Critical Race Realism : Intersections of Psychology, Race, and Law

A new way of looking at our legal system--focused on the nexus of social science, race, and the law--that takes the field of critical legal studies into the twenty-first century. "The introduction of new methods in the social sciences to the law promises to revolutionize how legal scholars approach the study of race."--Jeffrey Rachlinski, professor at Cornell Law School Building on the field of critical race theory, which took a theoretical approach to questions of race and the law,Critical Race Realismoffers a practical look at the way racial bias plays out at every level of the legal system, from witness identification and jury selection to prosecutorial behavior, defense decisions, and the way expert witnesses are regarded. Using cutting-edge research from across the social sciences and, in particular, new understandings from psychology of the way prejudice functions in the brain, this new book--the first overview of the topic--includes many of the seminal writings to date along with newly commissioned pieces filling in gaps in the literature. The authors are part of a rising generation of legal scholars and social scientists intent on using the latest insights from their respective fields to understand the racial biases built into our legal system and to offer concrete measures to overcome them. Topics include: race and juries race and the perceived credibility of expert witnesses the psychology of cross-racial eyewitness testimony prejudice in police profiling stereotyping and capital-sentencing outcomes race and judicial decision-making race and parental rights termination