Abstract
Criminal Injustice (Matthew B. Robinson, Appalachian State University) argues that the inequality in enforcement and outcomes within the criminal justice system are rooted in the structure of the law and exacerbated by the media. Robinson contends that the criminal justice system is ineffective at reducing crime because the law does not represent the interests of all Americans equally and thus does not target the acts that result in the greatest harm to the greatest number of people. In addition, he suggests that the criminal justice system is unsuccessful at assuring due process (or fairness) because it focuses on “people who are perceived to be disproportionately committing certain types of crimes” (p. 3), a trend reinforced through media representations of crime and criminals.
The book is organized into six chapters with several overarching sections, beginning with how politics and ideology influence the criminal justice system, moving to the differences between street crime and elite deviance, and concluding with a discussion of bias in the criminal justice system. Intended as an undergraduate textbook, Criminal Injustice provides an informative progression of the criminal justice system in the United States, highlighting several underlying inequalities within segments of the system and the mainstream media’s representation of them. Within each chapter, Robinson provides discussion questions and activities for students who reinforce the concepts relevant to criminal justice disparities and injustice. Building on the book’s focus on the media, the discussion questions often instruct students to look directly to media outlets and videos of politicians for supplementary examples, allowing them to interact with the lessons and experience biases rooted in politics and the media.
Concerning substantive content, the first overarching theme in the book considers how politics and ideology affect the criminal justice system. In Chapters 1 and 2, Robinson asserts that in the last few decades both Democratic and Republican politicians have approached crime with a conservative ideology, focusing on retributive justice and crime control over procedural justice. Further, the development of criminal justice policy is disproportionately driven by those providing the majority of funding for the political system (i.e., older, rich, and White males) and in turn tends to represent these funders’ views and interests. Exacerbating this state of affairs, Robinson discusses how major media outlets misrepresent crime and the criminal justice system, leading to misconceptions within the public about which crimes are the most harmful. The outcome of these processes is that the criminal justice system largely serves to suppress certain segments of the population who can do little to change the system, while those who can change it also tend to benefit the most from its current configuration. In this respect, Robinson situates the current criminal justice system as the product of a historical progression of racial caste systems (e.g., Jim Crow), class suppression, and patriarchy, giving White men power over women and minorities.
In Chapters 3–5, Robinson contends that the criminal justice system, lawmakers, and media treat street crime and elite deviance (or white-collar/corporate crimes) differently. Examples of elite deviance (i.e., corporate fraud and negligence of workplace standards) illustrate how it causes disproportionately more harm than violent street crimes, such as financial loss, injury, or death to employees and consumers. However, there remains a lack of accountability and punishment to corporations and their leadership. In addition, the media supports this lack of accountability for elite deviance through their focus on street crimes and largely ignoring corporate crimes. Robinson presents readers with concrete examples from current events to bolster his points.
Robinson concludes the book by discussing the nature of what he terms “innocent bias,” defined as the bias rooted in criminal law that creates the unfairness in the criminal justice system and thus purports that the unfairness is not intentionally created by individual members of the system. Lawmakers and media outlets create this innocent bias, consequently sculpting the focus of the criminal justice system. The overrepresentation of young, poor men of color in the criminal justice system is at least partially due to the law and the media focusing their attention on this population. Robinson closes the book by providing recommendations for criminal law reform as well as for the media, government, and American voters/people grounded in social justice and crime prevention strategy.
Readers familiar with conflict criminology may wonder how Criminal Injustice compares to the arguments and concepts presented in Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton’s book The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison (10th ed., 2013). Robinson reviews similar concepts (i.e., inequality, harm, and discrimination) and his arguments regarding the role and impact of the media are similar to those of Reiman and Leighton. Contrarily, Criminal Injustice focuses on the role of a small number of powerful individuals, as opposed to systemic cases as the root of injustice, similar to David Garland’s approach in The Culture of Control (2001). In this sense, readers are informed of the powerful role that those who modern political dialogue would refer to as the 1% play in shaping criminal justice policy, which may be easier for students to whom the book is addressed to grasp, as opposed to Reiman and Leighton’s focus on historical inertia.
Overall, Criminal Injustice presents classic concepts in conflict criminology in a manner that is easily accessible. Robinson’s writing style, although informal and often partial, allowed for effective communication. However, these qualities may potentially distract from the content and could imaginably be antagonistic to some readers who do not fully agree with Robinson’s argument. The book was easy to follow and included an ample amount of concept repetition, which should help students connect lessons throughout a semester. This book is a solid contribution to the literature on the injustices embedded in the criminal justice system.