Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System

by Jerome G. Miller

• ISBN13: 9780521743815
• ISBN10: 0521743818
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This tightly argued and methodologically sound volume addresses widespread social assumptions associating crime and African American men. An exploration into the criminal justice system in America today and its impact on young African American males, this book challenges the linking of crime and race and the conservative anti-welfare, hard-on-crime agenda. Jerry Miller has spent a lifetime studying and challenging our criminal justice system. He has worked to make it more progressive and more just. He has watched as it turned into a system of segregation and control for many Americans of color. That is the story told here in devastating detail.

Table of Contents

Prologue: From Which Aristocratic Colours Peep	p. vii
The Scope of the Problem	p. 1
All Our Young Enemies	p. 3
Hyping Violence	p. 11
Race and Moral Panics	p. 13
Measuring Crime Rates	p. 16
The Crime "Explosion"	p. 18
The Character of Violent Crime	p. 20
A History of Violence	p. 25
A New Breed?	p. 28
The Black Criminal "Profile"	p. 33
Casting the Net of Social Control	p. 36
Overkill	p. 44
Unanticipated Consequences	p. 54
The Very Long Arm of the Law	p. 58
Race Baiting and Kitsch	p. 61
Of Tufthunters and Toadies	p. 61
Creating Moral Panics	p. 64
Race Baiting	p. 66
The Nelson Eddy Effect	p. 70
Feeding a Culture of Neglect	p. 79
The Great Divide	p. 90
The Search for the Criminaloid	p. 94
Stalking the Criminal Brain	p. 94
Stalking the Criminal Gene	p. 101
The New Lombrosians	p. 106
"Degeneration"	p. 109
Labeling the Deviant	p. 118
Early Attempts at Preventing "Genetically Influenced" Crime	p. 121
Predispositions and "Unintrusive Therapies"	p. 130
Boys with Prehensile Feet	p. 137
Approaching Genes and Behavior	p. 141
Banishing Indecision	p. 144
The Sentimentalist versus the Ignoramus	p. 145
Combating Crime	p. 156
The Likely Future	p. 158
Dealing with the Disposable	p. 167
Epilogue	p. 179
Index	p. 189
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.