Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment

“The political justice system polices black men at every step of the process,” asserts Davis (Arbitrary Justice), a professor of law at American University and editor of this eye-opening assemblage of essays on racism in the American criminal justice system. The various perspectives of the contributors—all specialists in criminal law and justice—offer a kaleidoscopic view of each step. In “Boys to Men,” for example, Kristin Henning, the director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic at Georgetown Law, demonstrates the devastating impact of the presence of police security officers in schools. Her essay is followed by law professor Katheryn Russell-Brown’s in-depth examination of implicit bias. “The Grand Jury and Police Violence Against Black Men,” by Roger Fairfax (Grand Jury 2.0), illuminates a less-discussed stage of the criminal process, as does Davis’s own contribution, which considers the particular role of the prosecutor. The culmination is relentlessly informative and disturbing. (July)