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Full-Text Articles in Criminology
Book Review: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness, Nick J. Sciullo
Book Review: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness, Nick J. Sciullo
Nick J. Sciullo
Many in the legal academy have heard of Michelle Alexander’s new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness. It has been making waves. One need only attend any number of legal conferences in the past year or so, or read through the footnotes in recent law review articles. Furthermore, this book has been reviewed in journals from a number of academic fields, suggesting Alexander has provided a text with profound insights across the university and public spheres. While I will briefly talk about the book as a book, I will spend the majority of this …
The Color Of Crime: The Case Against Race-Based Suspect Descriptions, Bela August Walker
The Color Of Crime: The Case Against Race-Based Suspect Descriptions, Bela August Walker
Bela August Walker
Law enforcement in the United States relies on racial identifiers as a crucial part of suspect descriptions. Unlike racial profiling, this practice is regarded as both an essential tool for law enforcement and as an unproblematic use of race. However, given the racial history of the United States, such descriptors, particularly “Black,” have developed in such a way to create an extremely large and unreliable category. Due to these factors, the use of race as a physical descriptor in suspect decisions is both discriminatory and inefficient. Employing race as an identifying characteristic allows law enforcement officers broad discretionary powers that …