Book Review: Racial Issues in Criminal Justice: The Case of African Americans

• Date: 01 May 2005
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016805275699
• Published date: 01 May 2005
• Subject Matter: Articles

and economic professional jobs in America is directly related to minority overrepresentation

in the criminal justice system.

The volume concludes with the chapter “On the Horns of a Dilemma: Criminal Wrongs,

Civil Rights, and the Administration of Justice in African American Communities,” by

Hawkins. He presents a dialectic argument on the issues of fairnessand equity that resonates

with the thesis of this volume to capitulate on the complexities of doing justice in a country

such as America.

The articles in this book paint a lugubrious picture of the effects of crime and crime control

policies in America. The reader is saturated with the devastating effect of excessive use of

imprisonment and the unfairness of the criminal justice system on minorities in the United

States. However,the chapters fail to provide any concrete solutions for crime control as prac-

tical alternatives to incarceration. For this, the reader must look elsewhere; otherwise, this

volume makes a lucid contribution in the continued dilemma of disproportionate minority

confinement in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Arthur S. Moghalu

Prairie View A&M University

Racial Issues in Criminal Justice: The Case of African Americans, by Marvin D. Free Jr.

Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003, 278 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016805275699

The book analyzes the American criminal justice system to determine if the system is

value neutral with regard to race and whether the system ensures justice and fundamental

fairness for African Americans. The author indicates quite effectivelythat in the case of Afri-

can Americans, the criminal justice system does not ensure fundamental fairness and justice.

In essence, race influences the social realities of justice in the American criminal justice sys-

tem to the disadvantage of African Americans. The author suggests that in reality, justice is

not blind but is geared toward being biased in its treatment of African Americans. The crimi-

nal justice system benefits the powerful to maintain social control and dominance over this

group.

It is important that the author does not just point out that race plays a pivotal part in the

American criminal justice system, but he offers possible solutions toward making the crimi-

nal justice system live up to ideas of a race value–neutral system that guarantees fundamental

fairness and justice for all Americans, specifically African Americans. The possible solu-

tions not only may help to alleviate injustices in the criminal justice system but also may help

to solidify the concept of innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, regardless

of race. Until these solutions are implemented, the American criminal justice system will

continue to discriminate against African Americans.

The author incorporates 14 articles by scholars that examine how race negatively affects

African Americans in the criminal justice system. The author divides these articles into three

distinct parts. The first part (chapters 1 through 4) examines the past and present significance

of race in American society. The second part (chapters 5 through 10) examines the criminal

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