The Department of Justice has recently released data concerning encounters between the police and the public. Contacts between Police and the Public: Findings from the 1999 National Survey presents data on the nature and characteristics of citizen contacts with the police over a twelve-month period. "Findings are provided from a nationally representative survey of nearly 90,000 residents age 16 or...

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch released a new report, Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs. Supporting its case with a plethora of Justice department data from the 1996 national Corrections Reporting Program (the latest version available), the report finds that drug penalties are disproportionately applied on the basis of race. In fact, "relative to population,...

Prepared by staff at Northeastern University for the US Department of Justice, this report is a resource guide on racial profiling. The report offers an overview of the nature of racial profiling; gives information on data collection and its purpose; describes current activities in California, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Great Britain; and offers some recommendations for the future....

The Department of Justice has recently released data on the correlations between violent victimization and race. Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-98 "presents incidence estimates and per capita rates of violent victimization of whites, blacks, American Indians and Asians in 1998, and includes victimization trends, 1993-98." According to the report, the rate of violent victimization of whites...