Unequal Justice
Vol. 121 No. 8
Inequality is a core feature of American criminal justice, but its causes remain obscure.
Official racism has declined even as the black share of the prison population has risen. The
generation that saw the rise of enormous, racially skewed punishment for drug crime
followed the generation that saw the rise of civil rights for black Americans and racially
integrated police forces. What explains these trends? One answer – the decline of local
democracy – has received too little attention in the growing literature on this subject. A
century ago outside the South, high-crime city neighborhoods were largely self-governing;
residents of those neighborhoods decided how much criminal punishment to impose, and on
whom. Those locally democratic justice systems were both remarkably effective and
surprisingly egalitarian. During the latter half of the twentieth century, local democratic
control over criminal justice unraveled. Residents of high-crime cities grew less powerful;
suburban voters, legislators, and appellate judges grew more so. Prison populations fell
sharply, then rose massively. The effects of both the fall of criminal punishment and its
subsequent rise were disproportionately felt in urban black neighborhoods. The justice
system grew less equal, and less just.