This collection examines the perennial tension between society's need to protect its citizens from crime, while assuring that the crime control and reduction measures that it enacts do not deny basic rights or exacerbate the socioeconomic inequality that gives rise to disparate rates of offending. Such tension exists in all modern societies, but it has been particularly evident in the United States, a nation whose history manifests both group inequality and an ongoing effort to reduce such inequality, assure fairness, equal protection, and due process for individuals. Focusing largely on developments in criminal justice policies and practices enacted during the last few decades, the essays in this volume explore the delicate balance between governmental crime control efforts and professed goals of promoting social justice and protecting civil liberties. Representing disciplines ranging from criminology to economics, geography, law, sociology, and political science, the contributors critically examine and debate the nature and impact of recent and contemporary American criminal justice policies. Particular attention is paid to the impact of such policies on the nation's racial divide, but the authors use this disparity to illustrate the broader public policy paradoxes and dilemmas which lie at the heart of the struggle to control rising crime rates. Purported reforms in sentencing, the nation's growing prison population, the war on drugs and gangs, the demise of juvenile court, racial profiling and affirmative action are all grist for the mill. Contributors also ask more philosophical and epistemological questions such as the meaning of "social justice," "fairness," and "justice" andtheir relevance for understanding contemporary criminal justice.

Imprisonment, homicide, non-lethal assault and other crime, chronic and infectious disease, substance abuse, suicide, and accidents all contribute to the much wider gap in the community-level sex ratios found among African Americans compared to those observed found among other ethnic and racial groups in the United States. This wide array of causes and correlates of African American male mortality, disability, and confinement suggests an area in need of interdisciplinary inquiry that examines the intersection between public health and public safety. Health analysts and social scientists across many disciplines have studied the disproportionately high levels of disease, disability, premature death, and exposure to the criminal justice system in African Americans communities extensively. To date, there has been little overlap between the diverse literatures even though the very same factors leading to crime and punishment among African American males often contribute to their poor physical and mental health profiles. This book addresses this omission by including chapters exploring the multifaceted dimensions of the varied disadvantages faced by African American males. Authors draw from an array of theoretical and methodological frameworks to illustrate how poor outcomes and sharp disparities among individuals and communities can be linked to the interplay of multiple factors operating at multiple levels. This volume is a useful resource for serious scholars and makers of public policy who seek to understand the causal interplay among economic and racial inequality, gender, crime, punishment, and health outcomes among all African Americans.

Analysts have long noted that some societies have much higher rates of criminal violence than others. The risk of being a victim or a perpetrator of violent crime varies considerably from one individual to another. Some ethnic and racial groups have been reported to have higher rates of violent offending and victimization than other groups in societies with ethnically and racially diverse populations. This series of essays explores the extent and causes of racial and ethnic differences in violent crime in the U.S. and several other contemporary societies.