Chapter 1 introduces the American criminal justice system and outlines its ideal goals: doing justice and reducing crime. The chapter portrays two conflicting views of justice, one based on assuring fairness and equality as required by the U.S. Constitution and the other based on holding the guilty accountable for the harms they inflict on others. The author argues that since about 1970, American criminal justice has taken a path more consistent with a crime control model than with a due process model. Chapter 2 examines the nature of the law, from whence it comes, and the different types of law in the United States. This chapter illustrates how the criminal law creates "innocent bias." Chapter 3 defines "crime" and shows that the label "crime" is not appropriately used to characterize the most harmful acts against individuals and society. This chapter also discusses how crime is measured in the United States. Chapter 4 discusses how crime is portrayed in the American mass media, including how it is selectively presented. Chapter 5 examines whether the criminal justice system as a whole is biased against particular groups of people, and Chapter 6 provides one example of a war on crime (the "war on drugs") that is clearly aimed at these relatively powerless groups. Chapter 7 explains why the organization of policing in the United States creates biases against poor people and people of color, and Chapter 8 concerns pretrial procedures and trials. Chapter 9 addresses issues related to sentencing, followed by two chapters that concern incarceration and the death penalty, which the book considers to be two of the most destructive penalties within America's criminal justice system. The final chapter summarizes the main points of the preceding chapter and then offers a number of proposals for overcoming significant biases in America's criminal justice system. Chapter discussion questions, 841 references, figures, tables, and a subject index