ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by describing the various types of injustice relevant to criminal justice, followed by discussion of three key theoretical perspectives on the causes of injustice: structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Injustices occur across a variety of domains. Because injustices stem from complex and interrelated political, social, and economic problems, it is often difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of injustice. The chapter examines two topics with important implications for criminal justice in further detail: economic inequality and unequal access to social opportunity. It focuses on the ways in which income inequality and poverty produce lopsided economic opportunity, with implications for individuals involved in the Criminal justice systems (CJS) and for the functioning of the system itself. The chapter also examines the ways in which statuses such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity interact with economic opportunity to affect social opportunity, further disadvantaging marginalized groups and producing additional gaps in justice.
