A Common Destiny Blacks and American Society (1989) / Chapter Skim
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Crime and the Administration of Criminal Justice
Crime and the Administration of Criminal Justice
Pages 451-508
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From page 452... ...
- ~ ,~-; 1. Fit ~ James Lesesne Wells Ethers at the Bar of Justice (1928)
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The investigation begins with a historical sketch of the status of blacks within the criminal justice system. Next, we describe trends in black and white arrest and imprisonment rates over the past few decades and the status of black and white victims of crime.
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Our analysis depends on the availability of reliable data sources, and we focus on a rather limited range of criminal law violations. Much of the statistical analysis uses the crime index of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
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Relatively little is known about black or white crime rates or the comparative treatment of black and white offenders prior to the Civil War (Franklin, 1980:138~. Although similarities between slavery and modern criminal justice practices have been noted (Blassingame, 1977; Sellin, 1976)
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From page 456... ...
Obviously, for unreported crimes and for the vast majority of known offenses that are not cleared, there is no arrest and thus little is known about the social characteristics of the offender. Consequently, to the extent that race or racial bias may be factors in the detection or clearance of crime, official arrest statistics may distort the level of race differences in actual criminal activity.
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There is a strong positive upward movement in both the black and white trends, but whether one looks at the pre- or post-1952 trends, the results are similar: black arrest rates are higher than white rates, and the gap between the two has been widening. In 1978, the arrest rate per 1,000 whites was 1.
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From page 458... ...
Homicide arrest rates for whites have been relatively stable for much of the entire 1933-1985 period. Black homicide rates, while significantly higher than those for whites, have fluctuated widely from year to year, particularly in recent years (see Brearley, 1932; Farley, 1980; O'Carroll and Mercy, 1986; Shin et al., 1977~.
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From page 459... ...
Changes in crime data for this period, however, are suspect because of changes in the method of recording arrests. It is difficult to determine whether the downward trend in arrests for both blacks and whites observed during the years immediately after 1951 represents a change in actual criminal behavior or is an artifact of recordkeeping.
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From page 460... ...
of all black arrests; during the 1950s and early 1960s those crimes accounted for only about 15 percent of total criminal activity. There appears to be a recent shift from the violent crimes of murder, rape, and assault toward economic crimes of robbery, burglary, larceny, and auto theft, also placing the most recent period in line with the earliest one.
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availability have been frequently discussed as reasons for the black-white gap in crime rates. Recently, drug use and trafficking in the black community have received considerable media attention.
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Wish reported that many active offenders use drugs and that high rates of drug use are associated with high rates of criminal activity. In an examination of studies that have explored the linkage between alcohol use and criminal behavior among blacks, Roizen (1981:207)
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In black communities, trafficking in drugs is a source of tremendous rivalry and conflict between competing sellers. The sale of drugs has become an available source of income for unemployed black youth and adults who sell drugs to residents of lower class communities and also to middle-class and affluent blacks and whites (see Chapter 6~.
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From page 464... ...
The effects of crime on black victims and black communities have aroused comparatively little public concern. Given the high rates of black criminal offending, patterns of residential segregation, and the intraracial character of most crime, blacks are about twice as likely as whites to be victims of robbery, vehicle theft, and aggravated assault (McGarrell and Flanagan, 1985:29~312~.
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Such interracial criminal activity appears to be limited partly by blackwhite residential separation. Recent evidence suggests that most offenders tend to commit crimes in areas near to where they live; hence, a pattern of intraracial victimization is evident for all racial-ethnic groups (see Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 1987~.
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To understand the impact of criminal activity on communities, it is useful to focus on the costs incurred by victims. These costs include dollar losses from property crimes, expenses related to injuries sustained in violent attacks, and time lost from work in the aftermath of crime.
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For the selected years 1973, 1977, and 1981, the majority of black victims of criminal incidents lived in mixed neighborhoods with less than 45 percent black populations in 1977 and 1981, while the majority of white victims lived in essentially all-white neighborhoods. Only about one-fifth of criminal incidents with black victims involved persons who lived in households in allblack neighborhoods in 1973, and that proportion dropped to 16-17 percent in later years.
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YEAR 468 (a) Household Crimes 24 22 20 18 16 14 O ~1 1 1 1 1 1974 White \/7ctims '/ Black Victims ~ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 YEAR _ (by Personal Crimes _~/ white victims ,'Y O' .
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. White Victims '` _` ~ _ f I I I I I I I I I I I 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 A Black ,/ Sims _ ' "~V - _ 1978 1 980 YEAR 469
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A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY TABLE 9-3 Days Lost from Work, by Race of Victim and Type of Victimization, 197~1985 All Households White Victim Black Victim & Persons Year Days Household Personal Household Personal Household Personal 1974 0-5 94.00%84.30% 92.00%74.00% 92.00%82.80% 26 4.2014.30 8.1024.10 8.1015.40 N.K.
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However, the losses due to crime among the black poor should not be underemphasized since these victims have fewer resources and methods of compensating for those losses. Our broad conclusion is that blacks bear a disproportionate share of the costs of criminal victimizations, but that they do not share these costs equally.
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From page 472... ...
A COMMON DESTINY: BLACKS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY TABLE 9-5 Financial Losses (in dollars) Because of Robbery and Theft, by Race of Victims, 197~1985 White Black All Races Year Value Robbery Theft Robbery Theft Robbery Theft 1974 0-$249 77.80% 91.80% 81.40% 90.60% 77.40% 91.70 2$250 15.80 5.10 11.70 5.10 14.70 5.00 N.K.
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From page 473... ...
The enforcement of most criminal laws allows substantial discretion by the police-discretion that could lead to rates of arrest that do not reflect "actual" criminal behavior. However, the role of the police in initiating the arrest of persons is more limited than sometimes thought.
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Prejudice toward blacks may result in black offenders who victimize other blacks being treated more leniently than black or white offenders who victimize whites (Baldus et al., 1983; Garfinkel, 1949; Gross and Mauro, 1984; Johnson, 1941; LaFree, 1980; Paternoster, 1983, 1984; Radelet, 1981; Thomson and Zingraff, 1981~. Most of these observations have involved the behavior of non-law enforcement personnel (e.g., judges and juries)
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found that cases of violence between whites are significantly more likely to end in arrest than similar cases between blacks. Interracial arrest rates produce somewhat different patterns.
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A study of 195 cases of public drunkenness (the largest single category of arresters during the past several decades) revealed no significant difference in the arrest rates of black and white offenders (Lundman, 1974~.
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POLICE ORGANIZATION Modern police departments are complex organizations. Arrest rates are an organizational outcome as well as a reflection of criminal activity.
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As noted above, comparing death and arrest rates proves little because arrest rates do not directly measure differences in the kind of conduct (by the citizen or officer) that plausibly will lead to the use of deadly force (see, e.g., Knoohuizen et al., 19721.
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There he found that the disproportionate shooting of blacks could not be explained by their greater criminal activity. He attributed the difference between the findings in New York and Memphis to the difference in stringency of the policy on use of firearms in the two departments.
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Much of the impetus for reform of police behavior appears to have shifted to the hiring and promotion of black police officers. PRETRIAL BARGAI N I NO AN D PROSECUTION Prosecutors may be the most important decision makers in the criminal justice process because prosecutors determine whether to press criminal charges against defendants or to dismiss a case.
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Generally, prosecutorial discretion may be said to be potentially biased if any of the following three conditions are met (Zatz and Cameron, 1987:8~: dismissals by the prosecutor are more likely for one racial or ethnic group than another; rates of plea bargaining differ for members of different racial or ethnic groups; or members of one group receive consistently better deals than members of another group. Racial disparities in prosecutorial decisions may be due to a number of factors, including: (1)
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Similarly, Uhlrnan (1979) noted that blacks were subjected to more scrutiny by police, which contributed in turn to higher arrest rates for blacks.
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noted that these studies and numerous others conducted during the 1960s often did not include tests of statistical significance or summary measures of association. In addition, the study designs often failed to control for legal variables that are known to affect sentence severity (e.g., prior record, offense type, number of charges, characteristics of the offense, and other aggravating or mitigating factors)
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notes, however, that even if these differences accounted for some of the racial differences in sentencing, explanations must still be provided for the decisions that result in black defendants getting jury trials at rates higher than those found among white defendants. In response to this question Petersilia (1983:95)
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Determinate sentencing laws may also have an impact on racial inequality in the criminal justice system because of blacks' lower socioeconomic status. A common belief among both scholars and policy makers has been that the flexible sentencing guidelines of the past fostered racial discrimination by permitting judges so inclined to make decisions based on their individual biases toward various racial groups.
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But the report emphasized that there may be "nondiscriminatory" race-related variation in criminal activity that was not adequately reflected in the data. For example, within given categories of criminal offenses (e.g., robbery or homicide)
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that reflect past discrimination. The logical problem is that if one "controls" for all conceivable background factors associated with criminal behavior other than racial cate gory, the residual variance associated with race is bound to be small.
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Statistics of this sort have shaped public and scholarly discourse on the subject of the death penalty for more than half a century. Two important early studies of discrimination in the imposition of the death penalty were conducted by Johnson (1941)
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BLACK CRIMINAL JUSTICE PERSONNEL It has been proposed that the real and presumed differential treatment of blacks in the criminal justice system might be lessened if there were more black policemen, prosecutors, judges, jurors, and other decision makers within the system (see Owens, 1987:45~. The position of blacks as personnel of the criminal justice system also represents another dimension of the overall status of blacks.
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From page 490... ...
For example, San Francisco with a 14 percent black population and a police force of 1,754 officers, named its first black sergeant in April 1968 (Knowles and Prewitt, 1972:15~. Concerns for the prevention of civil disorders and for equal employment opportunity after 1970 led to a marked increase in the number of blacks in sworn ranks in some departments, but other departments showed little change.
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From page 491... ...
Through the use of regression analysis, Lewis found that the proportion of blacks in the city's labor force and the presence of black mayors were the most significant variables positively associated with black representation in combined sworn and police patrol ranks in 1975. However, in 1985, in addition to these variables, the presence of black police chiefs and the presence of affirmative action consent decrees emerged as significant variables (Lewis, 1987:5~.
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Jo ad o ~ ~ o ~ ad C4c~ .
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From page 495... ...
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From page 496... ...
However, in overall sentence severity, white judges treated black and white defendants equally severely, while black judges treated black defendants somewhat more leniently than white defendants. The authors suggest that having more black judges increases equality of treatment bv balancing the sentencing Datterns of white iudaes (Welch et al.
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From page 497... ...
In cases coming before black judges, violent crime charges were dropped against 28 percent of black defendants and 20 percent of white defendants. The opposite pattern was noted in cases where the judge was white: charges were dropped for 32 percent of white defendants and 20 percent of black defendants.
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Criminal behavior and its punishment pose significant barriers to educational excellence and to employment for black youth (Chapters 6 and 7~. Crime also drains the limited economic resources of black communities and deters the expansion of business enterprises within black neighborhoods.
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From page 499... ...
American Sociological Review 42:743-755. Black, Donald 1970 Production of crime rates.
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From page 500... ...
Collins, James J., Jr., ed. 1981 Drinking and Crime: Perspectives on the Relationships Between Akohol Consumption and Criminal Behavior.
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Journal of Criminal Law, Cnminolo,gy and Police Science.
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American Sociological Review 44(December)
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From page 503... ...
Matsueda, Ross L., and Karen Heimer 1987 Race, family structure and delinquency: a test of differential association and social control theories. American Sociological ~v 52:826-840.
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From page 504... ...
1987 Prosecutonal charging and plea bargaining practices under determinate sentencing: an investigation of the hydraulic displacement of discretion. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminolo,gy 78~1~:155-176.
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From page 505... ...
Piliavin, Irving, and Scott Briar 1964 Police encounters with juveniles. American Sociological Review 70:206-214.
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From page 506... ...
Summary Report of a Special Conference held June 2-3, 1977, at the School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.
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From page 507... ...
2. Panel on Research on Criminal Careers, Committee on Research on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, National Research Council.
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