Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice Science, Practice, and Policy (2023) / Chapter Skim
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5 Introduction to Part II
5 Introduction to Part II
Pages 187-196
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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.
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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.
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From page 189... ...
In this vein, this section offers an historical account of the first substantial efforts of the federal government to address racial inequality at the intersection of social policy and criminal law enforcement at the national level. During the 1960s, national policy makers recognized the devastating impact of historical discrimination and sought to use national resources to end racial inequality.
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From page 190... ...
The report recommended the creation of two million jobs for "disadvantaged" Americans, continued federal intervention to ensure school desegregation, year-round schooling for lowincome youths, the construction of hundreds of thousands of public housing units, and a guaranteed minimum income. Notably, the Commission looked beyond policing and incarceration to address problems of safety in disadvantaged communities.
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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.
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From page 192... ...
The Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses and Control Act of 1961a sought to address the problems of "youth unemployment, poor housing, poor health, inadequate education, and the alienation of lower-class communities and neighborhoods," as Attorney General Kennedy explained. He and other federal policy makers believed that the racial discrimination Black families confronted within school systems and workplaces was the root cause of this "alienation." Drawing from Cloward and Ohlin's work, the preamble to the Act itself argued that "delinquency and offenses occur disproportionately among school dropouts, unemployed youth faced with limited opportunities and with employment barriers, and youth in deprived family situations" (Hinton, 2017)
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From page 193... ...
. Soon, federal support for local law enforcement through the OLEA supplanted social welfare programs through the OEO as the main channel for a national anti-crime policy.
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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)
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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.
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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.
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