| The criminal justice system regularly produces outcomes that are unequally distributed on extra-legal variables such as race, gender, and class. Explanations of these outcomes usually focus on the unequal criminal activity by offenders and/or prejudicial attitudes (from subtle and unintended to overt and conscious) by criminal justice agents. In this paper, we argue that some routine criminal justice activities tend to produce this unequal distribution of outcomes on non-legal variables even in the absence of differential criminal activity and prejudicial attitudes. As prejudice in criminal justice agents is reduced, it will become more important to focus on these systemic sources of discriminatory outcomes. After describing a range of activities that result in discrimination without prejudice, the paper focuses on the policy implications of how to respond to this situation. |
Updated 05/20/2006