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Pages 180-209

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From page 180...
... . Parenting Inside Outa is one such program that teaches both mothers and fathers involved in the criminal justice system parent management training, facilitated by parenting coaches.
From page 181...
... . Incarceration also deepens the social disadvantages that have resulted from racial disparities in poverty rates and educational attainment.
From page 182...
... . Under these conditions, some scholars believe that these adverse impacts fed inequality in Black communities, furthering a cycle of inequity that saw societal conditions such as those outlined in Chapter 4 feed into criminal justice contact and involvement, which further perpetuated and exacerbated structural racism impacting non-White communities (Clear, 2009; Rose and Clear, 1998)
From page 183...
... . Black people are also more likely to be returned to prison for a parole violation, which contributes to racial disparities in incarceration overall (Curry, 2016; Vito et al., 2012)
From page 184...
... . CONCLUSION This chapter describes how racial inequalities in neighborhood environments and crime combine with cumulative disadvantage through the stages of criminal processing to produce racial inequality in the criminal justice system and deepen structural racism in society more generally.
From page 185...
... The ­expansion of the criminal justice system in low-income Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities from the 1970s to the early 2000s became a new and salient dimension of racial inequality in the post-Civil Rights period since the 1960s. The collective effect of spatially concentrated crime and poverty, a ­penal code that has intensified punishment for drugs and violence, and criminal processing that has amplified racial disproportion comprises a social structure of racial inequality, with historical roots in institutions designed for racial exclusion and domination (see Chapter 1)
From page 186...
... appear to be pointing to this larger policy challenge when they argue that "economists must critically examine the notion that there must exist ‘relevant differences' across groups that can ‘explain' away observed racial differences when studying bias and discrimination." Reducing racial inequalities in the criminal justice system that are cumulatively produced from a starting point of structural inequalities in crime and poverty may require changes inside and outside the criminal justice system that are implemented in a comprehensive and coordinated way. CONCLUSION 4-1: Enduring and spatially concentrated patterns of racial inequality in residence, poverty, violent crime, and enforcement provide a context for racial inequality in criminal justice involvement.
From page 187...
... This current chapter outlines guiding principles for policy solutions and presents a historical example of a potentially promising policy agenda that was not fully developed to highlight lessons for decision makers and policy makers as they work to achieve reductions in racial inequalities in the criminal justice system. GUIDING PRINCIPLES TO REDUCE RACIAL INEQUALITY IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM This section outlines a set of guiding principles to the application of public policy solutions to address racial inequality in the criminal justice system.
From page 188...
... Impacted Community Voices Communities that are disproportionately harmed by racial inequality in the criminal justice system need to be partners in knowledge generation and in the implementation of policy solutions. Communities themselves have multifaceted needs, diverse perspectives, and unique contexts; the fact that community voices are heterogeneous across contexts calls for adequate survey tools and other measures of community representation in decision making.
From page 189...
... Equally important is a deeper understanding of the reverse of forward causal inference -- that is, seeking to uncover the causes of an outcome, such as racial inequality in the criminal justice system. History as a discipline provides insight on questions such as these.
From page 190...
... . This history helps us understand the range of alternatives for reducing racial inequality in the criminal justice system today.
From page 191...
... Under the influence of scientific theories that traced delinquency to the failures of educational and labor market institutions to support youthful development in a meaningful way through job training, education, and equal opportunity programs, the Kennedy administration framed its urban social programs as anti-delinquency measures. Based on the "systemic barriers" conception of urban problems that Lloyd Cloward and Richard Ohlin described in their 1960 book, Delinquency and Oppor tunity, the federal government's anti-delinquency program represented a moment when research-based criminological theory was used to design policy aimed at solving problems of racial inequality.
From page 192...
... . The Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act would focus on young people who had come into contact with law enforcement or criminal jus tice authorities, as well as groups of youth who lived in impoverished neighbor hoods and whom federal policy makers believed to be susceptible to delinquency.
From page 193...
... When Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency in 1963, he soon expanded the pre-kindergarten, remedial education, family intervention, and job training initiatives of Kennedy's anti-delinquency program as part of a "War on Poverty," which began in 1964 under the administration of the Office of Economic Opportu nity (OEO) .b But rather than continuing to combat crime through the preventative framework developed by his predecessor, in 1965 Johnson also began a separate investment in policing, courts, and prisons as part of a "War on Crime," to be prosecuted by the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance (OLEA)
From page 194...
... In short, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, federal policy makers' expansion of the social safety net was insufficient to substantially reduce racial inequality in socioeconomic status or to stem rising crime, and federal funding of local criminal justice agencies became the dominant instrument of federal anti-crime policy. By the mid-1970s, Black and Latino groups combined began to approach majorities in state and federal prisons for the first time in American history (Black Americans had previously amounted to about one-third of the nation's prison population)
From page 195...
... That the criminal justice system remains a significant dimension of racial inequality more than 50 years after the nation embarked on its most substantial investment in modernization, professionalization, and reform provides important context for the challenge of reducing racial inequality today. While policy makers should investigate criminal justice reforms that can directly reduce the harms associated with policing and incarceration, reducing racial inequality may also require changes outside the criminal justice system in social policy and community life.
From page 196...
... 196 REDUCING RACIAL INEQUALITY IN CRIME AND JUSTICE supporting communities to address inequalities. The committee's recommendations set forth in the subsequent chapters offer evidence-based guidance on how public policy might reduce racial inequalities in crime and justice.
From page 197...
... The organizers of these efforts often view the aim of their work as not just reducing crime but also reducing racial inequality in crime and criminal justice involvement by increasing a community's capacity, through the community's own methods of decision m ­ aking, to determine what safety is and how it is achieved. This chapter builds on findings from Part I of this report by exploring ways that community members, community-based organizations, and community representatives (formal and informal)
From page 198...
... This chapter assesses the state of the literature on collective efficacy and neighborhood social organization, including "bottom up" approaches that seek to build informal social controls and cohesion among residents in the community. It then reviews several community initiatives for defining and producing safety and assesses their implications for reducing racial inequality in the criminal justice system.
From page 199...
... Due to their local character, community initiatives vary enormously in their implementation and in the environments in which they operate. Considering this heterogeneity, the committee draws some general principles that might effectively be adapted to local conditions, with the goal of reducing racial inequality in the criminal justice system.
From page 200...
... More research is needed to explore the applicability of community-driven approaches described in this chapter to more suburban or rural settings. DEFINING COMMUNITY AND COMMUNITY WELL-BEING One of the first challenges is to clarify what is meant by "community" in the context of crime and criminal justice policy.
From page 201...
... Is the best way to address social issues like racial inequality in the distribution of public services and goods a federal (i.e., national) leadership/initiative?
From page 202...
... A challenge, then, is to address such structural conditions and increase collective efficacy without unintended consequences and to identify ­community-driven interventions that reduce crime and racial inequality without undue reliance on the criminal justice system. This involves under standing how community action can create conditions that foster collective efficacy, and how collective efficacy may be undermined by violence, the harms of system contact, and racial inequalities generated by increased vulnerability to the system.
From page 203...
... It is important to note that, comparatively considered, substantially more resources have been devoted to criminal justice programs despite the similar absence of clear evidence of their effectiveness. What Is Needed for Success The data on persistent and compounded inequality also point to the need for sustained community interventions in order to provide a fair test.
From page 204...
... COMMUNITY-DRIVEN INITIATIVES In this section, we review community-driven initiatives aimed at defining and producing safety and assess their implications for reducing racial inequality in the criminal justice system. The main efforts reviewed include: • Creating systems of accountability for both law enforcement and community organization efforts;
From page 205...
... Interventions in neighborhood ecology and local social service efforts are also community-driven approaches with similar goals, and they are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7. This section examines how community members take a leading role in providing safety and reducing racial inequality.
From page 206...
... However, the transformative potential of most community-centered efforts is limited by government investment in formal systems. American Indian tribal communities are uniquely situated in this ­regard because, as sovereign governments with criminal jurisdiction over their territories and their people, tribes have greater authority than other com munities to define and shape local criminal systems.
From page 207...
... For example, the State of California exercises criminal jurisdiction over Yurok Territory under a federal law called Public Law 280.4 In building its own system, the Yurok have disinvested in incarceration and directed financial resources to a restorative system, including a Wellness Court. Through an agreement with the state, Yurok tribal members may be removed from the state court system and redirected into the tribe's system (Clarren, 2017)
From page 208...
... 452) contrast Indigenous systems with Anglo-American criminal systems: "whereas the former seeks to reduce crime through punishment, restorative justice seeks to re-establish balance and harmony within each individual affected by an offensive act, within the perpetrator as well as the victim and the community." Due to their emphasis on community definitions of safety, healing, and restorative practices, Indigenous-led efforts to reform criminal and juvenile systems offer alternative approaches to traditional models of criminal justice that deserve evaluation (Braithwaite, 2000)
From page 209...
... created a task force to create a roadmap for what it would look like to shift a portion of its law enforcement budget toward community-based programs. Since the creation of that task force, the sustained increase in murder rates has shifted local politics surrounding this issue, with several local city officials critically reconsidering this proposition.


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