Oxford University Press, USA
Punishing Race: A Continuing American Dilemma
Punishing Race: A Continuing American Dilemma
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How can it be, in a nation that elected Barack Obama, that one third of African American males born in 2001 will spend time in a state or federal prison, and that black men are seven times likelier than white men to be in prison? Blacks are much more likely than whites to be stopped by the
police, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned, and are much less likely to have confidence in justice system officials, especially the police. In Punishing Race, Michael Tonry demonstrates in lucid, accessible language that these patterns result not from racial differences in crime or drug use but primarily from drug and crime control policies that disproportionately affect black Americans. These policies in turn stem from a lack of white
empathy for black people, and from racial stereotypes and resentments provoked partly by the Republican Southern Strategy of using coded law and order appeals to race to gain support from white voters. White Americans, Tonry observes, have a remarkable capacity to endure the suffering of
disadvantaged black and, increasingly, Hispanic men. Crime policies are among a set of social policies enacted since the 1960s that have maintained white dominance over black people despite the end of legal discrimination. To redress these injustices, Tonry offers a number of proposals: stop racial
profiling by the police, shift the emphasis of drug law enforcement to treatment and prevention, eliminate mandatory sentencing laws, and change sentencing guidelines to allow judges discretion to take account of offenders' life circumstances. Those proposals are all attainable and would all reduce
unjustifiable racial disparities and the collateral human and social harms they cause. A damning indictment of decades of misguided criminal justice policy, Punishing Race takes a crucial look at persisting racial injustice in America.
Author: Michael Tonry
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 07/01/2012
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780199926466
police, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned, and are much less likely to have confidence in justice system officials, especially the police. In Punishing Race, Michael Tonry demonstrates in lucid, accessible language that these patterns result not from racial differences in crime or drug use but primarily from drug and crime control policies that disproportionately affect black Americans. These policies in turn stem from a lack of white
empathy for black people, and from racial stereotypes and resentments provoked partly by the Republican Southern Strategy of using coded law and order appeals to race to gain support from white voters. White Americans, Tonry observes, have a remarkable capacity to endure the suffering of
disadvantaged black and, increasingly, Hispanic men. Crime policies are among a set of social policies enacted since the 1960s that have maintained white dominance over black people despite the end of legal discrimination. To redress these injustices, Tonry offers a number of proposals: stop racial
profiling by the police, shift the emphasis of drug law enforcement to treatment and prevention, eliminate mandatory sentencing laws, and change sentencing guidelines to allow judges discretion to take account of offenders' life circumstances. Those proposals are all attainable and would all reduce
unjustifiable racial disparities and the collateral human and social harms they cause. A damning indictment of decades of misguided criminal justice policy, Punishing Race takes a crucial look at persisting racial injustice in America.
Author: Michael Tonry
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 07/01/2012
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780199926466
About the Author
Michael Tonry is Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School, and Senior Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement at Free University in Amsterdam.
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