Race, Crime, and Criminal Justice

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12361
• Date: 01 May 2018
• Published date: 01 May 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

PRESIDENT’S CRIME COMMISSION:

PAST AND FUTURE

Race, Crime, and Criminal Justice

Fifty Years Since The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society

April D. Fernandes

North Carolina State University

Robert D. Crutcheld

University of Washington

Abstract

Fifty years ago, the U.S. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administra-

tion of Justice under President Johnson did not frequently mention race and ethnicity

in its discussion of and recommendations for the criminal justice system, but it did

have a lot to say about race and crime. Through the use of arrest rates to measure

racial differentials in criminal involvement, the Commission concluded that Blacks

commit more crime as a consequence of Black people living in greater numbers in

criminogenic “slum” conditions. To address racial differences, the Commission favored

the Great Society programs of Johnson’s War on Poverty. Contemporary criminologists

continue to debate the racial distribution of crime, the causes of crimes, and the best

policies to reduce crime and racial differentials. The Commission did not anticipate

the current debate among scholars regarding how much racial disproportionality exists

in the criminal justice system and its causes and consequences. The policies that led to

mass incarceration have been significant drivers of continued criminal justice racial

disparity. Those policies are inconsistent with the recommendation in The Challenge

of Crime in a Free Society (1967), upending the pursuit of a more fair and just

system.

Keywords

race, ethnicity, crime, justice, policing, courts, incarceration

Direct correspondence to April D. Fernandes, North Carolina State University, 1911 Building, Office 339,

Raleigh, NC 27695 (e-mail: adferna2@ncsu.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12361 C2018 American Society of Criminology 397

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 2

Research Article President’s Crime Commission: Past and Future

When we look back at the U.S. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement

and Administration of Justice’s (commonly known as the President’s Crime

Commission or just “the Commission”) 1967 report, TheChallengeofCrime

in a Free Society, two factors jump out at us. First, the capacity of criminologists to un-

derstand and explain crime patterns and the functioning of the criminal justice system

are much more advanced now. And second, the Commission, in keeping with President

Johnson’s Great Society spirit of the times, was bold and aggressive in its recommendations.

Our understanding of racial patterns in crime and delinquency and patterns of dispar-

ity in the criminal justice system (CJS) has progressed as well. How much has changed

for people of color in America within the criminal justice system requires a complex

answer; there have been improvements in some areas, but the research evidence shows

that in others, some problems observed by the Commission 50 years ago are still with

us.

There is no chapter in the Commission’s 1967 report focused on race, but its members

and staff were acutely aware of evidence indicating that there were racial differences in

criminal involvement, and they were concerned that the CJS be fair, and be perceived as

fair. Race, for those studying crime, delinquency, and justice in America in that era meant

Blacks and Whites, or Negroes and Whites, in the vernacular of the day. Puerto Ricans are

mentioned in the report, but the research that the Commission’s staff relied on, and thus,

the report’s recommendations, was focused on a Black–White binary. Now, recognizing

that the populations of our cities, states, and the nation are considerably more diverse,

contemporary criminologists increasingly acknowledge this diversity in their scholarship

(Peterson, Krivo, and Hagan, 2006).

Here our task is to address four issues regarding race, ethnicity, and the President’s

Crime Commission (1967) report after 50 years: First, what did the Commission say about

race? Second, what have we learned about race, ethnicity, crime, and justice during the last

half-century? Third, what major changes in criminal justice have occurred that attempt to

address racial and ethnic disparities, which recommendations of the Commission have not

been implemented, and what have been the consequences for people of color in the CJS of

these policies? And finally, what might a future commission recommend for both practice

and research?

Race, Ethnicity, Crime,and Justice: What Did the Commission Say, and What

Did It Recommend?

What is imperative is for this Commission to make clear its strong conviction

that, before this Nation can hope to reduce crime significantly or lastingly, it must

mount and maintain a massive attack against the conditions of life that underlie

it. (Commission, 1967: 60)

398 Criminology & Public Policy