may contain markup

By N. Prabha Unnithan

Criminology and criminal justice is in its infancy in India. This book attempts to examine India's crime problem in detail and document if and how its criminal justice system has responded to emerging challenges and opportunities. The objective is to move beyond mere observations and thoughtful opinions, and make contributions that are the next steps in the development of an empirical (or evidence-based) criminology and criminal justice on this vast and diverse country-by focusing on research that is both balanced and precise. This book brings together a diverse set of 32 academics from India, the US, and the UK who have authored 19 chapters on many aspects of crime and justice in India. The organizational components or sectors of the criminal justice system are the police, the courts, and corrections. The studies collected here provide balanced coverage of the entire criminal justice system and not just one component of it. The first section of this book consists of overviews of several major issues that affect the entire criminal justice system. Section Two considers topics related to the gateway of the criminal justice system, policing. Section Three takes up the operational problems of criminal law and courts and Section Four deals with the difficult question of punishment and correction, the last part of the criminal justice system.

SAGE, 2013, 476 pages

By Marty Langley and VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann.  

To educate the public and policymakers about the reality of black homicide victimization, each year the VPC releases Black Homicide Victimization in the United States (follow this link to download the study as a pdf). This annual study examines black homicide victimization at the state level utilizing unpublished Supplementary Homicide Report data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The study ranks the states by their rates of black homicide victimization and offers additional information for the 10 states with the highest black homicide victimization rates.

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2023. 18p.

By Stephanie Holmes Didwania

Fraud is one of the most prosecuted crimes in the United States, yet scholarly and journalistic discourse about fraud and other financial crimes tends to focus on the absence of so-called “white-collar” prosecutions against wealthy executives. This Article complicates that familiar narrative. It contains the first nationwide account of how the United States actually prosecutes financial crime. It shows—contrary to dominant academic and public discourse—that the government prosecutes an enormous number of people for financial crimes and that these prosecutions disproportionately involve the least advantaged U.S. residents accused of low-level offenses. This empirical account directly contradicts the aspiration advanced by the FBI and Department of Justice that federal prosecution ought to be reserved for only the most egregious and sophisticated financial crimes. This article argues, in other words, that the term “white-collar crime” is a misnomer.

To build this empirical foundation, the Article uses comprehensive data of the roughly two million federal criminal cases prosecuted over the last three decades matched to county-level population data from the U.S. Census. It demonstrates the history, geography, and inequality that characterize federal financial crime cases, which include myriad crimes such as identity theft, mail and wire fraud, public benefits fraud, and tax fraud, to name just a few. It shows that financial crime defendants are disproportionately low-income and Black, and that this overrepresentation is not only a nationwide pattern, but also a pattern in nearly every federal district in the United States. What’s more, the financial crimes prosecuted against these overrepresented defendants are on average the least serious. This Article ends by exploring how formal law and policy, structural incentives, and individual biases could easily create a prosecutorial regime for financial crime that reinforces inequality based on race, gender, and wealth.

Northwestern Law & Econ Research Paper Forthcoming, outhern California Law Review, Vol. 97, 2024, 54 pages

may contain markup

By GAIL WILLIAMS O'BRIEN

On February 25, 1946, African Americans in Columbia, Tennessee, averted the lynching of James Stephenson, a nineteen-year-old, black Navy veteran accused of attacking a white radio repairman at a local department store. That night, after Stephenson was safely out of town, four of Columbia's police officers were shot and wounded when they tried to enter the town's black business district. The next morning, the Tennessee Highway Patrol invaded the district, wrecking establishments and beating men as they arrested them. By day's end, more than one hundred African Americans had been jailed. Two days later, highway patrolmen killed two of the arrestees while they were awaiting release from jail.

Drawing on oral interviews and a rich array of written sources, Gail Williams O'Brien tells the dramatic story of the Columbia "race riot," the national attention it drew, and its surprising legal aftermath. In the process, she illuminates the effects of World War II on race relations and the criminal justice system in the United States. O'Brien argues that the Columbia events are emblematic of a nationwide shift during the 1940s from mob violence against African Americans to increased confrontations between blacks and the police and courts. As such, they reveal the history behind such contemporary conflicts as the Rodney King and O. J. Simpson cases.

University of North Carolina Press, 1999, 334 pages

By Stewart Boiteux and Suzanne Poynton 

AIM To describe rates of offending by young people with disability, and identify factors associated with their first contact with the youth justice system in NSW. METHOD A birth cohort of young people with disability residing in NSW was identified using State and Commonwealth information on health and disability service contacts from a large linked administrative dataset. Rates of offending were compared for young people with and without disability. Logistic regression analysis was undertaken to examine factors associated with the initial offending contact for young people with disability in the birth cohort. Differences in offence types and court outcomes for young people with disability were compared with young people with no known disability. RESULTS Despite accounting for only 3.5% of the population, young people with disability comprised 7.7% of all young people who had at least one police caution, youth justice conference or court appearance before the age of 18 and 17.4% of those with at least one youth detention episode. On average, people with disability had their first contact with the NSW criminal justice system at an earlier age, had a higher frequency of contacts, and had a different profile of offence types compared to people without disability. Offenders with disability received diversionary outcomes under the Young Offenders Act 1997 (NSW) at a similar rate to offenders without disability, but for matters proceeding to court, young people with disability received section 32 and 33 dismissals under the (now repealed) Mental Health (Forensic Provisions) Act 1990 (NSW) at a much higher rate. For people with disability, factors such as a later age of initial contact with disability-related services, greater remoteness of residence, and frequency of child protection contact were strongly associated with the likelihood of having a police caution, youth justice conference or court appearance before the age of 18. CONCLUSION People with disability have higher rates of contact with the youth justice system than people without disability and are significantly overrepresented in the youth custody population.

(Crime and Justice Bulletin No. 254). 

Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research , 2023. 39p.

By Clare Ringland, Stewart Boiteux and Suzanne Poynton 

AIM To describe the proportion of people with disability in New South Wales who offend, and the proportion of offenders who have a disability, separately for young and adult offenders. METHOD Data were obtained for individuals in contact with the criminal justice system and/or specific disability support services between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2018. For those who accessed these core disability support services (the “disability cohort”), we report frequencies and percentages relating to whether individuals had offending and/or custodial records during the 10-year period. Similarly, for the young and adult offender cohorts, we report frequencies and percentages relating to whether individuals had a disability, as per the disability cohort definition or a broader disability indicator. The following characteristics were also considered: age, sex, Aboriginality, type of disability (cognitive, psychosocial, physical), offence type (violent, domestic violence (DV) related, property), whether custodial episodes were sentenced episodes, and whether individuals were recorded as victims of crime during the same 10-year period. RESULTS Sixteen per cent of the disability cohort had a finalised matter (caution, youth justice conference, or court appearance) during the 10-year period; 5 per cent had a custodial episode. Across all offence types, rates were highest for those with psychosocial disability, particularly those with both cognitive and psychosocial disabilities. Rates were also higher for males (vs. females), for those aged 15–34 years (vs. <15 years and 35–64 years), for Aboriginal people, and for those recorded as victims of crime. Almost a quarter of young offenders were identified as people with disability (10% in the disability cohort), with rates of disability highest for DV offenders (42% identified with disability, 19% in the disability cohort). Similarly, 27 per cent of adult offenders were identified as people with disability (16% in the disability cohort), with highest rates of disability for property offenders (45% identified with disability, 25% in the disability cohort). Rates of disability were higher in Aboriginal offenders than non-Aboriginal offenders. Aboriginal offenders were also more likely than non-Aboriginal offenders to have been victims of crime during the period. For example, 90 per cent of Aboriginal female young offenders with disability were recorded as victims of crime during the period, versus 59 per cent of non-Aboriginal female young offenders with no identified disability. More than 2 in 5 young people and around 1 in 2 adults with sentenced custodial episodes were identified as people with disability.

CONCLUSION:  A significant proportion of young and adult offenders were identified as people with disability and many of these individuals had also been victims of crime. There is an urgent need for further disability focused research to identify opportunities for strengthened support and diversion for this vulnerable group

(Bureau Brief No. 164).

Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2023. 22p