Europe. We are unable to provide an efficiency rationale for this extension and assess alternative explanations. We also provide arguments suggesting that its impact is likely to differ from those experienced in the US.      

Callous-Unemotional Traits and Social Information Processing: Multiple Risk-Factor Models for Understanding Aggressive Behavior in Antisocial Youth

This study examined multiple risk factor models of links among callous-unemotional traits, aggression beliefs, social information processing, impulsivity, and aggressive behavior in a sample of 150 antisocial adolescents. Consistent with past research, results indicated that beliefs legitimizing aggression predicted social information processing biases and that social information processing biases mediated the effect of beliefs on aggressive behavior. Callous-unemotional traits accounted for unique variance in aggression above and beyond effects of more established risk factors of early onset of antisocial behavior, social information processing, and impulsivity. These findings add to recent research showing that callous-unemotional traits are a unique risk factor associated with aggression and criminal offending and suggest that targeting both affective and cognitive vulnerabilities may enhance clinical intervention with antisocial youth.     

Symbolic Racism and Whites’ Attitudes Towards Punitive and Preventive Crime Policies

This study analyzes the determinants of Whites' support for punitive and preventive crime policies. It focuses on the predictive power of beliefs about race as described by symbolic racism theory. A dataset with 849 White respondents from three waves of the Los Angeles County Social Survey was used. In order to assess the weight of racial factors in crime policy attitudes, the effects of a range of race-neutral attitude determinants were controlled for, namely individual and structural crime attributions, perceived seriousness of crime, crime victimization, conservatism and news exposure. Results show a strong effect of symbolic racism on both types of crime policies, and in particular on punitive policies. High levels of symbolic racism are associated with support for tough, punitive crime policies and with opposition to preventive policies. Sub-dimensions of symbolic racism qualified these relationships, by showing that internal symbolic racism (assessing perceived individual deficiencies of Blacks) was most strongly predictive of punitiveness, whereas external symbolic racism (denial of institutional discrimination) predicted opposition to structural remedies. On the whole, despite the effects of race-neutral factors, the impact of symbolic racism on policy attitudes was substantial. Thus, White public opinion on both punitive and preventive crime policies is at least partially driven by racial prejudice.     

Racial Differences in Public Support for the Death Penalty: Can Racist sentiment and Core Values Explain the Racial Divide?

Prior research has established a strong and enduring “racial divide” in support for capital punishment, but little research has explored the processes that explain the racial divide. Following the lead of Unnever and Cullen (Social Forces 85:1281–1301, 2007a), this research explores whether racist sentiment and core values (individualism, egalitarianism, symbolic patriotism, and authoritarianism) can partially explain the racial divide in public support for capital punishment. The findings suggest that racist sentiment by Whites and belief in core values by Whites partially explains the racial divide in support for capital punishment.     

Racial Bias in Mock Juror Decision-Making: A Meta-Analytic Review of Defendant Treatment

Common wisdom seems to suggest that racial bias, defined as disparate treatment of minority defendants, exists in jury decision-making, with Black defendants being treated more harshly by jurors than White defendants. The empirical research, however, is inconsistent—some studies show racial bias while others do not. Two previous meta-analyses have found conflicting results regarding the existence of racial bias in juror decision-making (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1315–1344; Sweeney & Haney, 1992, Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 10, 179–195). This research takes a meta-analytic approach to further investigate the inconsistencies within the empirical literature on racial bias in juror decision-making by defining racial bias as disparate treatment of racial out-groups (rather than focusing upon the minority group alone). Our results suggest that a small, yet significant, effect of racial bias in decision-making is present across studies, but that the effect becomes more pronounced when certain moderators are considered. The state of the research will be discussed in light of these findings.     

The Unfulfillable Promise of Meritocracy: Three Lessons and Their Implications for Justice in Education

This paper draws on a literature in sociology, psychology and economics that has extensively documented the unfulfilled promise of meritocracy in education. I argue that the lesson learned from this literature is threefold: (1) educational institutions in practice significantly distort the ideal meritocratic process; (2) opportunities for merit are themselves determined by non-meritocratic factors; (3) any definition of merit must favor some groups in society while putting others at a disadvantage. Taken together, these conclusions give reason to understand meritocracy not just as an unfulfilled promise, but as an unfulfillable promise. Having problematized meritocracy as an ideal worth striving for, I argue that the pervasiveness of meritocratic policies in education threatens to crowd out as principles of justice, need and equality. As such, it may pose a barrier rather than a route to equality of opportunity. Furthermore, meritocratic discourse legitimates societal inequalities as justly deserved such as when misfortune is understood as personal failure. The paper concludes by setting a research agenda that asks how citizens come to hold meritocratic beliefs; addresses the persistence of (unintended) meritocratic imperfections in schools; analyzes the construction of a legitimizing discourse in educational policy; and investigates how education selects and labels winners and losers.     

Academic Capitalism and University Incentives for Faculty Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial behavior by professors—including decisions about collaboration with industry, patenting and spinning off companies—can affect the productivity of top universities’ technology transfer efforts. Interviews with 98 professors at 12 southeastern universities showed that the most significant influence on these aspects of entrepreneurial behavior is the beliefs of professors about the proper role of universities in the dissemination of knowledge. Some institutional policies, notably revenue splits with inventors, can affect aspects of this behavior. These findings suggest that both university incentive policies and ethical concerns about academic capitalism, by limiting the productivity of technology transfer efforts, have an effect on regional economic development.     

Fatal imaginations: death squads in Davao City and Medellín compared

This article examines the role social imaginations play in legitimizing extrajudicial killings by death squads in the era of globalization. The role of popular imagining has expanded into a widespread social practice as people increasingly draw on images from all over the world via modern communication technologies. Drawing on Mary Douglas’ concept ‘matter out of place’ and Nancy Scheper-Hughes’ ‘symbolic apartheid’ we argue that to a certain extent, dehumanizing imaginations about socially excluded groups legitimize death squad killings. The article compares two case studies on death squads in the cities of Medellín, Colombia and Davao City, Philippines. We conclude that social imaginations in the era of globalization may be a driving force behind death squads in these and other major cities in the world.     

罪刑法定视域中的刑法适用解释

The judicial interpretation of criminal law should be an application interpretation to individual cases that is guided by judges and participated by the prosecutor and the accused, for which the judicial judgment should be combined with the application of criminal law of specific cases, and the criminal precedents should be as a carrier. The Supreme People’s Court should change from the previous practices of issuing normative and abstract interpretation to the dual approaches of the interpretation of criminal law application through direct creation and indirect acknowledgement. Liang Genlin, Professor and Vice Dean of Law School of Peking University and as a visiting professor of University of Tuebingen (2001–2002). His main research focuses on criminal law and criminal policy, and his important publications include “On the Structure of Punishment”, “Liang Genlin’s Review on Criminal Policy, Volume I, Criminal Policy: Standpoint and Category”, “Liang Genlin’s Review on Criminal Policy, Volume II, the Arm of the Law: Expand and Limit”, “Liang Genlin’s Review on Criminal Policy, Volume III, Criminal Sanction: Manner and Choice”. Besides, he has also published over 40 discourses on criminal law and criminal policy since 1996.     

The Powell Hypothesis: Race and non-capital sentences for murder in Kentucky, 1976–1991

The 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision McCleskey v. Kemp ruled, in part, that the findings of the Baldus study, offered by the petitioner to support a claim of racial bias in death penalty cases, were insufficient to demonstrate unconstitutional discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Lewis Powell offered additional justification for the ruling when he wrote, “If we accepted McCleskey’s claim that racial bias has impermissibly tainted the capital sentencing decision, we could soon be faced with similar claims as to other types of penalty. ” This statement has become labeled as the “Powell Hypothesis. ” This paper tests the “Powell Hypothesis” to determine whether race has an impact on sentences levied in noncapital murder cases in Kentucky between 1976 and 1991. The results indicate racial factors influenced sentence length in these cases.     

Race and decision making within juvenile justice: The importance of context

Previous tests of the influence of race on decision making within juvenile justice proceedings have traditionally focused on case-level variables and/or macrolevel factors that characterize the jurisdictions under study. Often excluded are measures of the attitudinal context within which decision making occurs. Using a revised conflict perspective that incorporates the role of racial stereotyping, hypotheses are developed centering on racial differences in case processing decisions within four midwest jurisdictions. Attitudes of juvenile court officials toward the punitiveness of the juvenile court and perceptions regarding differences between the behavior and attitudes of whites and those of African Americans are included in additive and race interactive models of five decision-making stages. Results indicate both lenient and harsh treatment of African Americans compared to whites. Hypotheses regarding racial stereotyping in the decision-making process receive some support and the discussion focuses on how inconsistent racial effects may be a function of variation in structural “coupling” across system decision points.     

Race,Crime, and Criminal Justice

Fifty years ago, the U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice under President Johnson did not frequently mention race and ethnicity in its discussion of and recommendations for the criminal justice system, but it did have a lot to say about race and crime. Through the use of arrest rates to measure racial differentials in criminal involvement, the Commission concluded that Blacks commit more crime as a consequence of Black people living in greater numbers in criminogenic “slum” conditions. To address racial differences, the Commission favored the Great Society programs of Johnson's War on Poverty. Contemporary criminologists continue to debate the racial distribution of crime, the causes of crimes, and the best policies to reduce crime and racial differentials. The Commission did not anticipate the current debate among scholars regarding how much racial disproportionality exists in the criminal justice system and its causes and consequences. The policies that led to mass incarceration have been significant drivers of continued criminal justice racial disparity. Those policies are inconsistent with the recommendation in The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967), upending the pursuit of a more fair and just system.