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Text Box: justice. The legal evolution from the slave codes to the Black codes to Jim Crow legislation, establish a clear link to the operation of today's criminal justice system. This chapter concludes with a list of six principles that are minimally required for a racially-fair criminal justice system. Perhaps most problematic in the current system, is the question of whether their are adequate checks and balances that mitigate against racial bias in the legal system. "Racial Discrimination or Disproportionate Offending?" (Chapter 3) offers a detailed critique of how mainstream criminologists measure discrimination. The problems of beginning a discrimination analysis with the formal stages of the justice system (e.g., arrest), as well as the problems of generalizing from single and multi-stage discrimination studies are discussed. Racial discrimination is not limited to the formal stages. The phenomenon of "DWB" (Driving While Black) is perhaps the best counterpoint to mainstream analysis. Police stops which do not result in arrest do not trigger the formal stage, therefore, fall outside typical measures of racial discrimination. The perception that many Blacks have, particularly Black men, that they are targeted by the police is not a lightweight matter. The perception and reality of disproportionate minority targeting has everything to do with how minorities view the justice system and its legitimacy. For good or ill, a book which purports to be about race and crime would not be complete without some discussion of the O.J. Simpson criminal trial. In Chapter 4, "Are we Still Talking About O.J.?," the focus is upon the criminal trial as a Rorschach test rather than an isolated, rare event. Although we were bombarded, ad nauseam, with the criminal trial, very little of the data and analysis were new. Much of media discussion was an outgrowth of the early polls, which showed that there was a deep Black/White racial divide in the case. This chapter is a critique of both the media presentations of all-things O.J., and what the media failed to present about the case. The common portrayal was that Blacks were on one side of the fence, shouting down an equal number of Whites on the other side. Very little of the media images showed that there were more Whites --in actual numbers--who believed in Simpson's innocence, than there were Blacks. There were so many unanswered questions, including, were perceptions about Simpson's guilt partly attributable to one's class status? Too few polls reported data on the intersection of class and race. Further, why were so many Blacks so quick to jump to O.J. Simpson's defense? This chapter attempts to reconcile how Simpson, viewed by himself and others as "colorless," became a symbol of racism in the criminal justice system. How did this

Text Box: Katheryn K. Russell University of Maryland, College Park Over the past several years, I have wrestled with the question of why the color of crime is so often portrayed in Blackface. From an empirical perspective, most of the research which purports to be about "race and crime" is actually about Blacks and crime. In some instances, it is about minorities and crime. Like, race, the mainstream offers a single definition of crime. Crime is short-hand for "street crime." To understand how all of this has come to pass, I focus on the intersection between the criminal justice system, the media, the criminal law, and the discipline of criminology. All told, I wrote The Color of Crime (1998) because there were questions I needed to answer. Hopefully, the book will answer questions that others are also interested in. At core, The Color of Crime seeks to accomplish three things. First, to critique racial labels--whether used by the police, criminologists or journalists--and their fall out. Second, to attempt to explain the Black community's overwhelming support of "colorless" O.J. Simpson. "Black protectionism" is not new and is deeply rooted in the ethos of the Black community. Third, the books stands as a fundamental challenge to the conventional wisdom that the criminal justice system is working just fine, thank you. The book, divided into eight chapters, begins with a look at media images and popular perceptions of Blacks. The discussion includes a look at images from popular culture, news and journalism. Most notably the chapter includes focus group discussions with young Black men. Oddly, very little of the public discussion about young Black men in the criminal justice system includes the words, thoughts, and perspectives of those at the center of the discussion--young Black men. The men share their experiences, perceptions of themselves, the criminal justice system, and other young Black men. The chapter concludes with an interview of Joshua Solomon, a young White college student who decided to "become" Black. He intended to prove to his Black friends that they were overly sensitive about racism. After taking a skin-darkening drug, Solomon, a Maryland native, visited Georgia. Within days, he was ready to abandon his experiment. The second chapter traces this country's history of racial apartheid against Blacks. The goal of the chapter is to provide a clear nexus between the past and present system of American

Critical Criminologist