The Dark Side of Reform: Exploring the Impact of Public Policy on Racial Equity contains nine chapters on the development of social policies with the potential to advance racial equity. In addition to studying these policies and their implications, the chapters in this volume demonstrate how lessons from the past can be used to inform the direction of current discussions. At the heart of these conversations are concerns about whether Black people, in particular, will receive the full benefit of transformative laws that may emerge in the coming years. The volume also offers recommendations on implementing policies that address the unique concerns of structurally disadvantaged communities with particular emphasis on Black and Latinx people.

Tyrell Connor is associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York - New Paltz.

Daphne M. Penn is postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology and Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Advancing Racial Equity Through Public Policy

Daphne M. Penn and Tyrell Connor

Chapter 1 - The Gun Control Debate and Its Policy Implications for Reducing Firearm Violence in Communities of Color

Daniel Semenza and Brian Wade

Chapter 2 - Policing is Punishment: Defunding the Police as Sentencing Reform

Jalila Jefferson Bullock and Jelani Jefferson Exum

Chapter 3 - Four Racial Justice Principles for Policy Response to Carceral Technology

Emily Tucker

Chapter 4 - Marijuana Legalization

Angela S. Murolo

Chapter 5 - American Dream into Nightmare: Immigration, Systemic Structural Racism and Health Inequity in the United States

Jay Pearson

Chapter 6 - #StopAsianHate: Examining Rising Levels of Anti-Asian Hate Crimes in the United States

Janice A. Iwama

Chapter 7 - Complexity and Possibility: Black Public Opinion on Immigration

Niambi M. Carter

Chapter 8 - Legacy of Good Trouble: The Next Frontier for Voting Rights

Candice C. Robinson, LaTeri McFadden, and J Nicole Johnson

Chapter 9 - Searching for a Racial Justice Agenda in High Poverty Settings: How Title I Reforms Data Blindness Limits its Educational Effectiveness for Black and Latinx Students

Charisse Southwell and Michael Hudson-Vassell

Conclusion

Tyrell Connor and Daphne M. Penn