Disparities and Reforms in the Criminal Justice System: Policing, Sentencing, and Incarceration

Essay 1 — How do disparities appear in policing?

People in disadvantaged Black and Latino communities are more likely to experience repeated stops, aggressive policing, and less respectful treatment. These encounters can produce alienation and legal cynicism.

Essay 1 — How do disparities appear in sentencing?

The crack-versus-powder cocaine laws are a major example. The 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act created a 100-to-1 ratio, so much smaller amounts of crack triggered the same punishment as larger amounts of powder cocaine. This disproportionately harmed Black defendants.

Essay 1 — How did later reforms address the crack-versus-powder cocaine disparity?

The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the ratio from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1 and raised the crack amount needed for a five-year mandatory minimum from 5 grams to 28 grams. The First Step Act later made the reform retroactive for some cases.

Essay 1 — How do disparities appear in incarceration?

Mass incarceration is concentrated in poor communities of color. High incarceration rates remove residents, destabilize neighborhoods, and expose incarcerated people to racialized classifications and informal racial politics inside jails and prisons.

Essay 1 — How do disparities appear during reentry?

A criminal record operates as a negative credential. Employers may reject applicants because of stigma or liability fears, and they may use race, ethnicity, or gender as proxies through statistical discrimination.

Essay 1 — What is the overall argument?

Disparities appear at multiple stages of the criminal-legal system. Unequal policing, sentencing, incarceration, and reentry barriers can build on one another and reproduce inequality over time.

Essay 2 — What problem was Ban the Box designed to address?

Employers often screen out applicants with criminal records before evaluating their qualifications. This makes it harder for justice-involved people to find stable work after incarceration.

Essay 2 — What does Ban the Box do?

Ban the Box removes the criminal-history question from the initial job application so employers evaluate applicants before immediately seeing their records.

Essay 2 — What does the California Fair Chance Act do beyond Ban the Box?

The CFCA delays criminal-history review until after a conditional job offer, requires an individualized assessment if a record appears, and allows applicants to appeal rescinded offers.

Essay 2 — What is the intent of Ban the Box and the CFCA?

The goal is to reduce automatic discrimination and give justice-involved applicants a fairer chance to compete for employment.

Essay 2 — How effective are Ban the Box and the CFCA?

The evidence is mixed. Employers may ignore the law, comply only symbolically, or use statistical discrimination. Oselin, Ross, Wang, and Kang found frequent employer violations. Appeals helped slightly, but time since conviction mattered more.

Essay 2 — What is the overall conclusion?

These reforms are important, but a law on paper is not enough. Stronger enforcement and actual employer compliance are needed.

Essay 3 — What is a total institution according to Goffman?

A total institution is a place where similarly situated people are cut off from wider society for a significant period and live an enclosed, formally administered life.

Essay 3 — Why are prisons total institutions?

Prisons regulate nearly every part of daily life, including movement, eating, sleeping, showering, work, recreation, information, and contact with the outside world.

Essay 3 — How do prisons strip away prior identities?

They may remove personal possessions, assign uniforms or numbers, shave hair, and restrict ordinary contact with family and friends. These practices create a break with the person's past identity.

Essay 3 — How do prisons rebuild identities?

They replace prior routines with new rules, relationships, rewards, and labels. Daily behavior and identity become organized around prison life.

Essay 3 — Which demographic groups are most likely to be incarcerated?

Incarceration disproportionately affects disadvantaged and marginalized groups, especially poor communities of color and young Black men with limited educational opportunities.

Essay 3 — What is the withdraw, retreat, or regress adaptation?

A person narrows their focus to immediate life and may isolate, self-harm, obsessively exercise, or use art or education as mental escape.

Essay 3 — What is the rebel or resist adaptation?

A person challenges prison control through major acts such as escape attempts or collective resistance, or smaller acts such as jokes, in-group language, stealing supplies, or hunger strikes.

Essay 3 — What is the conform, colonize, or convert adaptation?

A person internalizes prison expectations and may become a model inmate or sincerely seek self-improvement through official programs.

Essay 3 — What is doing the time or playing it cool?

A person avoids trouble, supports other prisoners, makes prison life manageable, and neither fully resists nor fully embraces the institution.

Essay 3 — What are two ways prisons affect residents?

Prisons restrict autonomy and reshape identity. They also create stress through intense control, confinement, and racialized social conditions.

Essay 3 — Are incarcerated people passive victims?

No. They still retain agency and make strategic choices about how to adapt, even within severe constraints.

Essay 4 — How do reception centers organize people by race?

During intake, incarcerated people are pressured to select an institutionally recognized racial category, even when they prefer to identify by ethnicity, nationality, religion, or another identity.

Essay 4 — What is the first administrative justification for racial segregation?

Officials argue that segregation reduces security risks because race is used as a proxy for gang affiliation and separation may reduce rival-gang violence.

Essay 4 — What is the second administrative justification for racial segregation?

Officials claim incarcerated people prefer segregation, although the lecture says the evidence for this claim is mixed.

Essay 4 — What are racial politics in jail?

Racial politics are informal racialized rules that organize daily life, including tables, showers, television times, movement, and group associations.

Essay 4 — How are racial politics taught to newcomers?

A high-status incarcerated person usually explains the rules to new arrivals, including which spaces and activities are associated with each racial group.

Essay 4 — What does rolled out mean?

Rolled out means transferred to another housing unit or facility after violating racial politics.

Essay 4 — What does DPed mean?

DPed means beaten by high-status members of one's own racial group.

Essay 4 — What does redlined mean?

Redlined means beaten by many people from one's racial group.

Essay 4 — What are racial reps?

Racial reps are high-status incarcerated people who represent their group's interests, communicate with deputies, manage conflicts, and distribute rules.

Essay 4 — What are three consequences of racial formation in jail?

It can increase violence, restrict movement and friendships, and create constant vigilance and stress. It also ties a person's fate to others assigned to the same racial category.

Essay 5 — What is coercive mobility?

Coercive mobility is the repeated forced removal and return of people through incarceration and reentry.

Essay 5 — Why does coercive mobility harm communities?

It disrupts social networks, increases residential instability, and weakens residents' investment in the health of the community.

Essay 5 — What is informal social control?

Informal social control is the everyday way residents reinforce norms, watch out for one another, and discourage crime without relying only on police.

Essay 5 — How does coercive mobility lead to social disorganization?

When people repeatedly cycle in and out of prison, community ties weaken. Residents become less likely to monitor the neighborhood, intervene in problems, or solve issues collectively.

Essay 5 — How can social disorganization contribute to crime?

Weak social ties and reduced informal control can make neighborhoods more criminogenic, especially for young people, which can continue the cycle of incarceration.

Essay 5 — What are two ways incarceration affects families?

It can create economic hardship by removing income and increase divorce or separation through emotional and financial strain.

Essay 5 — What is disenfranchised grief?

Disenfranchised grief is a loss experienced by relatives of incarcerated people that is not openly recognized or treated as socially significant.

Essay 5 — What is secondary prisonization?

Secondary prisonization occurs when relatives and visitors experience prison-like rules, surveillance, privacy intrusions, and bodily restrictions even though they are not incarcerated.

Essay 5 — What is the stress-process perspective?

A primary stressor can create additional secondary stressors that collectively harm well-being. In Turney et al., paternal incarceration is the primary stressor.

Essay 5 — What secondary stressors can paternal incarceration create?

Economic hardship, fractured family relationships, impaired caregiver health, household disruption, caregiving strain, and internalized stigma.

Essay 5 — What does stepping in mean?

Stepping in means children take on new emotional or instrumental responsibilities after a father's incarceration.

Essay 5 — What does stepping away mean?

Stepping away means children distance themselves from responsibilities or from their incarcerated father as a form of self-protection.

Essay 5 — What are emotional responsibilities?

Examples include hiding sadness or fear and consoling family members.

Essay 5 — What are instrumental responsibilities?

Examples include calls, visits, letters, court attendance, communicating with lawyers, and caring for siblings or the household.

Essay 5 — What best explains why children respond differently?

Age. Older children have more agency, may take on more independent responsibilities, and are more likely to feel worn down by repeated cycles of incarceration.

Essay 5 — Are the effects on families always negative?

No. Removing a violent, severely unstable, or high-risk parent can sometimes improve safety and caregiving at home.

Essay 6 — What are community corrections?

Community corrections are supervision programs for justice-involved people living in the community instead of being held in prison or jail. The main forms are probation and parole.

Essay 6 — What is probation?

Probation is usually a local or county-administered sentence that allows someone to remain in the community instead of going to prison.

Essay 6 — What is parole?

Parole is state-administered supervision after someone has already served part of a prison sentence.

Essay 6 — What are two benefits of community corrections?

It costs much less than incarceration and allows people to remain connected to work, family, and community life.

Essay 6 — What are drawbacks of community corrections?

People remain under intensive supervision, have limited rights, and can be sent back to incarceration for technical violations that are not new crimes.

Essay 6 — When can probation or parole be revoked?

When a person commits a new crime or violates supervision conditions.

Essay 6 — What is a technical violation?

A technical violation is breaking a supervision rule without committing a new crime, such as failing a drug test or missing a meeting.

Essay 6 — Why is recidivism difficult to compare?

Different studies use different measures, including rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration. These outcomes are related but not identical.

Essay 6 — What is the first strategy for improving community corrections?

Use validated risk-assessment tools to identify higher-risk people and allocate resources more effectively.

Essay 6 — What is the second strategy for improving community corrections?

Prioritize treatment services based on risk and needs instead of treating everyone the same way.

Essay 6 — What is the third strategy for improving community corrections?

Use intermediate sanctions for moderate-risk people, such as electronic monitoring, GPS tracking, mandatory work, or frequent drug testing.

Essay 6 — What is the fourth strategy for improving community corrections?

Provide evidence-based behavioral treatment with pro-social activities, advocacy, and brokerage to connect people to housing, work, education, or treatment.

Essay 6 — What is the overall argument?

Community corrections can be cheaper and less harmful than incarceration, but supervision alone is not enough. It works best when surveillance is combined with treatment and support.

Essay 7 — Why is employment important for reentry?

Employment provides income, routine, stability, self-worth, and ties to pro-social institutions. It is linked to desistance and lower recidivism.

Essay 7 — What is a negative credential?

A criminal record acts as a stigmatizing signal that reduces the likelihood of callbacks or job offers.

Essay 7 — What is the first main reason employers hesitate to hire people with records?

Risk and liability fears. Employers may worry about workplace harm or negligent-hiring lawsuits.

Essay 7 — What is the second main reason employers hesitate to hire people with records?

Stigma, stereotypes, and bias. Employers may view applicants as untrustworthy, morally compromised, or unsuitable for customer-facing work.

Essay 7 — Do employer risk fears have strong empirical support?

The lecture says no. A past record is an imperfect proxy for future workplace behavior, and risk declines over time.

Essay 7 — What is statistical discrimination?

Employers use visible traits such as race, ethnicity, or gender as proxies for criminal history when direct record information is unavailable.

Essay 7 — What does Ban the Box do?

It removes criminal-history questions from initial job applications so employers cannot immediately screen out applicants with records.

Essay 7 — What does the California Fair Chance Act do?

It delays record review until after a conditional offer, requires individualized assessment, and allows applicants to appeal rescinded offers.

Essay 7 — How effective are these policies?

Evidence is mixed. Employers may violate the law or use proxies. Oselin and colleagues found frequent noncompliance. Appeals helped slightly, but time since conviction mattered more.

Essay 7 — What factor changes employer concern?

The severity of the offense and the amount of time since conviction. More serious offenses raise concern, while a longer period without another offense can reduce it.

Essay 8 — What are evidence-based practices?

Evidence-based practices are policies or programs grounded in scientific research and designed to improve outcomes, reduce crime, increase safety, and reduce unnecessary punishment.

Essay 8 — What is contingency management?

Contingency management, or CM, is an evidence-based practice that uses rewards and positive reinforcement to encourage pro-social behavior.

Essay 8 — What are the three phases of reform?

Adoption, implementation, and sustainability.

Essay 8 — What three things did staff use to evaluate CM?

Legitimacy, efficiency, and effectiveness.

Essay 8 — What is pragmatic legitimacy?

Staff support a reform because it benefits them, aligns with their interests, or makes their jobs easier.

Essay 8 — What is moral legitimacy?

Staff support a reform because they believe it is the right thing to do for clients or the community.

Essay 8 — What is cognitive legitimacy?

A reform fits daily routines and becomes taken for granted as a normal part of the organization.

Essay 8 — Which sites fully sustained CM?

PSC4 and PSC6 fully sustained CM because staff viewed it as legitimate, efficient, and effective and integrated it into routine work.

Essay 8 — Which sites partially sustained CM?

PSC1 and PSC5 partially sustained CM.

Essay 8 — Why did PSC1 only partially sustain CM?

Staff worried CM would reduce discretion, require too much time, and force changes to supervision practices.

Essay 8 — Why did PSC5 only partially sustain CM?

Staff believed they already used rewards, questioned whether CM fit their court, and returned to their prior approach.

Essay 8 — Which sites failed to sustain CM?

PSC2, PSC3, the probation office, and the halfway house.

Essay 8 — What is the overall lesson from Rudes et al.?

Leadership support alone is not enough. Reforms last when staff broadly accept them as legitimate and integrate them into everyday routines.