by Abel Rymar
Introduction
The enforcement and practice of laws and why they come to be as they are in the critical perspective tend to focus on the dynamics of power and oppression between classes; this is an argument common in critical theory and is often cited as one type of reasoning as to why some people are jailed for crimes, while others are let off with a fine, probation, or no penalty at all. As with much of the works of those such as Roberto Unger, controversy surrounds this notion, which would beg the question: does a critical legal theory of the enforcement of law support the social realities of how political and legal power has been used comparatively between white-collar and “street” crime? Scholarly sources may indicate that Unger’s work during his tenure at Harvard Law School had greatly merged the aspects of politics and law together; rather than take a conventional social scientific methodology, he instead pivots his focus on the institutional and structural inequities that go against typical legal assumptions that other theories make, arguing that they determine the choices of individuals (Collins, 1987). One of the main tenets of critical legal theory should be analyzed through multiple case studies of the application of black-letter laws to real-world issues and people. The argument then is expected to follow that law itself is inconsistent, based upon the whims of judges and lawmakers. Similarly to that of Justice Holmes and legal realism, how the law is practiced is central to examining the functionalities of the law in critical theory. However, a core difference remains between the two; while legal realism puts much emphasis on the judiciary’s decisions as key to how the law operates, critical theory instead stresses that these decisions are to be critiqued harshly as a tool to oppress those who lack the authority and wealth to accelerate their own positions within society. An issue with this is the lack of intersectionality within this theory in general; an analysis of the effects of racial and socioeconomic factors that coincide with the rate of arrests and prosecutions for both violent and nonviolent offenses, ranging from simple larceny to homicide is in order. Research on the case studies of these cities will vary in measurement depending on the data available and will include the demographics of the arrests made for each crime or the utilization of the median household incomes of prominent neighborhoods where the arrests occur. First, an introduction to critical theory will establish some background behind that which is being tested. Next, the case studies will display the facts of each city, their culture, and their history, most notably of their law enforcement and government officials’ conduct and crime rates. For each case, some data may be shown that provides evidence for or against the presence of racial or socioeconomic biases in the arrests of people from different backgrounds for similar crimes. Some cities have variations in the availability of arrest rate statistics, so some methodology may vary as well; the city of Jackson will instead focus more on the judiciary rather than patrolmen on the streets and use different methods of measurement that will be centered around the effects of public policy. Any graphs and charts utilized will be sourced from law enforcement documents. Once the statistics are covered, there will be some thoughts presented on the impact of the kind of enforcement of the law that these cities are conducting, if they are consistent with the critiques of critical theory, as well as possible policy reforms which may be expressed towards a conclusion.
Critical Legal Studies
Critical theory and its subcomponents critical race and feminist legal theory argues that the law is inherently designed to undermine racial and gender minorities, and marginalized socioeconomic classes and enrich those that are rich, powerful, and exert influence over institutions; it rejects the tradition of black-letter law, which instead regards enforcement of statutes to be as they were written in law books and legislation, enforced by a sovereign. Critical theorists believe that law is not immune from the grasp of politics and power but rather is intertwined with it. Those that conduct critical legal studies possess a diverse array of thought, with some intersecting the roles of race and gender in the law and power yet appear unified in a common narrative (Fitzpatrick and Hunt, 1987). Law, ultimately, is one factor of politics whose discrepancies are displayed based on conflict between competing suspect classes in society.
Those who have the power to change law do so to benefit themselves, affecting how laws are written and enforced, and who is convicted and incarcerated. Political influence has a direct effect on whether there truly justice is served or rather discriminatory practices implemented, deliberate or not. This ideology is one that is best associated with those left of liberal, born out of the late 1970s United States scholars that convened together at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, though its roots were sown out of those involved with the Civil Rights movement a decade earlier (Legal Information Institute). As mentioned before, pioneers such as Roberto Unger, Duncan Kennedy, and Robert W. Gordon borrowed heavily from legal realism, which examined how law is put into practice, not simply how it is declared on paper. These scholars take realism a step further, proposing that those participating in the criminal justice system design it to be intrinsically discriminatory by race, gender, and class, noting that depending on an individual’s status in these categories, they may have either a higher or lower degree of suffering in the hands of the law.
Case Study of New York City
A study of the enforcement of crime and how political power is distributed cannot be complete without an analysis of one of the country’s most populous and diverse cities: New York, New York. Census information indicates that the current population amounts to 8,258,035 people as of 2023 (United States Census Bureau). It has a rather low white population, with about 35% of the city being white, 14% being Asian, 28% being Hispanic or Latino, and 23% being Black; the diversity of the city is regarded as one of its largest selling points to both tourists and prospective residents. Despite this, some neighborhoods act as ethnic enclaves, such as Little Italy, Chinatown, and Harlem, and in this case study, the third neighborhood will be one of the subjects of observation and comparison to more upscale locations (Greenwich Village).
Harlem is the birthplace of prominent African American musicians and activists, and a hub for Black American culture. It is also home to the 32nd (central) and 23rd (east) precincts of the NYPD, which facilitate stops and frisks and compile their data into Excel spreadsheets, which highlight reasons for a stop, duration, and suspected crime being investigated, as well as the location. According to data by precinct, the total combined number of stops initiated in Harlem and East Harlem was 85, which was lower than anticipated (NYPD, 2024). The highest number of initiated stops was located in the Bronx, specifically the 46th and 48th precincts, with 316 and 331 stops respectively. These areas of the Bronx have a high concentration of Black and Latino populations as well, but at the same time, also have higher crime rates and lower socioeconomic standpoints than that of Harlem. The 46th precinct consists of the neighborhoods of University Heights, Fordham (university campus), and Mount Hope; the 48th precinct consists of the neighborhoods of East Tremont and Belmont. Compared to 2001, in 2024, almost all violent crime sharply increased in the 46th precinct; similar statistics can be found for the 48th precinct as well. Between the year 2024 and the current year 2025, most violent crime is on the increase in the district. It may explain why Terry stops are becoming more commonplace, but it also does not explain why Black and Latino populations of these districts are becoming greater targets without committing any crime at all. While the NYPD itself records stops and frisks by racial classifications, it proves to be difficult to analyze in a large, Excel format; the New York Civil
Liberties Union covers the racial disparities in the past four years after a more crime control-focused policing effort was implemented in the city. Upon observing the stop and frisk data by racial classification, the results show that 89% of the suspects stopped were Black, White Hispanic, or Black Hispanic, out of 16,971 subjects recorded in the dataset (NYCLU, 2024). In 2023, 9,939 subjects of police stops were Black, 5166 were Hispanic, 942 were white, and 288 were Asian; the data was compiled for the general population of NYC. When observing between neighborhoods, a chart compiled by Goel et al. (2016) assists in visualizing the racial distribution of constituents, as well as the distribution between stops and frisks conducted and crime within each neighborhood.
The figure labeled “a” is the distribution of stops and frisks, figure “b” is the homicide distribution, and figure “c” displays the racial distribution of NYC according to 2010 census data (2016). Comparatively to Harlem, Greenwich Village appears to have significantly less crime, a whiter population, and subsequently less stops and frisks. Corroborating the most recent data available, stops and frisks are most prominent in the Hispanic areas of the Bronx. Although the census data used in this study was 10 years prior to the most current one, a quick comparison between the two demonstrates little change and thus not much effect on the outcomes of the levels of disparities shown. While the categorical suspicions that high crime areas bring give way to some police tactics that are deemed routine or sometimes even necessary to crime prevention, it appears that people of color bear the cost of these tactics, even when they have not committed any crime; their only form of suspicion are the officer’s observations of “suspicious” behavior, and the fact that they are located in an area known for crime. Visualizing the data presents evidence pointing to the localized nature of the enforcement of the stop and frisk in NYC.
NYC Stop and Frisks: The Facts
Stop and frisk was a signature policy of the Bloomberg administration, and has made a comeback under Mayor Adams, with more stops being conducted year by year since he had taken office according to data collected by the NYCLU. More of these stops now include frisks (external pat-downs of the outer clothing), primarily of those that are innocent; reasonable suspicion is the standard that law enforcement must use to conduct a stop, but they cannot automatically frisk an individual unless they have individualized suspicion that points towards them having committed or about to commit a crime.
However, nearly all the individuals that the NYPD had stopped had not committed any crime, which makes their reasonable suspicion justifications outlined in their Excel data seem a bit disputable; while observations of a person’s demeanor and actions, as well as secondary information given by a trusted informant with corroborating evidence, the effectiveness of stops is not present within this jurisdiction, as in some of the interactions, some of those stopped are recorded as “irrational”, “irate”, or simply walking off, and not much crime is truly uncovered or reduced; the punitive enforcement of the law in these minority communities accompanying the increase in stops during the Adams administration has not quelled the increase in violent crime across some precincts. The enforcement of these stops also disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic males that look younger in predominately POC neighborhoods as well, with the justification of categorical suspicion, labeling these high crime areas to increase police presence and interaction with civilians. The relationships between the police patrolling and being ordered to conduct increased stop and frisks and the people they are supposed to protect from increased crime and neighborhood safety concerns are increasingly strained, most notably after the racial justice movements inspired in 2020, and not much appears to have changed, as both stops, accompanied by frisks, have not deterred or apprehended criminals who are armed and dangerous in the most vulnerable parts of New York City.
Accordingly with the rise in crime and the higher enforcement in areas that have suffered from it, police presence serves a less beneficial purpose, which is indiscriminate profiling of those living in the area, monitoring their behavior for anything remotely suspicious, such as a furtive movement or peering momentarily into a store window, as to justify a stop. Creating a culture of oppressiveness is the discriminatory effect of the Terry stop policy of the NYPD, whether it had such an intent is a speculatory matter. Demonstrating the lack of substantial change in the violent crime rate in NYC for the seven major offenses also highlights how a punitive system that targets POC communities serves to uphold socioeconomic and even racial hierarchies. Between 2022 and 2024, the crime rate only slightly fluctuated, rising and falling with no considerable pattern; in fact, between 2021 and 2022, which was the time period in which the Adams administration decided to increase the rate of stops and frisks, the crime rate grew significantly from 102,741 to 126,589 offenses committed/reported despite the “tough on crime” policy (“Seven Major Felony Offenses”, 2025). Black and Brown residents live in fear of both criminals and law enforcement, the law on Terry stops does not intend to solely control crime, but to ensure “correct” behavior, dress, and mannerisms from the residents that police are tasked to serve, otherwise they risk being stopped on the street, searched, and even taken into custody.
Some Takeaways
The lack of effectiveness in crime control, as well as the intrusions on due process that occur in neighborhoods that have a high concentration of racial minorities that have been historically oppressed in the U.S by both law and in a societal sense display evidence that stop and frisk as applied in New York City serves the purpose of maintaining a sense of fear and uncertainty within a certain population. Statistically, according to the most recent reports available for crime victimization, suspects, and arrests, those who are identified as Black and/or Hispanic make up a plurality of victims of crimes, and are also the greatest concentration of suspects and arrestees, especially for violent crime and most misdemeanors as well, except for grand larceny, where the greatest share of victimized people are white (Caban, 2023). While this could create a counter to the evidence of stop and frisks profiling POC even when they are innocent by pointing out these reports, it still would not explain why the increase in law enforcement presence and action has not protected the people of color which make up a plurality of nearly all crime victims in the city, and have maintained moderate recidivism rates amongst violent offenders despite bail reform being introduced in 2019 and implemented in 2020. In a study implemented by Data Collaborative for Justice, they compared re-offending rates for those incarcerated pre- and post-bail reform.
Although recidivism rates for overall felony crimes decreased slightly from 41.3% to 40.7%, violent felony re-arrest rates, as well as firearm offense re-arrest rates increased slightly (Ropac, 2024). Though the bail reforms in New York were welcomed by criminal justice reform advocates, as well as enforced by a De Blasio mayoral administration, now with Adams as the mayor, who is a former NYPD police officer and a staunch opponent of bail reform, he aims to implement more punitive legal policy within the city. The difference in administration affects the operation of law enforcement, and subsequently political power is connected to how civilians without legislative or legal authority are treated within the jurisdiction in which they reside. Those with power determine what laws are enforced, the extent of their enforcement, and where they are enforced; the discrepancies shown in the demographics of those who are both the suspects and victimized of crime displays the social control imposed upon lower-income, majority Black and Hispanic communities comparatively to more upscale precincts.
Case Study of Chicago
Chicago is known as the Windy City but has also garnered a reputation not only for violence and gangs, especially in the city’s predominately Black South Side neighborhoods and the apartment complex most notably nicknamed “O-Block”, which consists of low-income public housing. Violent crime has been a major issue within the legal, political, and social sphere of the city, with those on both sides of criminal justice policy advocacy slamming either law enforcement or those in the power of the mayoral administration. Similarly to the NYPD, the Chicago Police Department also publishes crime data based on demographics, most notably arrests. Out of the 25 districts (“Outside City” will be excluded from the analysis for the reason of not contributing as many arrests to the city proper, and not being in the city proper), it shows that Black residents are arrested at an alarmingly higher rate than other races residing in the city. The general demographics of Chicago show that 39% of residents are White, 28.4% are Black, and 29.6% are Hispanic or Latino in racial and ethnic origin (U.S Census Bureau, 2023).
Calculating each arrest total for the year 2022 minus the Outside City results in the finding that out of the total number of arrests, Black residents account for about 70% of all custodial police actions within the city (Chicago Police Department, 2023). The proportion decreased to 66% Black, but the number of Hispanic individuals arrested by police had increased from 20% to 23% in 2023. The pattern of high arrest rates for POC looks to continue into the Midwestern portion of the urban United States, where punitive measures are taken more often upon the Black and Hispanic populations comparatively to majority or plurality demographic classes. While the Chicago Police Department does not conduct extensive stop and frisks in line with the policy of the government of their city, they still fall into the same pattern. A visualization of such a disparity is shown below (Chicago Police Department, 2023):
As previously mentioned, South Side Chicago is regarded as one of the most dangerous parts of the Windy City; this part of the urban portion of Chicago has long held an African American identity, filled with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds despite its gritty reputation. Crime is generally concentrated within certain streets and avenues and are not a part of the entirety of the general area. After the Chicago Fire of 1871, much of the South Side’s rich and poor moved out of the area, making room for a new influx of immigrants from diverse backgrounds to move into the vacant residences. The emergence of northern industrial labor opportunities spurred a part of the Great Migration, which fueled tensions between white and African American laborers moving from the South; a race riot eventually broke out in 1919 as tensions boiled over. As the Roaring 20s progressed, white flight began to take off, with families moving to neighborhoods in the western portion of Chicago or along the perimeter of South Side. After World War II, the prominence of the automobile and road expansion made it easier to access the outer suburbs, which resulted in a housing explosion along outer parts of the city. The older neighborhoods also saw a rise in the building of housing, though these were primarily public housing projects controlled by the housing authority; the establishment of institutions of higher education furthered the development of the greater part of the neighborhood but still retained the segregated neighborhoods and pockets of extreme poverty. The deindustrialization of the South Side was the final nail in the coffin, as laborers were forced out of their factory work and moved into the service industries (Pacyga, 2005). As outlined by this brief history of the development of the South Side neighborhoods provided by the Encyclopedia for Chicago History, white flight, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and subsequent racial tensions breaking out as the increase in public housing units ensued has contributed to the concentrated crime and poverty in certain parts of the historically diverse neighborhood. Chicagoan history in this context is important, especially since the 1871 fire, the Industrial Revolution, and the subsequent loss of manufacturing jobs had severely displaced the diverse community that defined the area; ultimately the South Side’s relationship with race and socioeconomic status had contributed to both its racial distribution, its crime rate, and the rate of enforcement that the police conduct.
Furthermore, the history of crime itself, most notably organized crime, is something to discuss before drawing connections to the critical perspective of law. The criminal underbelly of Prohibition-era Chicago consisted of immigrant families looking for social mobility within their ethnic neighborhoods. During the 1930s, most of the top leaders in the underworld were of Italian, Irish, and Jewish descent (Haller, 1970). Not only were those groups leading the charge of organized crime, but they also held positions in the upper reigns of law enforcement and the greater criminal justice system. Since high positions within the legal professions acted as rewards for service to the political machine, and thus, despite the desire within these ethnic minorities for social mobility despite the systemic discrimination they faced in their journey towards the top of the hierarchy. In the maintenance of this status quo, most of the arrestees consisted of unorganized offenders engaging in what is considered “mopery and dopery” or in more comprehensible terms, misdemeanors; pettier criminals were easily handled and jailed. Professional criminals were also caught and incarcerated but would sometimes gather political favors to render them immune, as was the case of Eddie Jackson, also known as “The Immune Pickpocketer”. How this power imbalance between poorer and more professional offenders operated is as follows:
“The alleged pickpockets soon made contact with a city detective, who explained the best places to practice their trade, put them in touch with a reliable fixer and fence, and then provided them with on-the-job police protection in return for 50 percent of the take” (1970).
The disparities in the treatment of different classes of criminals is evident here. Making connections with law enforcement who posed undercover as pickpockets and teaching them the trade in exchange for half of “profits” was just a part of the outward corruption of the Gilded Age and Prohibition era. Although a part of the detective’s career was possessing an extensive knowledge and camaraderie with the seedy criminal community of the city in which they patrol and investigate, there lies a fine line between crime prevention and aiding and abetting the same offenders that they are looking to catch (Haller, 1976). In some cases, criminal behavior was guided by law enforcement; the petty criminals did not receive the type of treatment that more organized gangs had at the time. Going through the early history of law enforcement’s behavior towards different crimes and those of different backgrounds brings into perspective their behavior in the modern era. This also puts into context the implications that the racial riots had, as well as the tension between “native” white Americans and their new European immigrant cohabitators. Race, ethnicity, and power have always been a part of Chicago law and politics, and in the battle for social mobility and hegemony, someone inevitably always loses, whether it is the petty criminals of the 1910s-1930s, or the current predominately Black residents dealing with the consequences of white flight, which occurred in the mid-20th century in response to the greater police protections afforded to the black community at the time (Balto, 2019). Ideally, a police force that protects and lays down the law equally is what most of the population aspires to, though the subjective and some common interests of the policing and criminal justice system prevent meaningful strides towards that objective.
The purpose of bringing attention to the history of Chicago’s South Side and the city’s policing is to acknowledge the tense racial past, as race riots occurred frequently throughout the development of the neighborhood. This in turn promotes a pathway to the inequitable enforcement of the law against people of color that reside in the city, despite the rather proportionate demographics overall. The disparities are even more prominent in Chicago than in NYC; in 2022, whites only constituted about 8% of all arrests (Chicago Police Department, 2023), which brings into question the tactics that law enforcement in the city use to apprehend suspects and administer the law and justice. Furthermore, the CPD also reports the clearance rates of select crimes that suspects are arrested for, and the resulting statistics point to a lack of arrestees going through the justice system in a fair and efficient manner. For the violent crime category, only a bit over half of all murders that are reported, investigated, and result in the arrest of a suspect also result in charges being filed, prosecution, and the trial or sentencing process going through, as per the standards for constituting a “cleared case” in the eyes of the police department itself. The clearance rate is even lower for property crimes; the lowest clearance rates displayed for the most recent available year are for theft and motor vehicle theft, with rates of 8% and 4% respectively (2023). The lack of a full judicial process for suspects that are known and detained by law enforcement presents an issue with the purpose of the law and its enforcement by those who hold political and legal power; most suspects appear to merely be held in detention facilities without being officially acquitted, convicted, or released based on dropped charges by the prosecutor’s office. Such treatment is reminiscent of the two-tiered system of justice present between differing socioeconomic classes of offenders (professional and petty) that was prominent in the early 20th century, although now racial disparities between arrests, clearances of the dockets, and the presence of law enforcement in general within certain neighborhoods has replaced one form of imposing power for another.
Case Study of Jackson, Mississippi
The final case study is rather unique, as it yields a majority Black population in the Deep South region of the United States. Some of the fundamental facts of the city, such as the average income and education levels may also be alarmingly low compared to the previous two cities mentioned, which are renowned for the prestigious universities dotted within their geographical boundaries; meanwhile, Jackson is well-renowned for its Flint-like water supply and struggles with poverty and criminal behavior. Difficulties in collecting enforcement data for the city have been encountered frequently, which appears to primarily exist at the state level, coinciding with the city’s low marks on both a social and political scale; a different methodology must be used to gauge the disparities in enforcement of the law for the city. However, this does not create a barrier to receiving general insights about the city itself, which boasts a 25.6% poverty rate and a 13.3% unemployment rate (Bacon et al., 2023). The alarming statistics highlighting the microeconomic difficulties of the city’s residents gives background to the stigma of violent crime’s presence there, especially homicide; according to data compiled by the local university in the city, it turns out that 2021 and 2022 data failed to be collected in the city of Jackson, but they utilized other crime data from towns and cities within Hinds County, which was where much of the violent crime was concentrated according to the UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting, a product of the FBI). While crime for other towns nearby are relatively low, it appears that in Jackson, violent and property crime are increasing, primarily in terms of gun violence and homicides since 2020. Younger adult and youth offenders are also being incarcerated at increasingly higher levels, and the institutional law enforcement of Jackson is unable to properly protect citizens from dangerous street crime.
This city here is an outlier comparatively to New York and Chicago, as those two cities’ police departments tend to be more responsive to the city, rather than the state government; this in turn places more accountability for the shortcomings and the discriminate arrests, stop and frisks, and police presence in certain neighborhoods on the municipal level. Jackson, on the other hand, is at the mercy of statewide policy, its mayor not having the national eye gazed upon them, if at all, and thus is overshadowed by gubernatorial action. Without crucial arrest statistics pertaining to the specific city, analysis must be made on the current policy that targets the city, most notably a recent and controversial push to establish a state-run court and police force to patrol white-majority areas within the Black-majority Jackson; most recently, the appellate court has granted permission for the state of Mississippi to create the Capitol Complex Improvement District Court (Jackson, 2025). The two-tiered city justice system was permitted through the courts and is to be enforced by the municipal policing units. Despite the (perhaps purposeful) lack of concrete data, a more qualitative approach to researching Jackson may also suffice in the absence of numeric information. The focus here is on the judiciary, not only the patrol officers that lay down laws; legal interpretation in Mississippi’s justice system is geared to suppress and control Black residents of cities that politically swing Democratic and are labeled as “high crime areas”. The targets of protection and security in this newly made district court are white residents; Black citizens are not getting any form of increased law enforcement presence, and thus in this case, a lack of police action can also be a tool to maintain crime-infested neighborhoods to justify other forms of racial discrimination and disparities between constituents of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
In Jackson, because of its large Black population, local institutions allow for social justice movements to have a home within a traditionally conservative state; however, Mississippi, especially in Jackson, has had a history of spatial segregation within housing and education, initiating a great amount of racial hatred and white supremacist rhetoric as an institutional norm that has not fully gone away upon the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 (Wesley et al., 2005). As suburban sprawl spread throughout the state, and most notably in urban areas such as that of the subject of this case study, the income gap between African Americans and whites Americans grew exponentially; eventually, as poverty within the core of Jackson communities ballooned, white parents elected to spend their disposable income on private schooling for their children, further perpetuating the segregation in the education system. The new implementation of a separate court and police force for white communities in Jackson has introduced another way for underserved neighborhoods to have what remains of their resources taken away from them to favor hierarchical power structures, now in the legal system as well, not only in socioeconomic institutions.
While education may not specifically relate to the law, bringing up the history of segregation in the state of Mississippi serves to further emphasize the resistance to integrating two races together within the same institutions or to facilitate equality, both economic and social, between them. The historical and current political and legal events occurring within Jackson, a majority-Black city, point to power structures based on colonial legal status quos, not necessarily majoritarian cultural presence. Despite being more than 80% of the city population, the African Americans living within the urban center are powerless and impoverished, unable to advocate for better treatment or safer neighborhoods; instead, their state justice system has elected to take over the city and progressively eliminate the prospect of a self-governing, Black-majority municipality. Comparatively to the other two case studies, critical theory appears to support Jackson’s current state, not necessarily because of unequal police enforcement, but rather biased and discriminatory judicial and political establishments that then lead to just disparate enforcement of the law. In Mississippi, and subsequently in its largest and most populous city, the law is inherently political, caged by bias and a history of racial segregation and oppression.
Conclusion and Policy Going Forward
Policy implications for the future are difficult to determine; law and politics, especially in the urban centers of the United States, are wrapped together in a direct connection to one another. It is a near impossibility to separate the magistrate, lawyers, and law enforcement from public policy, as much of their conduct stems from the formal and informal norms that permeate through different partisan plans for criminal justice. The demand for due process is fluid, expanding in times of blatant violations of constitutional rights, and contracting during periods where crime is rising and violence is being reported in the media and through the mouths of politicians on an increasingly frequent basis. The introduction of bail reform within the state of New Jersey appears to be the most effective way to combat recidivism, reduce crime, and ensure that not only do defendants appear at their court dates without needing to be able to afford monetary bail, but be subject to accountability by the state. In terms of arrests and enforcement, a more regulatory approach to stop and frisks must be taken in NYC, as the Adams administration, despite the lawsuit suffered by Mayor Bloomberg, who had first implemented the racially charged policy, has once more returned to aggressive enforcement tactics in the city’s most underserved and poorest communities. Greater trust must be built between the NYPD precincts and those in the Bronx, and political policy must reflect a more citizen-focused approach for the law to be equitable. In Chicago, acknowledging the history of racial tensions in the South Side is the beginning of reconciliation, but true change can be achieved through redhibitory methods of crime deterrence such as youth programs, awareness campaigns, and connecting residents of underserved communities with the social assistance they need to sustain themselves without needing to resort to criminal behavior. Such aggressive enforcement targeting and profiling those who may simply “appear criminal” is ineffective and leads to distrust and increased organized criminal activity that still pervades Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods. In Jackson, a more “radical” approach must be taken; atoning for the racial injustices that still pervade the fabric of the Mississippi legal and political system will be difficult, but much needed.
Given that the direct connection between law and politics has been demonstrated to have evidence of a presence in these three case studies, even in a city that has a majority-minority population, then manufacturing change will need to come from dismantling oppressive policies and institutions (which includes the state-run court and policing system that was recently established) to allow for the city to govern itself and expand upon social justice organizations that already exist. The ability of those who are inequitably targeted by policing and judicial systems across the country are limited by their increasing incarceration rate, primarily because of policies that are purposed to target people of specific races and their neighborhoods, and thus change is imperative to achieve equal justice and a balance of crime control and due process.