What is the difference between racial disparity and racial discrimination

Socioeconomic inequality does lead people of color to disproportionately use and sell drugs outdoors, where they are more readily apprehended by police. But disparities in drug arrests are largely driven by the factors described later in this section.

Figure 8. How much of the racial disparity in the prison population stems from crime rates, and how much is produced by the criminal justice system? In recent decades, a number of leading scholars, including Alfred Blumstein and Michael Tonry, have sought to quantify these effects.

Crime and Justice, 37 1 , 1—44 p. Racial Disproportionality of U. Prison Populations Revisited. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 73, — Some of the decline in the proportion of black arrests is caused by the growth of the Latino population, see: Steffensmeier, D.

Prisoner Counts. Criminology, 49 1 , — pp. Arrest in the United States, The remainder might be caused by racial bias, as well as other factors like differing criminal histories. Race to Incarcerate. Several important nuances, described next, help to interpret these results.

Estimates of the extent to which differential crime rates account for disparities in imprisonment rates vary significantly by offense type and geography. In comparing the demographics of the prison population with arrestees, these studies have shown that the least racial disparity exists for the most serious offenses and that the most exists for the least serious offenses for which arrest rates are also poor proxies for criminal involvement.

This is because criminal justice practitioners can exercise greater discretion with less serious crimes. Scholars have also noted that there is wide variation among states in the degree to which arrest disparities explain incarceration disparities.

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 31, — The overall conclusion of these studies is that racial differences in criminal offending explain a substantial, but incomplete, portion of the racial differences in the prison population for non-drug crimes. If racial differences in crime rates do not fully account for the high proportion of African Americans in prisons, what else is driving this disparity? Myriad criminal justice policies that appear to be race-neutral collide with broader socioeconomic patterns to create a disparate racial impact.

Policing policies and sentencing laws are two key sources of racial inequality. Police policies that cast a wide net in neighborhoods and on populations associated with high crime rates disproportionately affect people of color, as described in Sections I and II. Consequently, people of color are more likely to be arrested even for behavior that they do not engage in at higher rates than whites. This greater level of scrutiny also contributes to higher rates of recidivism among people of color.

Sentencing laws that are designed to more harshly punish certain classes of offenses, or to carve out certain groups from harsh penalties, also often have a disparate impact on people of color. This occurs because of how sentencing laws interact with broader racial differences in our society and within the criminal justice system. While most white Americans no longer endorse overt and traditional forms of prejudice associated with the era of Jim Crow racism — such as beliefs about the biological inferiority of blacks and support for segregation and discrimination — a nontrivial proportion continue to express negative cultural stereotypes of blacks.

In Smelser, N. The Real Record on Racial Attitudes. In Marsden, P. Even more common among most white Americans, and many people of color, is implicit racial bias : unintentional and unconscious racial biases that affect decisions and behaviors. Psychological experiments have shown that these biases are pervasive in our society, and are held even by people who disavow overt prejudice.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74 6 , —80 p. American Journal of Public Health, 1 , 92— Implicit racial biases also permeate the work of criminal justice professionals and influence the deliberation of jurors. Notre Dame Law Review, 84 3 , — p. Law and Human Behavior, —28; Sommers, S. Studies of criminal justice outcomes also reveal that implicit biases influence the decisions of criminal justice professionals. In experimental research such as video simulated shooter studies, subjects are asked to quickly identify and shoot armed suspects, or to press another button to not shoot unarmed suspects.

Participants more quickly and accurately decided to shoot an armed target when that person was African American, but more quickly and accurately chose not to shoot if the unarmed target was white. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83 6 , — See also Payne, K.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87 6 , — When researchers conducted this study with a predominantly white group of Denver-based police officers , they found that the officers were less likely than the general public to mistakenly shoot at black unarmed suspects.

Journal of Social Issues, 68 2 , — However, officers more quickly shot at armed black suspects than at armed white suspects. The researchers concluded that while these officers exhibited bias in their speed to shoot, their experience and training reduced bias in their decision to shoot.

Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8 5 , — Researchers have analyzed the extent to which implicit bias affects the work of police officers, prosecutors, judges, and other members of the courtroom work group. Key segments of the criminal justice system are underfunded , leading to worse outcomes for low-income defendants, who are disproportionately people of color. Moreover, many criminal justice policies and practices disadvantage people with limited resources.

Because the criminal justice system is an institution that primarily reacts to — rather than prevents — crime, it is ill-equipped to address many of the underlying causes of crime. These four features have created an unequal justice system. Excessive levels of control and punishment, particularly for people of color, are not advancing public safety goals and are damaging families and communities. American Sociological Review, 67, — Consequently, although people of color experience more crime than whites, they are less supportive than whites of punitive crime control policies.

The best practices described in the following section are drawn from the following sources, unless otherwise stated: The Sentencing Project Reducing Racial Disparities in Juvenile Detention Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation; Shoenberg, D. Jurisdictions around the country have implemented reforms to address these sources of inequality. This section showcases best practices from the adult and juvenile justice systems.

In many cases, these reforms have produced demonstrable results. State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review Columbus, OH: Kirwan Institute. Their review describes a number of debiasing strategies shown to reduce implicit racial bias in both experimental and non-experimental settings. These include providing exposure to counter-stereotypic imagery, increasing inter-racial contact and diversity, and monitoring outcomes to increase accountability.

This section examines recent proposals to reduce bias in policing, as well as how jurisdictions have mitigated the negative impact of implicit bias in later stages of the justice system by establishing objective guidelines to standardize decision making, ensuring that decision-makers have access to the most complete information possible, and providing training on racial bias.

In addition to reducing excessive police contact , police departments must also improve the nature of this contact to curb excessive use of force. Because of their training and experience, police officers are less likely than the general public to mistakenly shoot at black unarmed suspects in experimental settings, and exhibit less bias in their response times. But it is unclear how these lab-based outcomes translate to real-world scenarios.

Exacerbates Stereotypic Bias in the Decision to Shoot. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39 3 , — Research on many recently proposed reforms to reduce racial bias in policing has been limited and mixed:. Investing in alternatives to incarceration and limiting the financial outlays required from defendants have helped to reduce the disadvantage of low-income people of color in the criminal justice system.

While the criminal justice system is not well-positioned to address the socioeconomic inequality that contributes to differential crime rates, it should not aggravate these conditions.

Advocates have had success in downsizing and redirecting criminal justice spending, increasing utilization of existing resources, and limiting the collateral consequences of criminal convictions. Policymakers and practitioners can draw on lessons from these reforms to develop successful implementation strategies and sound evaluation metrics. All key decision-makers and interested parties — policymakers, practitioners, community groups, and formerly incarcerated individuals — should be included in the development and implementation of reforms.

This collective approach can identify sources of disparity, develop solutions and weigh their costs, carry out implementation, and establish monitoring and accountability practices.

Institutionalizing reforms in this way can also ensure that they are sustainably funded and implemented. In addition, public education can expand demand and support for reforms.

A key question is whether an initiative should be designed to reduce the total number of people of color in the justice system in absolute count or as a rate or the relative ratio of racial disparity a comparison of rates of contact with the justice system.

Analyzing the impact of reforms to address racial disparity within the justice system requires not only access to comprehensive data, but also a framework for measuring success. These are both laudable goals, but with potentially very different outcomes. Just as it is possible to reduce the absolute level of imprisonment without reducing racial disparity for example, if both white and black incarceration rates were equally reduced , so is it possible to reduce racial disparities without affecting incarceration levels for example, if the white incarceration rate rose while the black incarceration rate remained constant.

A recent study of the juvenile justice system illustrates these dynamics. The study found that of the juveniles placed in secure confinement during this period, the proportion who were youth of color increased from While it is troubling that the racial disparity has increased, there are nonetheless far fewer African Americans and whites behind bars.

From the perspective of reducing the consequences of criminal justice control over people of color, such a development has been constructive overall. Despite substantial progress in achieving racial justice in American society over the past half century, racial disparities in the criminal justice system have persisted and worsened in many respects.

The country has made progress on these issues in recent years. New York and other large states have significantly reduced their prison populations Mauer, M. Downscaling Prisons: Lessons from Four States. The racial gap in incarceration rates has begun to narrow Mauer , note 61 above. Local Police Departments, C; Blain, G. Finally, proper enforcement of the recently reauthorized Death in Custody Reporting Act can ensure accurate data on future police use of lethal force.

As proven by the jurisdictions highlighted in this report, reforms can improve criminal justice outcomes by targeting the four key causes of racial disparity: disparate racial impact of laws and policies, racial bias in the discretion of criminal justice professionals, resource allocation decisions that disadvantage low-income people, and policies that exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities. We must now expand the scale and increase the speed of these efforts.

This report identifies four key features of the criminal justice system that produce racially unequal outcomes and showcases initiatives to abate these sources of inequity in adult and juvenile justice systems around the country. Justice Quarterly, 30 2 , —; Wu, J. Crime in the United States ; see works cited in note 55 above. The War on Marijuana in Black and White. Criminology, 36 3 , — Ethnicity and Sentencing Outcomes in U. American Sociological Review, 65 5 , —; Steffensmeier, D. Criminology, 39 1 , —; Spohn, S.

Criminal Justice, 3, — Criminal Courts. American Sociological Review, 79 5 — Casey Foundation. DePaul Law Review, 53 4 , — West Virginia Law Review, — Department of Education Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 30 States in Patterns from to For a discussion of the potential criminogenic effects of high levels of incarceration, see: National Research Council , note 45 above pp. Los Angeles Times ; Medina, J.

Cracked Justice. Race and Prosecution in Manhattan. How Race Skews Prosecutions. See also: Ashkenas, J. National Institutes of Justice: Research Brief. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35 4 , —; Alpert, G.

Analysis of Police Use-of-Force Data. Shootings of and by Chicago Police: Uncommon Crises. Part I: Shootings by Chicago Police. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology , 72 4 , — USA Today. Bloomberg Businessweek. How Reasonable Is the Reasonable Man? Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 85 2 , — Austin America-Statesman.

Fact Sheet: Strengthening Community Policing. The White House. In California, a Champion for Police Cameras. Implicit Bias in the Courtroom. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 7 1 , — Newark, NJ. Prop Criminal Sentences. Misdemeanor Penalties. Official Voter Information Guide. We next consider the role of context of a stop, in an effort to better understand underlying factors to the patterns observed in outcomes.

California passed the RIPA legislation in based on concerns about bias in policing that leads to different groups having different experiences with law enforcement. Furthermore, research has also found racial discrimination within the criminal justice system in jury, judge, and prosecutor decisions Anwar, Bayer, and Hjalmarsson ; Arnold, Dobbie, Yang ; Sloan It is perhaps unsurprising that these racial biases extend to policing Fryer ; Luh ; Hoekstra and Sloan ; Ba et al.

Hence, differences in stop experiences between Black and white people may reflect differences in the reasons for the stop Figure 2. Independent of race and ethnicity, if an officer observed a person committing a crime, if a person has a warrant, or has a weapon, that person likely will be detained and searched, and possibly booked into jail after a stop.

Such situations may be more adversarial—including the potential for use of force—than a traffic stop. If an individual is acting erratic, possibly due to behavioral health issues, an officer may shift decisions and actions. The prevalence of such situations across race and ethnicity may contribute to differences in outcomes. On average, Black Californians stopped by law enforcement are perceived to be younger compared to white Californians who are stopped Technical Appendix Table A2.

People stopped are also more often males. The latter two categories make a search more likely, as a warrant for a search is not needed, nor is cause, in California. Officers also report visibly seeing contraband in a higher share of stops of Black people than of white people.

Among the 15 largest law enforcement agencies, California Highway Patrol made more than 60 percent of all stops in of white individuals, but only about 35 percent of stops of Black individuals.

Agency-level differences in policing strategies, missions and roles, as well as officer behavior and biases, are also possible contributing factors. Differences in contexts, location, and agencies likely contribute to racial disparities in stop outcomes. We also adjust for whether the officer reported seeing contraband, and whether the person had an outstanding warrant or is on parole or probation.

See Technical Appendix B for a detailed discussion of the analysis and regression model. This exercise should not be interpreted as a causal analysis of race and ethnicity on outcomes and experiences, where after we account for reported relevant factors and contexts, any remaining disparities between Black and white individuals represent police bias. It may overestimate actual officer bias because the data does not capture all relevant factors and contexts e. Furthermore, crime rates are often higher in some areas of a jurisdiction than in others, and hence are likely to lead to different levels of police presence and activity.

If people of color are overrepresented in low-income and high-crime areas of a jurisdiction, this difference can also contribute to racial disparities in police stops. Unfortunately, the data do not allow us to account for such a possibility.

The exercise might also underestimate the prevalence of police bias if the factors that we control for, such as the reported reason for the stop, themselves represent police bias. One example may be the higher likelihood of Black individuals being stopped for reasonable suspicion than white individuals.

It is also important to keep in mind that the data examined is based on information an officer reports after the stop is completed, and hence provides an opportunity to report information aimed at hiding biases Luh, It is plausible that the fully adjusted racial gaps represent a conservative, lower-bound estimate of racial bias in policing, but further certainty on this point is beyond the scope of this report.

These estimated differences in outcomes across race and ethnicity serve as a starting point for understanding how experiences with law enforcement differ for people of color compared to white people. We aim to provide a more complete picture of what the data tell us these differences look like.

Moreover, it also directs us towards contexts that deserve closer examination as particular sources of disparity. Over 10 percent of all stops involve a search of the person or property.

For Black Californians the likelihood of being searched is more than twice that of white Californians—a search rate of Focusing on the Black-white inequities, after we adjust for officer-perceived personal traits such as age, gender, and disabilities, the gap shrinks somewhat, to When we additionally adjust for differences in the reported reason for the stop, the gap in Black-white search rates drops to 7. Search rates vary notably across law enforcement agencies see Technical Appendix Table A2 , reflecting differences in factors such as mission of agencies CHP vs.

Furthermore, demographic characteristics differ across jurisdictions. If, for example, Black residents tend to live in cities where law enforcement may conduct searches more often across all racial and ethnic groups, then the Black-white disparity in search rates may partly reflect location. When we adjust for average differences in search rate across law enforcement agencies and for fixed characteristics of a jurisdiction, the Black-white gap drops further to 4.

In other words, adjusting for perceived personal traits, context of stop, and location reduces the gap by about two-thirds.

And while this suggests that these factors matter, we also find that Black people are still 1. All estimates are statistically significant at the percent confidence level. Bars represent estimated gaps relative to white residents with consecutively added controls. Detailed regression results are presented in the Technical Appendix. As a share of stops , contraband and evidence are found relatively rarely—in only about 2.

So-called unconditional discovery or yield rates—the share of stops , as opposed to the share of searches , in which contraband or evidence was found—vary across perceived race and ethnic origin. For example, officers found some contraband and evidence in 4. As a share of searches , contraband or evidence was found more often—in Searches yield contraband or evidence in 0.

The small Black-white gap increases as we control for personal traits and contexts reported by the officer. Officers are more likely to find contraband and evidence in searches of juveniles and young adults compared to older adults, and in searches of men compared to women—young men are represented more often in searches of Black individuals. Adjusting for perceived personal traits increases the gap to The data also include information on the basis for the search, and searches most likely to yield contraband or evidence are searches when the officer reports either seeing or smelling which includes canines contraband or evidence.

Officers more often report such basis for searches in stops of Black individuals than white see Technical Appendix Table A2 , which in turn means that when we adjust for the basis, the gap more than doubles to Put differently, officers discover contraband in their searches of Black people about 10 percent less than in searches of white people. Adjusting for differences across law enforcement agencies does not appreciably change the Black-white gap in yield rates.

Furthermore, when we break down contraband and evidence by separate categories weapons, drugs, property, or other , the discovery rate gap is entirely driven by a lower likelihood of finding drugs in searches of Black than white Californians.

The estimated gap, adjusted for all factors, is a statistically significant difference of All estimates are statistically significant at the perent confidence level. Officers issue at least a warning in about 88 percent of all stops; thus, most stops lead to some enforcement. However, Black Californians are more likely to be stopped without any enforcement. Officers issue at least a warning in fewer stops of Black persons compared to white, at Put differently, about one-fifth of stops of Black persons lead to no enforcement versus one-tenth of stops of white persons.

However, stops of Black individuals are more likely to result in an arrest, at 9. In other words, almost 1 in 10 Black people stopped are booked, while slightly more than 1 in 20 white people are.

Adjusting for perceived personal traits reduces the Black-white gaps somewhat, by about 1 percentage point for low enforcement and about half a percentage point for the highest enforcement.

When we adjust for the reason for the stop, it reduces the estimated gaps notably: Lastly, when we adjust for enforcement rates across law enforcement agencies, the Black-white gap in the likelihood of the stop leading to at least a warning narrows notably Figure 5.

This shows that differences in enforcement rates are partly driven by more Black Californians than white Californians being stopped by law enforcement agencies that make more stops without enforcement. And while adjusting for all factors considered here lowers the observed gap notably, it also points towards widespread differences in enforcement across agencies.

When law enforcement stops an individual, the interaction may be limited to verbal communication or it can widen to involve use of force and weapons. In For stops of Latino Californians, the share is In other words, Black people are slightly more than twice as likely as white to at least be asked to step out of the vehicle. More generally, Black people are at least twice as likely as white people to experience each of the levels of intrusiveness defined here.

Adjusting for personal traits and context of the stop greatly reduces Black-white gaps in our measures of intrusiveness and use of force. While Black civilians are 7. Adjusting for the reason for the stop shrinks the gap to 3 percentage points.

CHP also has the lowest share of stops where individuals are handcuffed, at 1. Therefore, when we adjust for differences across agencies, the Black-white gap related to handcuffing drops to 1. In other words, for a Black person with otherwise the same personal traits as a white person, stopped for the same reason, by the same law enforcement agency, the likelihood of being handcuffed is one-fifth of the gap of 7.

Still, Black Californians are statistically significantly more likely to be handcuffed than white Californians, even after adjusting for the above factors—by 1. Officers report that 16, out of the 3,, stops 0. But adjusting for differences in shares of stops where either a weapon is found, the stop is made for reasonable suspicion, or includes an individual with an outstanding warrant for an arrest reduces the Black-white gaps markedly.

Black Californians are roughly three times more likely than white Californians to experience a stop that involves a weapon, at about a 0. Adjusting for personal traits—such as more young Black adults than white stopped—reduces the gap to about 0. As stops based on reasonable suspicion—especially an outstanding warrant—are more likely to involve weapons than all other reasons for stops, and with Black individuals overrepresented in these categories, adjusting for such differences reduces the Black-white gap to 0.

This adjustment reduces the Black-white gap to about 0. This book compares the personal experiences of women of color professors with those of white women, white men, and other men of color who serve as faculty and administrators in American law schools. This book analyzes how racial and gender biases have become pervasive in hiring, colleague interaction, promotion, and the legal education taught within law schools today.

H36 It discusses how race is a social construct and analyzes the intersection of race and law. Lucius T. Strieff, 50 N. First, it adds to the chorus of work exposing and criticizing the flawed legal reasoning of the majority opinion.

An annotated bibliography comprised of law review articles, social science articles, and policy reports on race and racism in higher education. This article highlights socioeconomic racial disparities throughout U. This article discusses how the normalization of incarcerating communities based on race disrupts communities. This article analyzes how policing becomes a way of utilizing state power to correct and deter elements of society that seem out of place or outside the norm.

This article outlines "Ferguson to Geneva," an advocacy effort that framed abuses of marginalized communities in the U. This article discusses colorblindness as a limiting factor in realizing the promises and guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. This article defines and analyzes the race paradigm and offers wholism as a way to approach ongoing racism. Lenese C. Part II notes the seminal exclusion of African Americans when contemplating and constructing Fourth Amendment guarantees Part III asserts that over-policing innocent Americans based on their race renders the American polity defacto segregated and illegitimately creates two societies: 'American' and 'not.

Part IV explores how race-based policing creates identity, often within the crucible of violence This Article therefore concludes by warning that, unless the Court intervenes, race-based policing of African Americans4 thwarts the United States' efforts to combat terrorism and foster world peace. This article defines identity markets and discusses the implications of their existence within current labor markets.

This article discusses the application of laws based on concepts of sameness and the differences between races and communities. It tackles issues such as color blindness, over application, and other inequitable means that exacerbate inequalities based on race.