By Chandra Childers

Summary: Southern politicians claim that “business-friendly” policies lead to an abundance of jobs and economic prosperity for all Southerners. The data actually show a grim economic reality.

Key findings

The share of prime-age workers (ages 25–54) who have a job is lower than the national average in most Southern states.

• Median earnings in nine Southern states are among the lowest in the nation, even after adjusting for lower cost of living in the South.

• Poverty rates in most Southern states are above the national average. In Louisiana and Mississippi, nearly 1 in 5 residents live in poverty.

• The child poverty rate in the South is 20.9%—higher than in any other region.

These statistics reflect an anti-worker economic model whose signature policies are low wages, low taxes, few regulations on businesses, few labor protections, a weak safety net, and vicious opposition to unions.

Why this matters

A long history of anti-worker policies in the South—rooted in a racist agenda—has had devastating consequences for its residents. Business interests and the wealthy have stoked racial divisions to maintain power and ensure access to cheap labor—at the expense of working people.

How to fix it

We must begin to reverse 150 years of anti-worker policymaking in the South—starting with raising minimum wages and protecting workers’ right to organize. We also need to enforce appropriate regulations on business practices, reform a broken tax structure, and strengthen the safety net for Southerners.

The Impacts of Implicit Bias Awareness Training in the NYPD

By Robert E. Worden, Sarah J. McLean, Robin S. Engel, Hannah Cochran, Nicholas Corsaro, Danielle Reynolds ,Cynthia J. Najdowski, Gabrielle T. Isaza

In February of 2018, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) began inservice training on implicit bias for its 36,000 sworn personnel, using the Fair and Impartial Policing (FIP) curriculum. A team of researchers from the John Finn Institute for Public Safety and the IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy partnered with the NYPD to conduct evaluation research on the impacts of the training. The evaluation concentrated on the effects of the training among patrol officers assigned to commands in the Patrol Services Bureau, Transit Bureau, and Housing Bureau, whose training commenced in May, 2018 and concluded in April, 2019. We assessed the immediate effects of the training on officers’ beliefs and attitudes: their knowledge about the science of implicit bias and the potential implications for policing, and their attitudes about the salience of bias and discrimination as a social problem, and the importance of policing without prejudice. A survey was administered on the day of FIP training, either prior to or following the training on alternating days. We drew inferences about immediate training effects from the differences in pre- and post-training survey responses. The effect of the training on officers’ knowledge about implicit bias was of moderate magnitude, though many officers’ comprehension of the science of bias was limited. The effects of the training on officers’ attitudes toward discrimination, and their motivation to act without prejudice, were fairly small, though prior to the training, most officers considered discrimination a social problem and felt individually motivated to act without bias. Officers regarded the training as beneficial: 70 percent reportedly gained a better understanding of implicit bias and more than two-thirds reportedly learned new strategies and skills that they expected to apply to their work. Nearly half rated the likelihood of using all five biasmanagement strategies as either a 6 or 7 on a 7-point scale anchored at 7 as ‘very likely.’ We conducted a follow-up survey about officers’ beliefs and attitudes and their actual utilization of FIP strategies, which was administered from June through August of 2019, ranging from 2 to 13 months following the training. Asked whether they attempted “to apply the FIP training in your duties over the last month,” 42 percent said they had not, 31 percent said they attempted to use the bias-management strategies sometimes, and 27 percent said they attempted using them frequently. Comparing the follow-up survey responses to those on the days of training, we also detected some decay in the immediate effects of the training on officers’ comprehension of the science of implicit bias. The impact of police training is likely to be greater when it is supported by other organizational forces, of which immediate supervisors may be the most important. We surveyed sergeants post-training. We found that most sergeants view monitoring for bias as one of their responsibilities, and that they are willing to intervene as needed with individual officers. One-quarter reported that they had intervened with an officer whose performance warranted intervention. Slightly more than half of the sergeants reportedly address issues of implicit bias during roll calls, thereby reinforcing the training. Insofar as officers’ unconscious biases may influence their enforcement decisions, and to the extent that officers apply their training in FIP strategies to manage their unconscious biases, we hypothesized that the training would lead to reductions in racial/ethnic disparities in enforcement actions, including stops, frisks, searches, arrests, summonses, and uses of force. We examined enforcement disparities at multiple levels of analysis – at the aggregate level of commands and the level of individual enforcement events. To isolate the effect of the training from other factors, the NYPD adhered to a protocol for a randomized controlled trial that provided for grouping commands into clusters scheduled for training by random assignment. This experimental control was supplemented by statistical controls in the analytical models. Overall, we found insufficient evidence to conclude that racial and ethnic disparities in police enforcement actions were reduced as a result of the training. It is very difficult to isolate the effects of the training from other forces that produce disparate enforcement outcomes. Training impacts might be a signal that is easily lost in the noise of everyday police work. Estimating the effect of a single training curriculum on officers’ decisions to invoke the law or otherwise exercise police authority may well be akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Furthermore, it has been presumed but not demonstrated that enforcement disparities stem, at least in part, from officers’ implicit biases. Though research has shown that police officers, like the general public, hold unconscious biases, no scientific evidence directly links officers’ implicit bias with enforcement disparities. To the contrary, the evidence – which is thin, to be sure – suggests that officers practice controlled responses even without implicit bias training. If disparities stem from forces other than implicit bias, then even a welldesigned training that is flawlessly delivered cannot be expected to alter patterns of police enforcement behavior.

Albany, NY: John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc , 2020. 188p.

By Lee D. Baker

In the late nineteenth century, if ethnologists in the United States recognized African American culture, they often perceived it as something to be overcome and left behind. At the same time, they were committed to salvaging “disappearing” Native American culture by curating objects, narrating practices, and recording languages. In Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture, Lee D. Baker examines theories of race and culture developed by American anthropologists during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth. He investigates the role that ethnologists played in creating a racial politics of culture in which Indians had a culture worthy of preservation and exhibition while African Americans did not. Baker argues that the concept of culture developed by ethnologists to understand American Indian languages and customs in the nineteenth century formed the basis of the anthropological concept of race eventually used to confront “the Negro problem” in the twentieth century. As he explores the implications of anthropology’s different approaches to African Americans and Native Americans, and the field’s different but overlapping theories of race and culture, Baker delves into the careers of prominent anthropologists and ethnologists, including James Mooney Jr., Frederic W. Putnam, Daniel G. Brinton, and Franz Boas. His analysis takes into account not only scientific societies, journals, museums, and universities, but also the development of sociology in the United States, African American and Native American activists and intellectuals, philanthropy, the media, and government entities from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Supreme Court. In Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture, Baker tells how anthropology has both responded to and helped shape ideas about race and culture in the United States, and how its ideas have been appropriated (and misappropriated) to wildly different ends.

Durham, NC: London: Duke University Press, 2010. 294p.

Edited by Muhammad, Khalil Gibran, Bruce Western, Yamrot Negussie, and Emily Backes, eds.

Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice, and Policy synthesizes the evidence on community-based solutions, noncriminal policy interventions, and criminal justice reforms, charting a path toward the reduction of racial inequalities by minimizing harm in ways that also improve community safety. Reversing the effects of structural racism and severing the close connections between racial inequality, criminal harms such as violence, and criminal justice involvement will involve fostering local innovation and evaluation, and coordinating local initiatives with state and federal leadership. This report also highlights the challenge of creating an accurate, national picture of racial inequality in crime and justice: there is a lack of consistent, reliable data, as well as data transparency and accountability. While the available data points toward trends that Black, Latino, and Native American individuals are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and given more severe punishments compared to White individuals, opportunities for improving research should be explored to better inform decision-making.

Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2022.

By R.R. Dunlea, Besiki Luka Kutateladze. Melba Pearson. Don Stemen and Lin Liu (Prosecutorial Performance Indicators)

This report measures the scope and magnitude of racial and ethnic disparities in prosecutorial outcomes in the Broward State Attorney’s Office, Florida, during 2021. The data suggest that, compared to Hispanic and White defendants, Black defendants are: • Least likely to have their case filed for prosecution, especially for felony charges; • Most likely to have their top charge reduced in severity at filing, as well as increased in severity; • Most likely to have their case dismissed, whether charged with a felony or a misdemeanor; • Least likely to have their felony charge reduced after filing; and • Most likely to receive custodial and time-served-only sentences upon conviction, as compared to non-custodial sentences. • Especially more likely to receive custodial sentences than White defendants in negotiated pleas, as compared to open pleas. Compared to similarly situated Black and White defendants, Hispanic defendants are: • Least likely to experience charge changes at filing; • Most likely to have their case pursued for prosecution; • Most likely to have their felony charges reduced at disposition; and • Least likely to receive jail and prison sentences upon conviction.

Miami: Florida International University, 2022. 27p.

By JustLeadership USA and the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA)

JustLeadership USA and the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA) released a new report, Building the Table: Advancing Race Equity in the Criminal Legal System, which provides a historic roadmap of strategies to advance race equity in the criminal legal system.

The report’s findings are the result of an unprecedented convening between representatives from all components of the justice system alongside community members, in particular those with lived experience, their families, and survivors of crime. This collaboration builds a foundation for policies that will successfully advance race equity, improve our approach to justice, and promote community safety and well-being.

“As people who are directly impacted and hurt by the criminal legal system, it is extremely important that our voices and leadership are a core part of any transformation that impacts our lives and those of our communities,” said DeAnna Hoskins, president and CEO of JustLeadershipUSA. “True authentic engagement is more than seeking our support at the end of systematic redesign, it occurs when the concepts of reimagining are led by those most affected, because our experience is our expertise. Our leadership as we ‘Build the Table’ is critical to advancing race equity and improving the system’s capacity to administer justice and promote community safety and well-being.”

This report and initiative were made possible through the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the efforts of those who volunteered their time and insights to produce this document.

“As we strive to advance racial and ethnic equity in the criminal justice system, it is critical that we elevate the leadership role of people with lived experience to ensure that their first-hand perspectives shape the creation of effective and meaningful solutions,” said Laurie Garduque, director of criminal justice at the MacArthur Foundation. “This report offers a framework for communities looking to advance community safety and wellbeing, and it starts with authentic community engagement and acknowledging the expertise of people with lived experience.”

This report is intended to equip federal, state and local legal system stakeholders to pursue new approaches to building stronger relationships with communities and the broader legal system. This consensus contains a unified statement of principles, policies and practical guidance to advance race equity in the criminal legal system, as well as recent real-world examples of policies and practices implemented by a variety of system stakeholders and community organizations throughout the country.

Washington, DC: Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, 2023. 27p.

By Anti-Defamation League Center for Technology and Society

How safe are social media platforms now? Throughout 2020 and early 2021, major technology companies announced that they were taking unprecedented action against the hate speech, harassment, misinformation and conspiracy theories that had long flourished on their platforms. According to the latest results from ADL’s annual survey of hate and harassment on social media, despite the seeming blitz of self-regulation from technology companies, the level of online hate and harassment reported by users barely shifted when compared to reports from a year ago. This is the third consecutive year ADL has conducted its nationally representative survey. Forty-one percent of Americans said they had experienced online harassment over the past year, comparable to the 44% reported in last year’s “Online Hate and Harassment” report. Severe online harassment comprising sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats, swatting, doxing and sustained harassment also remained relatively constant compared to the prior year, experienced by 27% of respondents, not a significant change from the 28% reported in the previous survey. ● LGBTQ+ respondents reported higher rates of overall harassment than all other demographics for the third consecutive year, at 64%. ● 36% of Jewish respondents experienced online harassment, comparable to 33% the previous year. ● Asian-American respondents have experienced the largest single year-over-year rise in severe online harassment in comparison to other groups, with 17% reporting it this year compared to 11% last year. This year, fewer respondents who experienced physical threats reported them to social media platforms than was the case the year before; these users also reported that platforms were doing less to address their safety. ● 41% of respondents who experienced a physical threat stated that the platform took no action on a threatening post, ● comparable to the 38% who had reported a similar lack of action the year before. ● 38% said they did not flag the threatening post to the platform, no statistically significant change from 33% the prior year. ● Only 14% of those who experienced a physical threat said the platform deleted the threatening content, a significant drop from 22% the prior year. ● Just 17% of those who experienced a physical threat stated that the platform blocked the perpetrator who posted the content, a sharp decrease from the prior year’s 28%.

New York: ADL, 2021. 46p.

By U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Massachusetts Advisory Committee

Hate crimes and harassment targeting Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders surged during the pandemic, demanding action, and on May 21, 2021, President Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. Memorializing the women murdered in attacks on Atlanta massage parlors, the Act focuses partly on improving reporting, data collection, and prevention and education at the federal and state level. Its strong bi-partisan support was a welcome acknowledgment of the dangers confronted daily by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. As press reports have made clear, a recent spate of violent attacks have made some people, especially the elderly, fearful of venturing outside. How distressing, if not dangerous, is daily life for them? Harassment and hate-fueled acts are difficult to count, even when they might constitute crimes or civil offenses, since accurate data requires self-reporting. Still the numbers indicate a worrisome trend: Between March 2020 and March 2021, Stop AAPI Hate compiled some 6600 reports of hate incidents; the Public Policy Institute of California survey found that one in eight Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders reported being targeted by hate incidents in 2020, amounting to about 2 million people. But AntiAsian hate incidents in Massachusetts were increasing disproportionately before the pandemic, starting in 2015. For many people in the AAPI community, hate crimes and harassment are inescapable parts of daily life. In addition to being targeted by racist taunting and slurs, people report being threatened, assaulted, and having garbage thrown at them. In Massachusetts, AAPI identifies residents numbering over 450,000. People of Chinese descent constitute the largest sub-group, followed by refugees -- Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, and Hmong. Many are underserved and vulnerable to hate crimes and harassment. Current data shows a 47 percent increase in anti-AAPI hate crimes in Massachusetts between 2015 and 2020, while total hate crimes have increased only 2 percent over the same period.

Washington, DC: The Commission, 2021. 23p.

By Susan Nembhard and Lily Robin

Differential treatment on the basis of race is well documented in the US criminal legal system. Definitions of criminality and criminal activity are rooted in structural inequalities between people of color and white people, and racist policies and practices have been used to control and separate communities of color. In addition, discretion given to individual system actors at each decision point in the system creates opportunities for racial biases to influence practices toward and outcomes for system-involved people. Racial biases are so deeply embedded in the criminal legal system that disparities based on race exist at each decision point, impacting subsequent decision points and resulting in negative outcomes for Black people and other people of color. It is imperative that researchers approach their work with an understanding of how racist policies and implicit biases interact within and throughout different aspects of the criminal legal system if they want to identify and promulgate more equitable policies and research.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 14o,

By Len Engel, Joanna Abaroa-Ellison, Erin Jemison, and Khalil Cumberbatch

People of color in the United States, especially poor people of color, are disproportionately affected by crime, the criminal justice system, and COVID-19. More than seven months into the pandemic, data remains scarce. COVID-19 – in its impact as well as in approaches to try to curb its spread – has exposed and may have exacerbated existing racial imbalances in the criminal justice and healthcare systems. This report reviews racial disparities in health and criminal justice outcomes and explores, as well as possible, how those same disparities have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It also highlights the need for clear, consistent data regarding the impacts of COVID-19 on justice populations in order to inform decisions about how to address racial disparities during and after this health crisis.

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2020. `1p. 

By Jaquelyn L. Jahn, Jessica T. Simes, Tori L. Cowger & Brigette A. Davis

Systemic racism in police contact is an important driver of health inequities among the U.S. urban population. Hyper-policing and police violence in marginalized communities have risen to the top of the national policy agenda, particularly since protests in 2020. How did pandemic conditions impact policing? We assess neighborhood racial disparities in arrests after COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in Boston, Charleston, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco census tracts (January 2019-August 2020). Using interrupted time series models with census tract fixed effects, we report arrest rates across tract racial and ethnic compositions. In the week following stay orders, overall arrest rates were 66% (95% CI: 51-77%) lower on average. Although arrest rates steadily increased thereafter, most tracts did not reach pre-pandemic arrest levels. However, despite declines in nearly all census tracts, the magnitude of racial inequities in arrests remained unchanged. During the initial weeks of the pandemic, arrest rates declined significantly in areas with higher Black populations, but absolute rates in Black neighborhoods remain higher than pre-pandemic arrest rates in White neighborhoods. These findings support urban policy reforms that reconsider police capacity and presence, particularly as a mechanism for enforcing public health ordinances and reducing racial disparities.

Boston: Boston University, 2021. 29p.