Book Review: Shadows of doubt: Stereotypes, crime, and the pursuit of justice

• Author: Ava T. Carcirieri
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016819866251
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

ORCID iD

Tanya M. Grant https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7017-3538

O’Flaherty, B., & Sethi, R. (2019). Shadows of doubt: Stereotypes, crime, and the pursuit of justice. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press. 372 pp. $27.95. ISBN: 9780674976597.

Reviewed by: Ava T. Carcirieri ,University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016819866251

Shadows of Doubt: Stereotypes, Crime, and the Pursuit of Justice is an extremely relevant and impor-

tant work for today’s political and racial climate. This important work brings together decades of sci-

entif‌ic research about stereotypes and prejudice and walks the reader through our nation’s various

ways of handling crime and punishment. The central argument outlined by the authors is that

while everyone naturally carries prejudices subconsciously, it is possible to acknowledge and over-

come these prejudices; specif‌ically, with regard to our nation’s justice system, which the authors

show to be rife with racial bias and prejudices at every level. This work is extremely important

given the current changing climate toward the U.S. justice system and the shifting of public attitudes

about the punitive nature of our prison systems.

The book begins with narratives about certain criminal situations, and the argument is made that

both criminals and victims use stereotypes in different ways, and these are supported by the data. For

example, the authors show that the national data currently show that in cases of robbery, Black indi-

viduals rob both Black and White people fairly evenly, while White robbers rarely have Black

victims. The authors outline how these data provide support for the existence of stereotyping

playing out across decision-making of all individuals—White individuals stereotype Black victims

as being more likely to f‌ight back or be aggressive, and Black individuals may stereotype White

victims to be more afraid of them because of their race and therefore be compliant. In other

words, stereotypes inf‌luence every level of decision-making for both criminals and victims.

The research studies cited throughout the text are thoroughly explained without losing interest in

the broader narrative. Additionally, these citations serve as a great resource for those who are inter-

ested in keeping up to date with sociological, psychological, or economic research focusing on

inequalities in various areas of the U.S. justice system. Most well-known of these studies focus

implicit biases, which are outlined in the f‌irst few chapters. The authors walk the reader through

the psychologists who pioneered the f‌irst implicit biases tests and what the earliest results were

among different groups, the most prominent and relevant implicit bias being the association that

many groups held between criminality and Black people. These chapters are of critical importance

because the authors use this research to ground the notion that while we individually have biases,

we can overcome them by taking the extra cognitive effort to recognize and challenge them.

The authors themselves provide an interesting background and grounding of much of the data and

research that they cite to support their arguments. Brenden O’Flaherty is an economics professor at

Columbia and has authored several books focusing on the economics of race and homelessness.

Similarly, an economics professor at Columbia, Rajiv Sethi sits on the board of American

Economic Review and Economics and Philosophy and is involved in research looking into how indi-

viduals make decisions and gather information from other individuals—a pertinent topic within the

sphere of stereotyping.

O’Flaherty and Sethi then walk the reader through a comprehensive list of topics related to the

justice system and weave in the data about each to illustrate how stereotypes and bias color our

528 Criminal Justice Review 47(4)