Abstract
Shadows of Doubt: Stereotypes, Crime, and the Pursuit of Justice is an extremely relevant and important work for today’s political and racial climate. This important work brings together decades of scientific research about stereotypes and prejudice and walks the reader through our nation’s various ways of handling crime and punishment. The central argument outlined by the authors is that while everyone naturally carries prejudices subconsciously, it is possible to acknowledge and overcome these prejudices; specifically, with regard to our nation’s justice system, which the authors show to be rife with racial bias and prejudices at every level. This work is extremely important given the current changing climate toward the U.S. justice system and the shifting of public attitudes about the punitive nature of our prison systems.
The book begins with narratives about certain criminal situations, and the argument is made that both criminals and victims use stereotypes in different ways, and these are supported by the data. For example, the authors show that the national data currently show that in cases of robbery, Black individuals rob both Black and White people fairly evenly, while White robbers rarely have Black victims. The authors outline how these data provide support for the existence of stereotyping playing out across decision-making of all individuals—White individuals stereotype Black victims as being more likely to fight back or be aggressive, and Black individuals may stereotype White victims to be more afraid of them because of their race and therefore be compliant. In other words, stereotypes influence every level of decision-making for both criminals and victims.
The research studies cited throughout the text are thoroughly explained without losing interest in the broader narrative. Additionally, these citations serve as a great resource for those who are interested in keeping up to date with sociological, psychological, or economic research focusing on inequalities in various areas of the U.S. justice system. Most well-known of these studies focus implicit biases, which are outlined in the first few chapters. The authors walk the reader through the psychologists who pioneered the first implicit biases tests and what the earliest results were among different groups, the most prominent and relevant implicit bias being the association that many groups held between criminality and Black people. These chapters are of critical importance because the authors use this research to ground the notion that while we individually have biases, we can overcome them by taking the extra cognitive effort to recognize and challenge them.
The authors themselves provide an interesting background and grounding of much of the data and research that they cite to support their arguments. Brenden O’Flaherty is an economics professor at Columbia and has authored several books focusing on the economics of race and homelessness. Similarly, an economics professor at Columbia, Rajiv Sethi sits on the board of American Economic Review and Economics and Philosophy and is involved in research looking into how individuals make decisions and gather information from other individuals—a pertinent topic within the sphere of stereotyping.
O’Flaherty and Sethi then walk the reader through a comprehensive list of topics related to the justice system and weave in the data about each to illustrate how stereotypes and bias color our lens. Some of the topics covered in detail within this work are robbery, murder, police who murder civilians, civilians who murder police, stop and frisk and other high profile policies, testimony, and judgment. All topics are covered in depth and use both national-level data and findings from academic researchers across many professionals. The use of data to both corroborate the author’s arguments and to provoke questions is one of the core strengths of this book. However, this also means that some parts of the chapters are heavily focused on data, which may put some readers off who are not well versed in reading about statistics and graphs. Many of the chapters include several graphs and explanations within them, which make it easier for the reader to acknowledge the sources of data while the authors walk them through it. Because the authors do walk readers through their interpretations, this work makes a good fit for introductory college courses.
It is precisely because the authors were able to cross fields of research in all chapters that this book brings together multiple disciplines and allows for a greater understanding of the perspective of each discipline and how they fit together to construct our current data-based narratives of racial injustice and stereotypes. Shadows of Doubt is an amazing resource for students and concerned citizens alike, for both the content and substance of the arguments and as an example of how research and data can be outlined to readers of all skill levels.
