Racial bias operates at every stage from lawmaking through conviction

Evidence

Numerous actors play crucial roles in the legal system. Understanding how criminal justice is impacted differentially by race requires a focus on each component. Different actors determine who shall be arrested and who shall not, who shall be charged and who shall not, who shall be offered plea bargains and who shall not, who shall be vigorously defended and who shall not, and who shall be found guilty and who shall not. Police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and jurors are all sworn to uphold the law, but their explicit and implicit biases have differential impact on people of color relative to their White counterparts. Before any of these actors play their role in criminal justice, decisions are made to call the police, and these decisions are affected by racial bias. And before even such calls are made, legislators make decisions about which behaviors to criminalize and these decisions also are affected by racial biases. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 23

Categorization

• XREF: Chains with the cumulative-disadvantage literature and with earlier chapters on stages of the legal pipeline.