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Taylor Coleman

Professor Debra Jizi

UWRITE 1104

5 November 2017

Annotated Bibliography

Citation:

Bobo, Lawrence D., and Victor Thompson. Unfair by Design: The War on Drugs, Race, and the

Legitimacy of the Criminal Justice System, 2006, pp. 3,4,5,12.

Compared to experience of blacks, most whites experience feelings of confidence when

encountering the police. Another comparison that can be made between the two groups is that

African Americans seem to experience more racial bias within the criminal justice system than

most white Americans do. Most Black Americans feel that there is a certain bias targeted at

them, more so than towards white Americans, from the criminal justice system, while a little

over half of white Americans feel that blacks are treated fairly by the system. The original goal

of the system was to protect white Americans more so than blacks, which they viewed to be

inferior, they started with this mentality and it has never left. The effects of these practices has

resulted in weakening the claim of fairness in our country's legal institutions.

This source is relevant to my inquiry because it displays the viewpoints of how certain groups

view the actions of the the criminal justice system. From this source, I learned about the first

intentions of the system. The initial intentions and how they either benefited or disadvantaged

certain groups has created lasting viewpoints towards the system,its officials, and also towards

the people, creating conflict. This source helped me move forward because it provided
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background information about why there is such a divide between the people and the system.

Things didnt just become this way overnight, we are living out the lasting effects of the

foundation of the system.

The authors of this source are Lawrence D. Bobo and Victor Thompson. Lawrence D. Bobo the

W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and has a degree from

the University of Michigan. He has been featured in several reviews and journals and is a

founding editor of the Du Bois Review, which was published by Cambridge University Press.

Victor Thompson has a Phd in sociology and is currently the Associate Professor and Chair,

Sociology and Criminology at Rider University. He has also taught at other universities such as

Stanford, San Jose State University, and Columbus State Community College.

Citation:

democracynow. Michelle Alexander: Ferguson Shows Why Criminal Justice System of Racial

Control Should Be Undone. YouTube, YouTube, 4 Mar. 2015,

The Justice Department found that majority of arrests made during 2012 to 2014 were primarily

African American. Most cases involving African Americans involved the use of force and all

involving dog bites involved African Americans as well. African Americans are more likely to

get pulled over for traffic stops even though white drivers are more likely possess drug

substances. There is a history a racial bias within the Ferguson department as they were

discovered to be sending emails containing racially motivated jokes and cartoons. As an African

American mother, Michelle Alexander feels that she must carry the task of telling her son that he

must live his life aware that the police might not always have the intentions of protecting people
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that look like him. She believes that we are living in the age of colorblindness and that parents

have to prepare their children in the same cautious way their parents may have brought them up

in decades ago.

From this source, I learned that racial tensions between the people and the police arose in

Ferguson even before the shooting of unarmed Michael Brown. Facts showed that the black

community had disproportionately been targeted within the city compared to white groups, even

in situations when whites are statistically more likely to be committing a crime. This interview

with Michelle Alexander also reaffirmed the idea that black parents have to raise up their

children to understand the harsh reality that they are not always safe within society, that they

may sometimes be targeted for prejudiced reasons. This source helped me move forward because

it gave me clear perspective on how certain groups feel about present day racial circumstances, it

shows that some groups try to vocalize reality while other groups tend to either be in denial or

choose to work with double intentions.

Democracy Now! Is hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Amy Goodman has a

bachelors degree in anthropology from Radcliffe College as well as a degree from Harvard

University. She has written six books on her profession and has also received the Gandhi Peace

Award. The other host being Juan Gonzalez, has a degree from Columbia University. Gonzlez

was the Belle Zeller Visiting Professor in Public Policy and Administration at Brooklyn College

and has received the George Polk Award. He has also written four books and has an extensive

history working with the New York Daily News. The interviewee on the show is Michelle

Alexander, who studied at Stanford Law school and is a former law professor from The Ohio
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State university. Michelle has been featured on TED Talk and is widely known for her book The

New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

Citation:

LearnLiberty. Racial Inequality in the Criminal Justice System. YouTube, YouTube, 14 Jan.

2013.

Because racial inequality within the criminal justice system doesnt affect majority of America,

its problem is not viewed seriously. Society is made up of mostly whites and only a little over

half of them make up prisons while blacks are a minority and make up over half of the prisons

population, same with Hispanics. The structure of the system coming from the political and

bureaucratic forces has created a system that motivates unreasonable actions within the system. It

is unreasonable to expect poor minority groups to be able to politically resolve the inequality

issue when they themselves are the ones living with systematic disadvantages. Most law

enforcement workers do their work with good intentions but that does not erase the effects of

historical inequality that citizens are still faced with today.

This source is relevant because it relates to the different viewpoints towards the system when

regarding race. This is important because it displays how majority of America often ignores this

issue until it personally affects them. This source also addresses the myth that it is easy for

disenfranchised groups of people to be able to lift themselves out of oppression without first

addressing the oppression that was built into and is protected within the criminal justice system.

This source helped me move forward because it gave me information that applies to the
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circumstances of todays society and helped me propose ideas of what needs to be done in order

to move forward as a people.

Learn Liberty is a non-profit organization that works with a wide variety of professors from all

types of educational backgrounds to find different perspectives on how to solve the worlds

problems. The speaker Daniel J. Damico is a lecturer in economics and the associate director of

The Political Theory Project at Brown University. Daniel J. Damico completed his Ph.D. in

economics from George Mason University. Daniel has also been awarded the level of Associate

Professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans and the Israel M. Kirzner Award for

best dissertation in Austrian Economics by the Society for the Development of Austrian

Economics.

Citation:

Lynch, Michael J. Introduction. Race and Criminal Justice, Harrow and Heston, 1991, pp.

2,3,5,6.

Racial bias encountered within the policing department of the criminal justice system is

considered to be informal racial bias because they are not publicly endorsed. Racial bias that

occurs is not always purposeful, it is often done unknowingly because people often fail to

properly inform themselves of these racial and ethnic bias. This ignorance of racial and ethnic

bias can be a direct result of harmful policies being passed that may disadvantage some groups

of people over others. Race can be defined as a social construct but it has been used to group

people by physical characteristics and as a way to elucidate themselves from others. The
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negative stereotypes that have been assigned to African Americans has made them vulnerable to

criminalization through societal outlets such as the media, law enforcement agencies and

personnel, as well as court personnel.

This source is relevant to my inquiry question because it addresses not only the presence of bias

within the criminal justice system, but it also addresses the history behind it while including

specific examples such as the Rodney King case and it explains the historical consequences that

these bias have had on groups of people. I learned that there is a specific term for the racial bias

that is secretly done within the system because it is not publicly accepted. I also learned that

racial bias within the criminal justice system has a connected and living history that affects the

people living in todays current society. This has definitely helped me move on with my research

because this was a source that helped set the foundation for a clear stance on the answer to my

inquiry question.

This source is credible because of its credible author. Michael J. Lynch possess both a masters

degree in sociology and a bachelors degree in criminal justice from St. Johns University, as

well as a masters and doctorate degree in criminal justice and a doctorate in philosophy from

State University of New York at Albany. He has taught as a professor at Florida State University

and is currently teaching at the University of South Florida. He is a prominent member of the

Environmental Prosecution and Investigation Association as well as the Florida Prosecuting

Attorneys Association. This source was peer reviewed by Reid M. Golden in Criminal Justice &

Policy Review, and by Pamela Irving Jackson in Contemporary Sociology. He is such an expert
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at criminology that he introduced the term, green criminology while exploring environmental

law.

Citation:

United States, Congress, Office of Justice Programs, et al. 2011, pp. 5,6,7,9,10,12.

Reports from the U.S. Office of Justice show the differences of contact with the police between

groups of people. Reports show that blacks are more likely to be searched when pulled over than

whites and hispanics are, and are more likely to experience or be threatened by the use of force

when encountering the police. Black residents are more likely to experience contact with the

police over not only whites, but also groups such as asians and pacific-islanders. Certain

minority groups like asians and pacific-islanders statistically rate closer to the experiences of

whites than blacks. Blacks are also more likely to be fined or arrested during traffic stops while

whites are more likely to be able to get away with verbal warnings.

This is relevant to my inquiry because it provides specific and statistical information about the

experiences with the police within communities and that facts have shown a visible gap in the

equality of treatment. This information gathered from surveys gave me factual evidence that not

all people are treated the same by powerful figures in society, the gap in the statistics is too large

to ignore. This source helped me move forward because it gives me factual numerical evidence

of inequality within the system. It also proves that certain groups of people view the system

differently because they typically do not all have the same experience.
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The authors of this report are Christine Eith and Matthew R. Durose who are staticians who

worked for the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. This source is credible because the Bureau of

Justice Statistics is under the U.S. Department of Justice which is a trusted source of the federal

government. Christine Eith obtained a Pd.D. in sociology from the University of Delaware and is

currently an Assistant Professor in the program of research methods in criminology at John

Hopkins University. Matthew R. Durose is a current statistician in the U.S. Department of Justice

and has been working there since since 2004 and has written several books on criminal justice

statistics.