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Research consistently reveals that fear of crime and perceived risk are demographically and ecologically patterned. Women and individuals in disadvantaged community settings report increased fear and perceptions of risk. For women, these fears and perceptions are tied to concerns about sexual violence specifically, whereas for individuals in distressed neighborhoods, crime rates, "incivilities," and poor police‐community relations are often identified as important correlates. Here, we build from the insights of previous research by examining the gendered nature of perceived risk and risk‐management strategies among urban African‐American adolescents. Our findings suggest that both risk and risk‐avoidance strategies are strikingly different for young women and young men and are shaped by the gendered organizational features of neighborhood life. We propose that future research will benefit by continuing to investigate how social vulnerabilities function in tandem to structure risks across ecological settings.

The use of proactive tactics to disrupt criminal activities, such as Terry street stops and concentrated misdemeanor arrests, are essential to the "new policing." This model applies complex metrics, strong management, and aggressive enforcement and surveillance to focus policing on high crime risk persons and places. The tactics endemic to the "newpolicing"gave rise in the 1990s to popular, legal, political, and social science concerns about disparate treatment of minority groups in their everyday encounters with law enforcement. Empirical evidence showed that minorities were indeed stopped and arrested more frequently than similarly situated Whites, even when controlling for local social and crime conditions. In this Article, we examine racial disparities under a unique configuration of the street stop prong of the "new policing"-the inclusion of non-contact observations (or surveillances) in the field interrogation and observation activity of Boston Police Department officers. We show that Boston Police officers focus significant portions of their field investigation activity in two areas: suspected and actual gang members, and the city's high crime areas. Minority neighborhoods experience Aigher levels of field interrogation and surveillance activity, controlling for crime and other social factors. Relative to White suspects, Black suspects are more likely to be observed, interrogated, and frisked or searched controlling for gang membership and prior arrest history Moreover, relative to their Black counterparts, White police officers conduct high numbers of field investigations and are more likely to frisk or search subjects of all races. We distinguish between preference-based and statistical discrimination by comparing stops by officer-suspect racial pairs. If officer activity is independent of officer race, we would infer that disproportionate stops of minorities reflect statistical discrimination. We show instead that officers seem more likely to investigate and frisk or search a minority suspect if officer and suspect race differ. We locate these results in the broader tensions of racial profiling that pose recurring social and constitutional concerns in the "new policing."

Since the 1980s, the number of individuals in the U.S. criminal justice system has more than quadrupled and, as a result, incarcerates more people per capita than any other industrialized nation. The dramatic surge in incarceration can in part be attributed to the four decades of punitive crime policies that have produced large racial and ethnic disparities. While prior research has consistently demonstrated these sizable disparities, the purpose of the current research is 3-fold. First, we explore the current state of race–justice research with regard to offending/victimization, policing, and sentencing. We then explore the consequences of employment/earnings, families, and communities. We conclude by offering directions for future research.

A sizeable number of crack cocaine users trade temporary use of their vehicles for small amounts of the drug. While the majority of these crack-for-car contracts are fulfilled without police intervention, many are not. These failed arrangements have the potential to cause a wide range of problems for police and the community. Using semi-structured interviews with police officers and active crack cocaine users, we examine how crack-for-car transactions come to law enforcement officers' attention and how police respond to and perceive the practice. Findings reveal that police believe that these incidents: artificially increase motor vehicle theft rates, waste police resources, perpetuate the drug market, and contribute to tenuous police-citizen relations. Findings have important implications for understanding police-citizen interactions and for developing effective policies.

Renewed interest has occurred in the United States around racially biased policing. Unfortunately, little is known about the effects of neighborhood social context on black adolescents' experiences with racially biased policing. In the current study, we examined whether perceptions of racially biased policing against black adolescents are a function of neighborhood racial composition, net of other neighborhood‐ and individual‐level factors. Using two waves of data from 763 black adolescents, we found that black adolescents most frequently are discriminated against by the police in predominantly white neighborhoods. This effect especially is pronounced in white neighborhoods that experienced recent growth in the size of the black population. Our results lend support to the "defended" white neighborhood thesis.