Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice Science, Practice, and Policy (2023) / Chapter Skim
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From page 35... ...
. Moreover, criminal justice policies during this period disproportion ately victimized Black youth, women, and families (Haley, 2016; Chatelain, 2015; Chavez-Garcia, 2012; Ward, 2012; Hicks, 2010; McGuire, 2010; Gross, 2006)
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From page 36... ...
Most vividly reflected in the statistics on lynching, a sustained campaign of terror was conducted through mob violence and a White criminal justice system. Estimates of anti-Black lynchings in the United States between Reconstruction and World War II range between four and five thousand, based on new archival discoveries and research efforts to revise the work of sociologists Stewart Tolnay and E.M.
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From page 37... ...
In both cases there are no known cases of prosecu tion for what often amounted to mob killings committed in broad daylight, in public venues, or with community consent such that the perpetrators were known and often heralded. Additionally, criminal justice actors often abided the mob, or refused to protect the victim from impending violence, or were unwilling to identify, arrest, or prosecute the killers.
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From page 38... ...
At the same time, there are also important differences between the criminal justice systems of the 1960s and the criminal justice systems of today that help to explain how system responses to crimes and misdemeanors drive racial inequality in the 21st century. As is discussed in Chapter 9, federal involvement in criminal justice systems is greater today than it was 50 years ago; the federal system has grown alongside the federal government's increased investment in state and local systems; the reach of the state and local systems, where the bulk of what is described as "criminal justice" takes place, is more expansive; and even as concerns about the quality of data persist, criminal justice systems are far more integrated, collaborative, and technology-dependent than they were 50 years ago.
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From page 39... ...
The concentrated visible presence of law enforcement along with the concentration of incarceration and community corrections among historically disadvantaged populations reinforces divisions between White and Black space in ways that are consequential for how people encounter and experience criminal justice in the 21st century (Anderson, 2022, 2015; Bell, 2020a)
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From page 40... ...
Identifying the mechanisms that drive racial inequality as a form of structural racism can help ensure that the policy or practice solutions are designed at an appropriate institutional or systemic level rather than at the individual level. It is this understanding that animates the committee's interpretation of its task and informs its recommendations for reducing racial inequalities in the criminal justice system through public policy.
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From page 41... ...
. Chapter 8 discusses the role of bias and bias interventions in the context of the criminal justice system.
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From page 42... ...
. Relatedly, reducing racial inequality in the criminal justice system also holds the promise of improving safety from the harms of interpersonal violence and from the harms of policing and incarceration, which cycle to further reinforce social drivers of crime and criminal justice inequali ties.
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From page 43... ...
-- emphasizing two main strategies for reducing racial inequality in the criminal justice system: (1) by reducing the scope of criminal justice contact and (2)
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From page 44... ...
44 REDUCING RACIAL INEQUALITY IN CRIME AND JUSTICE to reduce inequalities in crime and justice. Finally, Chapter 10 describes challenges and opportunities to enhance data systems to better identify and monitor racial disparities in criminal justice system involvement.
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From page 45... ...
There are also racial/ethnic disparities in offending rates and arrest rates, with arrests for serious felonies higher among African Americans and to a lesser extent Hispanic people as compared to White people. Explanations for observed disparities in victimization, criminal offending, and criminal justice involvement often focus on sources of structural socioeconomic inequality, including differences in neighborhood conditions, 45
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From page 46... ...
After exploring data on public safety and policing, the chapter discusses racial disparities in criminal justice outcomes that reflect processes that occur after individuals are arrested. It documents racial disparities in time served in jail while cases are being resolved before documenting racial disparities in rates of imprisonment.
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From page 47... ...
For example, if police agencies report crime rates separately by race and by gender, but not also by race and gender combined, it is difficult to track offending by and victimization against women of color dis aggregated from those rates for men in the same racial group or for women overall. Similarly, detailed data are routinely reported for certain decision
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From page 48... ...
, so the data give an incomplete picture of the points in the system where racial disparities occur. Moreover, research on racial disparities is heavily focused on Black versus White; there is comparatively little research documenting and analyzing disparities faced by other racial groups.
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From page 49... ...
First, we present data on property crimes and nonlethal violent crimes, and then we discuss homicide victimization. In doing so, we find clear racial disparities in victimization rates: American Indians and African Americans are the most likely to be victimized by serious violent offenses, followed by Hispanic people and last of all by non-Hispanic White and Asian people.
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From page 50... ...
SOURCE: Figures are tabulated from the concatenated National Crime Victimization Survey files, https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38136.v1 rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. American Indians and those classified as multi-racial experience by far the highest victimization rates for these offenses, with American Indian women having a uniquely high rate of sexual victimization.
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From page 51... ...
White and Asian people face the lowest risk of death from homicide, and for these groups the ratio of male-to-female homicide victimization rates is never more than 3:1 from 1990 forward. However, among Black people, Native Americans, and Hispanic people the rates of homicide victimization are higher, and the ratio of male-to-female rates is always above three; among Black people this ratio is roughly 5:1 or greater in every year.
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From page 52... ...
52 FIGURE 2-2 Rate of homicide offenses by population, 1990–2020. SOURCE: Data from Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer, https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/ explorer/crime/crime-trend
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From page 53... ...
What this means is that in a single year, 14 years of declines in the Black/White gap in homicide victimization rates among men were reversed. The most recent data on homicide victimization demonstrate two facts concerning the recent increase in homicide rates: (1)
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From page 54... ...
While homicide levels vary considerably across states, we observe similar inter-group disparities within state and year as well as similar relative patterns of increase between 2019 and 2020. Within year and state, homicide victimization rates for males are multiple times those for females, TABLE 2-4 Homicides per 100,000 by Race, Gender, and Hispanic Origin, 2019 and 2020 for Select States Panel A: Non-Hispanic Black Male Female 2019 2020 2019 2020 California 35.0 48.8 4.5 7.2 Florida 37.4 43.6 5.0 6.2 Illinois 69.8 104.3 8.4 11.2 New York 20.5 34.6 2.7 4.0 Texas 32.5 42.2 5.0 7.1 Panel B: Non-Hispanic White Male Female 2019 2020 2019 2020 California 3.4 4.5 1.5 1.5 Florida 4.4 4.6 2.1 2.4 Illinois 2.7 2.5 1.5 1.0 New York 1.2 1.8 1.0 0.7 Texas 4.8 6.0 2.0 2.9 Panel C: Hispanic Male Female 2019 2020 2019 2020 California 9.1 12.2 1.5 1.8 Florida 6.0 7.0 2.4 2.0 Illinois 8.9 15.1 - New York 5.6 8.6 1.6 1.6 Texas 8.2 10.3 2.0 2.4 NOTE: Homicide rates are not reported for Hispanic women in Illinois by CDC due to small number of cases and lack of reliability.
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From page 55... ...
Between 2019 and 2020 very large increases occurred in homicide victimization rates that were concentrated among African Americans, with especially large increases among Black males. Murder rates are much higher in cities than in rural areas, and both Black and Hispanic citizens are overrepresented in urban centers relative to rural areas.
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From page 56... ...
Racial disparities in murder rates have grown since 2010, including during the periods when overall homicide rates rose sharply, from 2014 to 2016 and again from 2019 to the present. DIFFERENCES IN ARRESTS AND CRIMINAL OFFENDING Arrest rates are consistently higher among African Americans than among other racial and ethnic groups.
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From page 57... ...
This section reviews the data on racial disparities in arrests. While we discuss disparities across racial and ethnic groups, we pay particular attention to evidence that high arrest rates in Black communities may reflect forms of over-policing and that, for some crimes, low clearance rates suggest that police are failing to provide accountability in Black communities.
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From page 58... ...
demonstrates that African Americans are overrepresented among people arrested for serious nonfatal violent offenses, comprising 12.5 percent of the resident population and 36.1 percent of arrests for nonfatal felony person offenses (33% if simple assaults are included)
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From page 59... ...
For adults, non-index offenses are clearly the most numerous, followed by arrests for property offenses and violent offenses. Disparities in arrest rates between African Americans and all other groups are largest during the late 1980s and early 1990s but have narrowed over the past three decades.
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From page 60... ...
African Americans are overrepresented among offenders for serious vio lent offenses, constituting 25.2 percent of all such serious offenses, while African A mericans made up just 12.2 percent of survey respondents. White people are underrepresented as perceived by violent crime victims, while Hispanic people are roughly represented in proportion to their representa tion among the general population.
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From page 61... ...
= 62.25 White victims of Black offenders for every 8.3 Black victims of White offenders -- that is, about 7.5 times as many. Given that the Black population is about one-fifth the size of the White population, these results imply that Black people are roughly 35 times more likely to commit violent offenses against TABLE 2-6 Distribution of Criminal Offenses across Offender Race/ Ethnicity by Race/Ethnicity of the Victim and Offense Type, 2012 through 2019 All Serious Violent Offenses Victim Race/Ethnicity Offender race/ More than ethnicity White Black Am.
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From page 62... ...
They a rgue that White people possess stereotypical beliefs that cause them to view Black people as more dangerous than they are. Furthermore, they argue that these fears make White victims less likely to resist Black robbers.
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From page 63... ...
These large differences between relative arrest rates and relative victimization rates create a puzzle for those who view violent offenses as predominately intra-racial acts, but the fact that White people commit 63 percent of all violent crimes against American Indian people may help us understand these patterns. American Indian arrest rates for violent crimes may be low relative to their violent victimization rates because American Indian people are often the victims of White offenders.
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From page 64... ...
Rates of homicide by Black offenders against White victims are greater than the rates of homicide by White offenders against Black victims, but the ratio of these rates is much smaller than the comparable ratio for all violent offenses. Our comparisons of inter-group differences in arrest rates to patterns from victimization surveys and homicide incident reports suggest that the relatively high arrest rates in Black communities may reflect relatively high offending rates.
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From page 65... ...
In sum, African Americans are overrepresented among offenders for serious violent offenses; White people are underrepresented as perceived by violent crime victims; and Hispanic people are roughly represented in pro portion to their representation among the general population. Inter-group differences in arrest rates to victimization rates suggest that the relatively high arrest rates in Black communities may reflect relatively high offending rates.
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From page 66... ...
The arrest rates for African Americans remain quite high relative to other groups, and homicide victimization rates among African American men are likely more than 10 times the rates among White men and rising. These patterns raise two concerns about interactions between police and Black communities: (1)
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From page 67... ...
The scatter plot includes a diagonal black line marking coordinates that would indicate equal stop rates across groups. Hence, points that lie above the line indicate that the stop rate for African Americans (Hispanic people for the red markers)
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From page 68... ...
Figure 2-6 presents similar comparisons for 22 state police agencies. The patterns are similar: state police tend to stop African Americans at higher rates relative to White people and stop Hispanic residents at relatively low rates.
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From page 69... ...
data include all traffic stops made by the California Highway Patrol, the Los Angeles Police Department, the San Diego Police Department, the Oakland Police Department, the Sacramento Police Department, the Long Beach Police Department, the Fresno Police Department, the San Francisco Police Department, and the San Jose Police Department, as well as county sheriff departments for the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Sacramento, and San Diego. 12 Similar to the patterns observed in the Stanford Open Policing Project data, RIPA data for California reveal that the proportion of stops that involve African Americans is roughly 2.5 times the African American population share.
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From page 70... ...
These data reveal a number of important patterns. Traffic stops for non-moving violations are highest for African Americans, both for California Highway Patrol stops as well as stops made by local agencies.
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From page 71... ...
The principal outcome test explored in a larger research literature compares the contraband discovery rates of searches for Black and Hispanic people to the rates for White people. The logic behind this comparison is the following.
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From page 72... ...
This Black Rates Against White Rates Discovery Rate, Black 0.5 Oakland, PD 0.4 San Jose, PD 0.3 San Francisco, PD Riverside, Sheriff Los Angeles, Sheriff Los Angeles, PD Sacramento, PD 0.2 San Diego, PD Orange County, Sheriff Fresno, PD CHP San Diego, Sheriff Sacramento, Sheriff Long Beach, PD San Bernardino, Sheriff 0.1 0.2 0.3 Discovery Rate, White Discovery Rate, Hispanic Hispanic Rates Against White Rates 0.4 Oakland, PD San Francisco, PD 0.3 Sacramento, PD San Jose, PD Los Angeles, Sheriff San Diego, PD Long Beach, PD San Diego, Sheriff 0.2 Riverside, Sheriff Fresno, PD San Bernardino, Sheriff Orange County, Sheriff Los Angeles, PD 0.1 CHP Sacramento, Sheriff 0.2 0.3 Discovery Rate, White FIGURE 2-7 Scatter plots of contraband discovery rates, Black and Hispanic rates against White rates for California agencies. SOURCE: Data from Open Justice, California Department of Justice, Racial and Identity Profiling Act database, https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/
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From page 73... ...
RACIAL DISPARITIES IN VICTIMIZATION, OFFENDING, AND INVOLVEMENT 73 Firearms Weapons Discovery Rate, Black Discovery Rate, Black Oakland, PD Oakland, PD 0.03 San Diego, PD 0.03 San Jose, PD Fresno, PD Riverside, Sheriff San Francisco, PD Los Angeles, Sheriff San Bernardino, Sheriff Sacramento, PD San Diego, Sheriff 0.02 Sacramento, Sheriff 0.02 Long Beach, PD Los Angeles, PD CHP Los Angeles, Sheriff San Francisco, PD Riverside, Sheriff San Diego, PD Long Beach, PD 0.01 San Jose, PD San Bernardino, 0.01 Sheriff Fresno, PD Orange County, Sheriff Los Angeles, PD CHP Orange County, Sheriff Sacramento, PD 0.00 San Diego, Sheriff Sacramento, Sheriff 0.000 0.005 0.010 0.015 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 Discovery Rate, White Discovery Rate, White Drugs Stolen Property Discovery Rate, Black Discovery Rate, Black Oakland, PD San Jose, PD 0.3 0.02 San Francisco, PD 0.2 San Jose, PD Orange County, Sheriff San Diego, PD Sacramento, PD San Francisco, PD Los Angeles, PD Los Angeles, Sheriff Orange County, 0.01 Long Beach, PD Sacramento, PD Fresno, PD Sheriff Sacramento, Sheriff 0.1 CHP San Diego, PD San Diego, CHP Oakland, PD Riverside, Sheriff San Bernardino, Sheriff Sheriff Riverside, Sheriff Fresno, PD Long Beach, PD San Bernardino, Sheriff Los Angeles, Sheriff Sacramento, 0.00 Los Angeles, PD San Diego, Sheriff Sheriff 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.01 0.02 Discovery Rate, White Discovery Rate, White FIGURE 2-8 Scatter plots of Black contraband discovery rates against White discovery rates for specific contraband categories. SOURCE: Data from Open Justice, California Department of Justice, Racial and Identity Profiling Act database, https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/ Firearms Weapons Discovery Rate, Hispanic Discovery Rate, Hispanic 0.04 Oakland, PD San Francisco, PD 0.04 0.03 San Jose, PD Sacramento, PD 0.03 San Francisco, PD 0.02 Oakland, PD San Diego, PD Sacramento, Sheriff San Diego, PD Los Angeles, PD Fresno, PD Fresno, PD 0.02 Long Beach, PD Los Angeles, PD Orange County, Los Angeles, Sheriff San Bernardino, Sheriff Sheriff Sacramento, PD 0.01 San Jose, PD CHP 0.01 San Diego, Sheriff Long Beach, PD San Bernardino, Sheriff Los Angeles, Sheriff Riverside, Sheriff CHP Riverside, Sheriff San Diego, Sheriff Sacramento, Sheriff Orange County, Sheriff 0.000 0.006 0.010 0.015 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 Discovery Rate, White Discovery Rate, White Drugs Stolen Property Discovery Rate, Hispanic Discovery Rate, Hispanic Oakland, PD San Jose, PD 0.04 San Francisco, PD 0.012 Long Beach, PD San Diego, PD 0.03 San Jose, PD Orange County, Sheriff San Diego, Sheriff Sacramento, PD Los Angeles, San Diego, 0.008 0.02 Riverside, Sheriff Sheriff San Bernardino, Sheriff Riverside, Sheriff San Francisco, PD Sheriff Fresno, PD San Diego, PD Fresno, PD Los Angeles, Sheriff Orange County, Oakland, PD 0.01 San Bernardino, Sheriff Sheriff 0.004 Los Angeles, PD Long Beach, Sacramento, PD PD Los Angeles, PD CHP CHP Sacramento, Sheriff Sacramento, Sheriff 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.01 0.02 Discovery Rate, White Discovery Rate, White FIGURE 2-9 Scatter plots of Hispanic contraband discovery rates against White discovery rates for specific contraband categories.
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From page 74... ...
This would be the case if the distribution of Black and White people across risk tranches were such that African Americans were more concentrated in higher risk categories beyond the reasonable suspi cion thresholds used by officers.14 Beyond this methodological contention, the hit-rate test is based on a behavioral model of policing that assumes that officers are attempting to maximize contraband discoveries by making group-based probabilistic assessments of the likelihood that someone is carrying. If this is indeed true, behavior aimed at maximizing discovery rates for a fixed number of searches may be unconstitutional, to the extent that Black individuals would otherwise not be searched if they were White.
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From page 75... ...
In their analysis of these 2018 data, Harrell and Davis (2020) estimate that while two percent of non-Hispanic White people experience either a threat of force or a less lethal use of force, for minorities the comparable figures are 5.34 percent of Black people, 4.8 percent of Hispanic people, and 1.9 percent of people in an "other" category.
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From page 76... ...
A number of studies compare the use of lethal and nonlethal force and analyze racial disparities in lethal force. Analyzing several sources of micro data on police encounters with members of the public from several cities, Fryer (2019)
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From page 77... ...
combined with data on police shootings in Houston, Fryer finds relatively lower likelihoods that such incidents involving Black and H ispanic people result in an officer-involved shooting relative to incidents involving White people. Based on these findings, Fryer concludes that there is evidence of disparate use of less lethal force but no evidence of disparate use of lethal force.
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From page 78... ...
While Fryer's original analysis finds substantial evidence of discriminatory use of less lethal force, the adjusted estimates presented in Knox and colleagues suggest substantially larger disparities. There is at least one study that suggests that bias may be in part responsible for the relatively high relative rate at which Black people are shot by the police that avoids the selection bias issue.
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From page 79... ...
Further, there are large differences in the rates of fatal police shootings in the West versus the Northeast within every race category. Note that these regional differences are so large that the rate of fatal police shootings among Black people in the Northeast is only four percent greater than the rate of fatal police shootings among White people in the West.
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From page 80... ...
Hispanic people are equally or less likely than White people to be shot and killed by police in the Northeast, Midwest, and South, and are most likely to be fatally shot by police in the West. This result holds whether we measure risk in levels, relative to the comparable risk for White people, or relative to the comparable risk for Black people.
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From page 81... ...
. Across n umerous studies, for example, African Americans report being treated less fairly and respectfully in their contacts with the police than White people (Peffley and Hurwitz, 2010; Tyler and Huo, 2002)
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From page 82... ...
Data on clearance rates provide one benchmark for police performance. It is well known that murders involving White victims are considerably more likely to be cleared by arrest or by exceptional means17 relative to murders involving Black victims (Fagan and Geller, 2018)
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From page 83... ...
We find limited evidence in favor of either argument. Even though there is clear evidence that police employ aggressive tactics in African American communities, African American crime victims are by far the most likely to homicides involving White victims and homicides involving Black victims for the 22 cities in the Trace database stands at 17 percentage points.
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From page 84... ...
For all violent offenses, 66 percent of African American victims report the crime to the police compared to 56 percent of Hispanic victims, 52 percent of White victims, and 49 percent of American Indian victims. Hence, minority victims of serious violent offenses are generally as likely if not more likely to report the incidents to police.
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From page 85... ...
SOURCE: Figures tabulated from the concatenated National Crime Victimization Survey files, https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38136.v1 racial differences in clearance rates, we must remember that clearance rates are incidents cleared divided by incidents reported. The low clearance rates we observe in minority communities are low rates of clearing crimes that someone, who was likely a member of the victim's community, reported to police.
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From page 86... ...
In 2011, the department conducted an extensive assessment of its homicide investigations with the aim of generating and implementing a set of recommendations that would increase department-level homicide clearance rates, which were far b elow the national average. Braga and Dusseault (2018)
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From page 87... ...
citizens. This large population of jail inmates is an important source of racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
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From page 88... ...
One of the challenges facing researchers in this area is the fact that researchers have no clear way to label cases where the judge set a cash bail expecting that the defendant would likely be released versus cases where the judge intended the bail amount to prevent release. However, in some jurisdictions, the majority of defendants in jail waiting for a verdict could be waiting at home if they had greater access to cash.23 Given the significant income and wealth differences between White defendants and Black or Hispanic defendants, cash bail is an institution that, by design, exacerbates racial disparities in incarceration.
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From page 89... ...
Before and after Proposition 47 case characteristics explain nearly all of the observable race disparities in court dispositions. However, after the passage of Proposition 47 there is a narrowing of racial disparities in convictions and incarceration sentences that is driven by lesser weight placed on criminal history, active criminal justice status, and a reduction in the racial disparity in pretrial detention in effecting court dispositions.
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From page 90... ...
Thus, in any court where it takes significant time to schedule and conduct trials, Black defendants are likely to find it more costly to demand a trial, and this gives prosecutors extra leverage when making plea bargain offers to Black defendants. The power of prosecutorial discretion in plea bargaining may be strongest in jurisdictions with presumptive sentencing guidelines (Piehl and Bushway, 2007)
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From page 91... ...
; more severe for defendants with a criminal history; laden with enhancements for factors such as using a firearm, being affiliated with a gang, or crossing a quantity threshold for controlled substances; and more subject to binding constraints associated with various mandatory minimum sentences. Rates of incarceration grew for all groups during the late 1970s and 1980s as prison time became more likely given arrest for a broad range of offenses, and this shift in policy had a clear disparate impact on African Americans, who are arrested at higher rates than other groups.
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From page 92... ...
The one group for whom we see a trend in the opposite direction is A merican Indian people. For American Indian people we see a widening in both absolute and relative incarceration rates relative to White people, with 24 We tabulated incarceration rates, combining incarceration totals from the National Prison Statistics database for each year with population estimates of race interacted with ethnicity tabulation and publicly posted by the CDC.
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From page 93... ...
Prison populations tend to be older relative to the composition of arrests, given that many in prison are serving long terms for offenses committed at a relatively young age. While these patterns exist within racial groups, the gender and educational disparities are largest among African Americans, with less educated Black men experiencing the highest incarceration rates in the country.
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From page 94... ...
guilty if he faces the death penalty. Thus, mandatory death sentences could have generated racially biased behavioral responses that made racial disparities in execu tions worse, holding constant racial disparities in homicide arrest rates.
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