ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is twofold. First, the chapter engages the double standard theorizing of conservative scholarly and criminological perspectives that build on commonly held beliefs of Black criminal deviance while failing to account for the crime types that might result in disproportionate incarceration of American Whites, namely, offenses associated with illegal drug abuse during the War on Drugs regime. Incarcerating more Whites is not the policy solution to disproportionate incarceration of African Americans, but their underrepresentation for drug offenses contributes to significant overrepresentation of African Americans. If the criminal involvement perspective were a reliable predictor of who goes to jail and prison for imprisonable offenses, why are American Whites not disproportionately arrested and imprisoned for marijuana and other drug-related offenses? And how might legalization or decriminalization help reverse the grossly unbalanced patterns of incarceration of African Americans in the United States?
