'American criminal justice policies and practices systematically treat black people differently - worse than other people - and obstruct their full, equal and untrammeled participation in American life. The problems are neither unknown nor insoluble but go unacknowledged and unaddressed in mainstream American politics. Nina Moore compellingly explains how and why that has happened.' Michael Tonry, McKnight Presidential Professor in ... Read moreCriminal Law and Policy, University of Minnesota 'Imagine Richard Wright as an academic writing Native Son - full of statistics and theories - but at heart always returning to a murder. Author Nina Moore's childhood friend is the victim. Her adult work as a professor is figuring out what happened and why it is still happening.' Juan Williams, Fox News political analyst, author of Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary and Eyes on the Prize 'Moore offers a broad indictment of racism in criminal justice, reaching beyond the biases of police, prosecutors, and criminal-court judges. She shows how a pervasive tendency to blame blacks for the problems they face encourages legislative and public indifference to reforming a system that channels African Americans toward harsher punishment than whites. This detailed account argues that we must challenge punitive public attitudes and legislative shortsightedness, as well as actors within the criminal-justice system, if we are ever to arrive at a more even-handed approach.' Doris Marie Provine, Professor Emerita, School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University Show Less