Seeking Racial Justice Through Data in 2021 and Beyond

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 269-271
Author(s):  
Melba V. Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Community Safety ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Racial Justice

In the wake of the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, many people are posing the question as to what is next for racial and social justice. As the power of the prosecutor has been on display in recent months, what can be done to make sure that accountability is spread evenly among all races in the criminal justice system? For decades, the metric of a prosecutor’s success revolved around conviction rates. As thinking has evolved around the country, success now includes areas such as community safety, health, and wellness – which requires a new way to measure the work being done. Data provides this information. Data will play a critical role in ensuring transparency, changing policy, and making sure that justice is dispensed equally. Data creates a common language, as well as evidence regarding what is working effectively, and what is not. We cannot fix what we do not measure.

Racial Justice and Criminal Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Black Neighborhoods

The criminal justice system in the United States both reflects racial inequality in the broader society and contributes to it. The overrepresentation of African Americans among those in prison is a result of both the conditions in poor black neighborhoods and racial bias in the criminal justice system. The American system of criminal justice today is excessively punitive, when compared to previous periods and to other countries, and its harsh treatment disproportionately harms African Americans. In addition, those released from prison face a number of obstacles to housing, employment, and other prerequisites of decent life, and the concentration of prisoners and ex-prisoners in black communities does much to perpetuate racial inequality.

Justice versus Social Justice in South Africa: Quo vadis?

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marelize Isabel Schoeman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Underlying Basis ◽  
Quo Vadis

This article explores the concept of criminal justice as a formal process in which parties are judged and often adjudged from the paradigmatic perspective of legal guilt versus legal innocence. While this function of a criminal-justice system is important – and indeed necessary – in any ordered society, a society in transition such as South Africa must question the underlying basis of justice. This self-reflection must include an overview questioning whether the criminal-justice system and its rules are serving the community as originally intended or have become a self-serving function of state in which the final pursuit is outcome-driven as opposed to process-driven. The process of reflection must invariably find its genesis in the question: ‘What is justice?’ While this rhetorical phraseology has become trite through overuse, the author submits that the question remains of prime importance when considered contemporarily but viewed through the lens of historical discourse in African philosophy. In essence, the question remains unanswered. Momentum is added to this debate by the recent movement towards a more human rights and restorative approach to justice as well as the increased recognition of traditional legal approaches to criminal justice. This discussion is wide and in order to delimit its scope the author relies on a Socratically influenced method of knowledge-mining to determine the philosophical principles underpinning the justice versus social justice discourse. It is proposed that lessons learned from African philosophies about justice and social justice can be integrated into modern-day justice systems and contribute to an ordered yet socially oriented approach to justice itself.

scholarly journals Diversion, Rights and Social Justice

Youth Justice ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 147322542090284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Young People ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
The Other ◽  
Delinquent Behaviour ◽  
Justice Model ◽  
The One

This article draws on historical understandings and contemporary models of diversion in order to develop a critical framework and agenda for progressive practice. The argument essentially revolves around the contention that typically diversionary interventions have been constrained by the contextual and ideological frames within which they operate. They have in some cases been highly successful in reducing the numbers of young people being drawn into the formal criminal justice system; however, this has largely been achieved pragmatically, by way of an accommodation with the prevailing logic of penal practices. Young people have been diverted at least partly because they have been ascribed a lesser level of responsibility for their actions, whether by virtue of age or other factors to which their delinquent behaviour is attributed. This ultimately sets limits to diversion, on the one hand, and also offers additional legitimacy to the further criminalisation of those who are not successfully ‘diverted’, on the other. By contrast, the article concludes that a ‘social justice’ model of diversion must ground its arguments in principles of children’s rights and the values of inclusion and anti-oppressive practice.

Lammy Review: will it change outcomes in the criminal justice system?

Race & Class ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Bridges
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Forensic Analysis ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Ethnic Representation ◽  
Differential Outcomes ◽  
Joint Enterprise ◽  
Minority Ethnic

A forensic analysis from a criminal justice expert on the weaknesses in the findings and recommendations of the Lammy Review into Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic disproportionality in the UK’s criminal justice system. It comments on the remit (which excludes policing), the lack of real action over police gang databases and the joint enterprise ‘charge’, the inadequate understanding of plea bargaining and influence of charging, the need for a deeper understanding of outcomes particularly at the Crown Court, and the weaknesses in merely asking for more Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic representation in the system. The statistical review, the author concludes, produces snapshots of marginal disproportionality at selected stages in the process and hence an episodic analysis of criminal justice, rather than looking at the overall system’s effect in producing differential outcomes for the various ethnic groups. See also Liz Fekete, ‘Lammy Review: Without racial justice, can there be trust?’ ( Race & Class, doi: 10.1177/0306396817742074).

Restoration of Social Justice and Imposition of Proportionate Punishment in the Context of the Principle Non Bis In Idem

10.12737/7595 ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Сергей Андрусенко ◽  
Sergey Andrusenko
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
System Study ◽  
Criminal Punishment ◽  
Criminal Procedure Law

The article discusses current issues in the restoration of victim rights by applying one of the fundamental principles of criminal law: the reestablishment of social justice and the commensurability/proportionality of the criminal justice system. Study the problems in the theory of criminal punishment that justify the possibility of increasing the punishment after conviction. The author also analyzes some of the positions of modern medicine which is based on the ability to change the verdict and appointment of new criminal penalties. Insufficient developed changes that were made to the criminal procedure law, can create problems of law enforcement practices that lead to a substantial violation of the rights of victims. The article also examines conflict general principles of criminal law, namely, the restoration of social justice and proportionality of criminal punishment and principle non bis in idem. The author points out significant challenges that may arise in law enforcement and offers solutions.

scholarly journals RECHTERLIJK PARDON DALAM KEBIJAKAN DAN PENERAPAN PIDANA INDONESIA

PRANATA HUKUM ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-142
Author(s):  
Annisa Dian Permata Herista ◽  
Aristo Evandy A. Barlian
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Law System ◽  
Current Formulation ◽  
To Come

Penal code in the formulation of criminal law is currently only fixated on the provisions of criminal acts and crimes without including the goals and principles of punishment. Therefore, criminal law is currently considered rigid and inhumane in its application in small cases that are deemed to require social justice. Formulations which do not have objectives and principles in criminal guidelines will not produce effective law, now there is an idea that is Rechterlijk Pardon as one of the concepts in criminal reform that has been used by various countries implementing civil law systems. The results of the analysis in this study found 6 (six) articles relating to the value of forgiveness in the current formulation of the Kuhp but not the pure forgiveness value and the discovery of 5 (five) criminal justice applications that already have forgiveness values but still cannot be applied properly because they are not properly applied the existence of forgiveness formulations in the current criminal. The formulation of the judge's forgiveness idea "Rechterlijk Pardon" will make the criminal law system in Indonesia to come to be more integral, flexible, humanist, progress and nationalist. The criminal justice system desperately needs significant reforms such as the inclusion of criminal law goals and principles so that an effective criminal justice system in Indonesia is realized.

scholarly journals Social justice, history, and inequity in Cleveland: An overview

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Amy Wainwright ◽  
Michelle Millet
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Juvenile Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Juvenile Justice System ◽  
Food Deserts ◽  
Short Version ◽  
Rust Belt ◽  
True Crime

When we first volunteered to be on the Local Arrangements Committee for the ACRL 2019 conference, and to write this specific piece for our colleagues who were coming to our city, neither of us had a clue that the entire third season of the true crime podcast Serial1 would focus on the criminal justice system of Cuyahoga County. But since it was so popular, we considered it a good framing device for a discussion about social justice in Cleveland.If you haven’t listened to Serial, the short version is Cleveland and Cuyahoga County’s criminal and juvenile justice system are shining examples of the inequity that exists in the region. Poverty, segregation, violence, food deserts, crime, and an unfair justice system are all parts of the larger system that remains unjust and unequal in the heart of a Rust Belt city desperate to rise again.

Lammy Review: without racial justice, can there be trust?

Race & Class ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Fekete
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Institutional Racism ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
Minority Ethnic

The author takes issue with the fact that a UK government review, under David Lammy MP (the Lammy Review), into the experiences of people of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds of the criminal justice system, though finding clear disproportionality, avoids all mention of institutional racism – a key finding in the 1999 Macpherson Report – preferring instead to concentrate on ‘bias’. Its recommendations for changes within the system will not bring about the necessary Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic trust, unless the larger structures and processes which cause inequity are addressed. See also Lee Bridges, ‘Lammy Review: will it change outcomes in the criminal justice system?’ ( Race & Class, doi. 10.1177/0306396817742075).

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