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- Title
Race and Punishment: Directions for Economic Research.
- Authors
Myers Jr., Samuel L.
- Abstract
The scholarly debate over the nature and cause of the significant racial disparities in prison incarceration rates in the U.S. has taken on renewed intensity in recent years. Two sorts of activities have spurred the debate. On one hand, researchers such as Alfred Blumstein, Jan Chaiken and Marcia Chaiken, and Joan Petersilia have begun to use powerful analytic and conceptual tools to scrutinize the hypothesis that racism or racial discrimination exists in the criminal justice system, or that it is the cause of the racial disproportionality of our prisons. On the other hand, minority scholars and public opinion leaders have begun a very visible and vocal attack on the results of the conventional social science community. These activities have stimulated much discussion among public policymakers and legislators. Ranking black members of the U.S. Congress, for example, have gone on record by questioning social science research findings that purport to show that racial discrimination in certain aspects of the criminal justice system does not exist-or, at least, that its alleged existence is not a cause of the greater representation of African-Americans in the prisons or the criminal population.
- Subjects
UNITED States; RACE discrimination in criminal justice administration; RACE discrimination; IMPRISONMENT; UNITED States. Congress; CRIMINAL justice system; BLUMSTEIN, Alfred; CHAIKEN, Jan; ECONOMICS
- Publication
American Economic Review, 1984, Vol 74, Issue 2, p288
- ISSN
0002-8282
- Publication type
Article