ABSTRACT

The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, initiated the William Edward Burghardt Du Bois Fellowship Program for young scholars interested in conducting research related to crime, violence, and the administration of justice in diverse cultural contexts. Du Bois's use of crime polls to gauge public opinion about crime and fairness in the criminal justice system represents another pioneering effort in criminology. Testament to the thoroughness of his research and the foresight in his thinking, many of his potential remedies for crime in the African American community remain applicable even today. Probably, one of the first African Americans Du Bois may have had an influence on was Monroe Work. Work was a contemporary of Du Bois and frequently wrote on crime. Du Bois's influence upon Thorsten Sellin is first evidenced by his reference to Du Bois in his 1928 classic publication, The Negro Criminal.