The Political Roots of Racial Tracking in American Criminal Justice. By Nina M. Moore. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 406 pp. $30.99 paperback.

Abstract

The Political Roots of Racial Tracking in American Criminal Justice. By Nina M. Moore. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 406 pp. $30.99 paperback.In April 2016, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters clashed with Bill Clinton over his role in the passage of the 1994 Crime Bill and Hillary Clinton's use of the term super predators to describe the involvement of black youth in criminal offenses. Demonstrators sought to highlight how policymakers and the general public construct narratives and social policies that fuel misperceptions, thereby deepening racial inequality in criminal justice practices throughout the United States. Political pundits largely glossed over the substance of protester concerns because the crime bill did not explicitly target specific racial groups. To address the essence of the BLM critique would require a theory of the policy process that explains racial inequality in criminal justice experiences. Nina Moore's book, The Political Roots of Racial Tracking in American Criminal Justice, provides such a policy process framework.Moore examines the mechanisms that give rise to racial disparities in the criminal justice system and explains why these inequities persist despite considerable national attention to issues of fairness and justice. Her book makes two arguments. First, Moore argues that there are two racially distinct modes of criminal law enforcement in the United States: one white and one black. She contends that racial tracking in the criminal justice system must be evaluated sequentially, from initial contact with police officers to differences in plea negotiations with prosecutors, both of which culminate in racialized differences in pretrial court decisions and prison experiences.The second argument advanced by Moore is that racial tracking in criminal justice persists precisely because policymakers and the American public allow different modalities of law enforcement, even when stark differences in applications of justice contravene constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. She presents a basic principles policy process that anchors empirical insights and disagreements in the study of policymaking with commonalities expressed in varied policy perspectives. By drawing on six policy process axioms-principles that focus on politics, systems, opportunities, multidimensionality, power players, and problemprocess kinship-Moore articulates a seventh maxim, the public origins principle, that fully integrates these perspectives to produce a theory of racial tracking in criminal justice.This is an impressive piece of socio-legal scholarship. Five empirical chapters thoroughly enumerate and rigorously evaluate how colorblind Supreme Court decisions, public opinion polls, political party politics, and congressional agendas impede racial equality in criminal justice. Moore critically analyzes twenty-three Sixth Amendment cases affecting the right to counsel, eighteen Fifth Amendment cases, and twenty of the most noted capital punishment decisions. In each instance, she shows how the Court's reasoning and decision-making process represents a longstanding use of colorblind jurisprudence that is not localized to any one decision or to a handful of cases; instead, her work uncovers how the Court systematically legitimates persistent racial inequalities in law enforcement methods.Professor Moore also presents an in-depth analysis of public opinions on racial progress, criminal victimization, and criminal justice policy in America. …