From the cover:

"This text definitely stands out as one of the more current and critical examinations of our justice system" -- Charles A. Brawner, Heartland Community College

"The comprehensiveness of this critical exposition sets it apart from other critical treatises.  It is in fact a compendium of the separate issues targeted by individual critics in the critical criminological community in a straight-forward, easy to read textbook.  For this reason, it should be essential reading for not only those audiences ... but also for general audiences who wish to understand why the criminal justice system behaves as it does" -- EJ Williams, formerly of Fayetteville State University

"Altogether, this book strikes me as well-written and often engaging, with good use of illustrative examples ... It is important to expose students to this type of critique."
-- David O. Friedrichs, University of Scranton

"The author has drawn from a wide variety of sources to make several compelling arguments throughout the book.  I would feel comfortable using this material in my undergraduate classes ... [For example], the author does an excellent job pointing out problems with the death penalty as it is currently practiced in the United States.  He is very clear with examples and points out several positions that are critical to understanding the political process behind the death penalty."  -- Sarah Eschholz, Georgia State University
    

From Booknews:

"A critical examination of criminal justice in the United States written to serve as a textbook for an introductory undergraduate course. Robinson (Appalachian State U.) argues that over the course of the past decades, criminal justice has moved away from a due process model towards a theory of crime control and punishment. He contends that the American legal system is inherently biased against the poor and people of color and that injustice is endemic and deeply rooted at all levels of criminal justice institutions. He looks at the harm that the drug war has caused American society and critiques the use of capital punishment. Finally he discusses alternatives to current practices. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
 

From Readers:

This book was assigned to me by my professor. I did not believe the argument of the book at first when we went through it in class. But as we went through the semester, the argument that was made was built from chapter to chapter. I noticed that I was actually reading the book and that I could understand it well. It is a textbook but it is not like most textbooks. I learned a lot in the class and think that most of the argument in Justice Blind? is correct. What I liked most about the book is that it is easy to read even though it has so many details about crime and criminal justice.

• Similar but much better than other great books such as The Politics of Injustice, What's Wrong with the Criminal Justice System, and The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. If you like these books, you'll love Robinson's critical criminal justice text.  What sets this book aside from the rest is the author's detailed analysis of virtually every aspect of today's justice system. Robinson concludes that the justice system fails to do justice and reduce crime; he tells why and then goes beyond this and offers concrete suggestions for reform.  This book must have taken a long time to write! I am so glad I read it.

• When I ordered Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments by Dominick Dunne I saw the book, Justice Blind? It sounded interesting (even though it is an academic type book) so I ordered it.  Because I am not a student parts of the book were hard for me to read. Overall though it is still worth the money. The author argues that the criminal justice system is a massive failure. His book provides a ton of evidence and is fair.  I best like the way the author builds his argument from chapter to chapter. And the book is not written from an "expert" approach. He sounds like a normal person using normal language. Anyone who votes should read this book.


From the experts:

"You're right on in your book ... I wish you the best in getting your message out." -- Morris Dees, Chief Trial Counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center
 

From CJ Professors:

This book might well be the first generic critical commentary and analysis of the American criminal justice system.  For this reason, it is a text that is appropriate for supplemental assignment for all criminal justice courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.  It would also be a valuable text for public administration and urban studies, political science, and sociology courses.  It is a straightforward expository of the structural determinants of the chasm that exists between the ideal goals of the system, and the realities that prevail as a function of the shift away from due process and towards crime control.

Because the book covers the scope of the criminal justice process, what it lacks in detail is more than compensated for by the astute selection of the examples offered in each chapter entitled, “Issues in Depth.”  The ideal goals of the criminal justice system are to (1) do justice, and (2) reduce crime.  In reality, justice is not accomplished and crime is not reduced because of “innocent bias,” (p. xiv) a form of systemic discrimination against the poor and people of color that is introduced into the system by way of the enactment of bad laws. Bad laws cause Justicia, the criminal justice system’s blindfolded symbol of justice, to peek.  In order to “do justice,” Justicia must be blind to anything in the criminal justice process that will prevent fairness and impartiality.

Chapter one establishes the conceptual framework for persuasive and carefully documented arguments that the ideals of justice in America cannot be achieved because the political means of trying to control crime sacrifice the ends of achieving justice. The ends actually achieved are a deprivation of citizens’ due process rights.  The results of this injustice fall disproportionately to the poor, people of color, and increasingly, females. The remainder of the book examines the process of the unintentional structuring of innocent bias into the operations of the law, the media, the police, courts, and corrections.

The law is the foundation upon which innocent bias is constructed and propelled forward in the criminal justice process.  Chapter two describes how innocent bias is introduced into the law by federal and state lawmakers who are not demographically representative of the population toward which the law is aimed, nor are the voters who elect them.  Thus laws are constructed to satisfy the special interests of the wealthy and powerful.

Chapter three focuses on crime as a political construct.  The influence of monied and powerful interest groups precludes criminal law from sanctioning the most threatening and harmful acts as crimes, namely white collar deviance. Criminal law targets as the most serious crimes those acts committed primarily by the poor and people of color. The poor are precluded from the crime definition process because the well off and well educated, who are predominantly Caucasian, male, and wealthy, have greater access to legislators.

Chapter four argues that the media, controlled by for- profit corporations, contribute to the distortion of the harms of crime by focusing on acts that are overtly violent and bizarre, while giving comparatively little attention to the more harmful acts caused by white-collar deviance.

Chapter five elaborates the thesis of innocent bias by offering evidence that laws which inadvertently shield white-collar criminals, and the media’s role in perpetuating the myth that street crimes are more harmful to society than white-collar crimes, are not overtly intended to harm the poor and people of color.  However because bias in the criminal justice process originates in the law and is functional for the monied and powerful, efforts to remedy the biases are typically met with resistance.

Chapter six further illustrates the effects of innocent bias by delineating the injustices of the war on drugs, and the staggering ill-effects of this war on the poor and people of color.  Robinson iterates the compelling evidence that alcohol and tobacco, both legal yet addictive drugs, are exceedingly more harmful in their effect than illicit drugs. Law that distinguishes less harmful drugs as a crime and legalizes those that are most harmful is “bad law” (p. 205).

Chapter seven expounds on the effects of the war on drugs by explaining how the police perpetuate innocent bias by enforcing discriminating drug laws.  Stereotyping the poor and people of color as the premier users of illicit drugs shapes police organization to concentrate enforcement in the inner cities, resulting in the capture of a disproportionate number of this population by the criminal justice system.  Concentrating drug enforcement on the poor leads to innocent bias in the court process, including the pretrial, trial, and post trial phases. Chapter eight details the relationship between indigence and justice in American courts.  The implication is that our legal system is tied to a market economy that limits the poor to the amount of justice they can afford to buy.  The poor are less likely to afford bail, private attorneys, and jury consultants. Therefore, the poor are more likely to be sanctioned by the system than those who can afford the costs of defense.

Chapter nine examines the infiltration of innocent bias into the sentencing process. The disproportionate imprisonment of the poor, people of color, and women for drug offenses is a form of contextual discrimination.  The bad laws produce biased sentencing policies such as mandatory sentencing, reflective of the crime control focus on retribution, incapacitation and deterrence in opposition to popular support for rehabilitation. It is in chapter nine that Robinson uses startling examples of the consumption of the poor by the peeking Justicia.  The last phase of the criminal justice process -- incarceration -- is addressed in Chapter ten.  The explosion in prison populations is identified as a binge that resulted neither from increased crime rates, nor in markedly reduced crime rates.   A large share of the nation’s prisoners are nonviolent property and drug offeners.  The popular expectation is that imprisonment will transform them into law-abiding citizens. However, most prisoners are from lower socio-economic populations –
uneducated, unskilled, and underemployed.  A term of incarceration does not change this reality. These offenders are released back into the same criminogenic environments from which they came, exacerbated by the harassment of police and parole officers. Thus in reality, the likelihood of reoffense and reincarceration is increased. The end result is that nothing is achieved except that today, more resources are devoted to prisons than to higher education.

In Chapter eleven, Robinson includes a critique of the death penalty to punctuate the reality that the criminal justice system is indeed biased against the poor.  The death penalty provides the clearest evidence that the criminal justice system does not meet its ideal goals of doing justice and reducing crime.

Finally, the last chapter contains a wish list of 50 recommendations developed as remedies for the innocent bias that is introduced into the system through bad laws, spreads, and inevitably infects the entire criminal justice process.  It is a wish list because effecting the changes that Robinson recommends would require a major paradigmatic shift in the way that the American criminal justice process is conceptualized. In the critical tradition, Robinson’s riveting passion for social justice evokes an emotional response from the reader. For this reason, his recommendations for change are an excellent medium for active learning and debate in the classroom.  The recommendations are arranged to correspond with the divisions in the book. General recommendations are followed by specific recommendations for reforming the law and the construction of crime; changing the focus of the media; recommendations for restructuring police, the courts and the sentencing process and corrections, and as expected, a recommendation that the death penalty be abolished.

The comprehensiveness of this critical exposition sets it apart from other critical treatises.  It is in fact a compendium of the separate issues targeted by individual critics in the critical criminological community in a straightforward, easy to read textbook.  For this reason, it should be essential reading for not only those audiences earlier identified, but also for general audiences who wish to understand why the criminal justice system behaves as it does.

Reviewed by EJ Williams, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Fayetteville State University, 1200 Murchison Road, Fayetteville, North Carolina 28301-4298