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January 31, 2014

"Bias in the Shadows of Criminal Law: The Problem of Implicit White Favoritism"

The title of this post is the title of this intriguing new article recently posted on SSRN and authored by Robert Smith, Justin Levinson and Zoe Robinson. Here is the abstract:

Commentators idealize a racially fair criminal justice system as one without racial animus. But unjustified racial disparities would persist even if racial animus disappeared overnight. In this Article, we introduce the concept of implicit white favoritism into criminal law and procedure scholarship, and explain why preferential treatment of white Americans helps drive the stark disparities that define America’s criminal justice system.

Scholarly efforts thus far have shone considerable light on how unconscious negative stereotyping of black Americans as hostile, violent, and prone to criminality occurs at critical points in the criminal justice process. We rotate the flashlight to reveal implicit favoritism, a rich and diverse set of automatic associations of positive stereotypes and attitudes with white Americans. White favoritism can operate in a range of powerful ways that can be distinguished from traditional race-focused examples: in the way, for example, white drivers are pulled over less often than unseen drivers or crimes against white victims are seen as more aggravating. Our account of implicit white favoritism both enriches existing accounts of how implicit racial bias corrupts the criminal justice system and provides explanations for disparities that implicit negative stereotyping explanations miss altogether.

January 31, 2014 at 08:27 AM | Permalink

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| “Scholarly efforts thus far have shone considerable light on how unconscious negative stereotyping of black Americans
as hostile, violent, and prone to criminality occurs at critical points in the criminal justice process.
We rotate the flashlight to reveal implicit favoritism .. . [for] White Americans” |

• How about this rotation: Thomas Sowell: ”Reading Colin Flaherty’s book made painfully clear to me that the magnitude of this problem [ black on white violence]
is greater than I had discovered from my own research. He documents both the race riots and the media and political evasions in dozens of cities.”

• “The Midwest state fair with a “Beat Whitey Night”? Or the Black Beach Week that turns a town into “living hell?” Or the school principal who blamed Asian
students for [the racism] … The eleven episodes of racial violence on the Fourth of July 2012? Some involving more than 1000 black people? ..

• Barry Baldwin [black] stands accused of six Knockout Game attacks in New York in November and December. Five of the victims were Jewish women.
One was 78-years old…. [he said in] the New York Daily News: ““I hit her on the head in self-defense because of the way she looked.”

• Flash mobs, flash robs, black on white crime, or as one social worker put it: Kids just “blowing off steam.” … Last year, Philadelphia Magazine
published a story called Being White in Philadelphia.

--- whitegirlbleedalot.com/

Posted by: Adamakis | Jan 31, 2014 12:16:30 PM

Scholarly efforts? If one looks at the "negative stereotyping"..."as hostile, violent, and prone to criminality" found "at critical points in the criminal justice process"; one clearly sees the stereotyping by the justice system occurs against any person who commits a criminal act, especially those who are repeat offenders. It is sad that supposed academics are more interested in twisting statistics, ala New Haven firefighters case, than with the actual requirements.

Posted by: FlameCCT | Jan 31, 2014 6:53:34 PM

I am not going to read this article, because it appears invalid.

I would appreciate knowing from anyone who reads if they address the perfect symmetry in racial disparity between incarceration rates and crime victimization rates using the gold standard methodology of the DOJ victim survey. That means more blacks go to prison not because whites are coddled, but because they victimize other black at very high rates. If whites had to endure these victimization rates for even a short time, soldiers would be on every corner, and shooting to kill any bad guys. Instead, black race whores are suing the police and trying to deter more police protection.

The racial victims are the black crime victims, not the black criminals. If the authors are lawyers, their points are made in bad faith, since their income is solely from criminals and victims may rot.

Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 31, 2014 10:34:05 PM

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