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The war on drugs, begun in the Reagan Administration and presently continuing unabated, has resulted in an explosion in the American prison population. Whether a desired effect of the war or not, this increase has been accounted for by a severely disproportionate number of African-American males. Jerome Miller demonstrates in Search and Destroy that an African-American male between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five has an inordinate likelihood of encountering the criminal justice system at some point during those years. In a wide-ranging survey of blacks and the justice system, Miller notes the presence of bias among police officers, probation officers, courts, and even social scientists whose data form the basis for many policies and social workers whose responsibility is allegedly to members of the underclass.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Introduction
• 1 Is it violent crime?
• 2 Tracking racial bias
• 3 Unanticipated consequences of the justice system
• 4 The politics of crime
• 5 Race, 'Applied Science' and public policy: the case of the criminaloid
• 6 The future: from managerial efficiency to biological necessity
• Notes
• Index

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Library Journal Review

The title of this volume is a military term that means "find the enemy and eliminate it." This is exactly what Miller, cofounder of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, says the American justice system is doing to African American males. Drawing on statistics and examples from the criminal justice system, Miller concludes that crimes committed by black men are treated by the courts with unnecessary severity. He also points out racial bias in the war on drugs and in public housing, as well as the consequences of the "bell curve" and other genetic research. Voluminous notes and references back up his statements. His book should be valuable reading for social workers and criminal justice students as well as general readers. Recommended for all libraries.‘Frances O. Sandiford, Green Haven Correction Facility Lib., Stormville, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

There was much talk last fall about the grimmer-than-usual regular report from the Sentencing Project, which found that, at any given time, one in three black men in their 20s is in prison, on probation or on parole. How one reacted to those statistic was probably colored by both race and by previous encounters with the criminal justice system. With this tightly argued and methodologically sound volume, Miller, a criminal justice expert from the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, will make readers think about some widespread social assumptions associating crime and African American men. Most black men who come in contact with the criminal justice system do so for relatively minor infractions; and even when charges aren't pressed, many black men are saddled with undeserved records that can cause trouble in finding a job and with any future brushes with law enforcement. But the greatest change in the prosecution of black men in recent years has been the "war on drugs," which has brought about not only tougher sentences on users of crack cocaine but also alarming arrest rates. Several areas around the country show similar statistics: 90% of those arrested on drug charges are black in areas where African Americans make up only 11%-12% of the population. The percentage of new inmates being incarcerated on drug charges has surpassed those sent to prison for violent offenses. Some may find Miller's discussion of the genetic presupposition of criminality suggested by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein's The Bell Curve a little tangential, but it does address underlying biases that have tangible influence on policy. All in all, this serves as one of the most important and clear-eyed challenges to date to the linking of crime and race and to the entire conservative anti-welfare, hard-on-crime agenda. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Miller's new study makes a significant contribution to understanding the nefarious nature of the US criminal justice system. More important, it provides a poignant depiction of all that is wrong with a system of jurisprudence that currently has the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world (the latest statistics indicate the number exceeds 1.6 million). Using African American males as the target group, Miller paints a sad picture regarding their likely involvement in the criminal justice system. Pivotal in this analysis is the introduction, in which Miller summarizes the deleterious nature of the system. Statistics are presented to show how black males' probability of incarceration is significantly greater than majority males. The author debunks the notion that prisons are full of "predatory and violent" black men, and discusses the history of racial bias in the penal system. He examines both the unanticipated consequences of the justice system and the politics of crime. Chapter 5, on race, applied science, and public policy, is a seminal piece on how so-called scientific evidence is used to justify racial differences (read genetic predispositions to criminality). The final chapter expounds on the future. Citing sources from an international perspective, this informative, riveting, and up-to-date book is a must read. All levels. R. Stewart SUNY College at Buffalo