Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System

Thank you for joining the Robina Institute on Tuesday, June 7, 2016, for “Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System.” View a recording of the event below.

Numerous studies have found that African Americans, Native Americans, and other racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in prison and jail populations relative to their numbers in the general population. Similar disparities are found at earlier stages of criminal justice processing, beginning with investigatory stops and arrests by the police, and all of these disparities are worse in Minnesota than for the nation as a whole. What accounts for these persistent disparities, and what can be done about them? Some observers see such disparities as the product of overt and implicit bias by criminal justice officials and policymakers; others claim that such disparities primarily reflect racial and ethnic differences in criminal offending.