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

The war on drugs, begun in the Reagan Administration and presently continuing unabated, has resulted in an explosion in the American prison population. Whether a desired effect of the war or not, this increase has been accounted for by a severely disproportionate number of African American males. Jerome Miller demonstrates in Search and Destroy that an African American male between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five has an inordinate likelihood of encountering the criminal justice system at some point during those years. In a wide-ranging survey of blacks and the justice system, Miller notes the presence of bias among police officers, probation officers, courts, and even social scientists whose data form the basis for many policies and social workers whose responsibility is allegedly to members of the underclass.