Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System Criminal Justice Research Assessment

CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESEARCH ASSESSMENT

Criminal Justice Research Assessment

Several months ago, I came across a 2013 research article titled, ‘No evidence of racial discrimination in criminal justice processing: Results from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.’ The said research article, - authored by Beaver, DeLisi, Wright, Boutwell, Barnes, and Vaughn – indicated that although there is indeed evidence of racial disparity in the criminal justice system in as far as the arrest, conviction as well as incarceration in the U.S. is concerned, the said disparity could sufficiently be explained after accounting for lifetime violence as well as IQ. More specifically, in the words of the authors, although “African American males are significantly more likely to be arrested and incarcerated when compared to White males,” the said disparity could be “completely accounted for after including covariates for self-reported lifetime violence and IQ” (29).

I felt that the findings were in this case somewhat misleading owing to the fact that I could not find any other study backing up this assertion. There are also numerous studies that appear to contradict the findings made by Beaver, DeLisi, Wright, Boutwell, Barnes, and Vaughn. For instance, according to Hetey and Eberhardt (2018), in Oakland, where approximately 28% of the population comprises of African Americans, close to 60% of traffic stops happened to be of Blacks. It is important to note that in the words of Hetey and Eberhardt (2018), “these disparities remained statistically significant even after we controlled for more than two dozen factors relevant to officer decision making, including crime rates and the underlying racial and socioeconomic demographics where the stop was made” (184). This appears to contradict Beaver, DeLisi, Wright, Boutwell, Barnes, and Vaughn findings.

To avoid bias in my own criminal justice research, I would seek to ensure that I first conduct a comprehensive review of available literature on the issue under investigation. This would give me an opportunity to familiarize myself with what other researchers have found in the past – a move that would enable me to further assess and evaluate my own findings and conclusions.