Jill Leovy, who chronicled the work of homicide detectives in South Central Los Angeles in her masterful book Ghettoside, argues that this inability to solve and punish the most serious crimes is the flip side of a system that overpunishes minor infractions. “Like the schoolyard bully, our criminal justice system harasses people on small pretexts but is exposed as a coward before murder. It hauls masses of black men through its machinery but fails to protect them from bodily injury and death. It is at once oppressive and inadequate.”
