This volume focuses on Hispanics and the criminal justice system, and emphasizes ethnic and racial dimensions as core elements of the relationship. It is the second edition of a volume published in 2012. Like the previous volume, this one contains 18 chapters with 17 organized into four sections or parts. The introductory chapter stands alone at the beginning of the volume.

The volume is not much different from the first edition, with 14 of the chapters in that volume appearing in updated form. Six of the chapters in this volume and the previous edition also appeared in another edited volume by these editors, namely Ethnicity and Criminal Justice in the Era of Mass Incarceration (2017). A chapter in this edition on arrests and future research by Michael Tapia and Patricia Harris was replaced by one on Latino police officers written by Claudio G. Vera Sánchez, who provided a similar chapter in another of Guevara Urbina’s edited volumes, Latino Police Officers in the United States (2015). The editors each provide a chapter of their own as well as three co-authored ones.  

In the introduction the editors set the stage for readers by framing the broad contours of the Latino experience in American society. They review the pertinent literature on Latinos and the criminal justice system and provide the rationale for and an overview of the volume.

The chapters in Section One address key dimensions of the relationship between Hispanics and the police. Charles Crawford leads the section with a historical overview of ethnicity in law enforcement. It includes an emphasis on the role of ethnicity in policing. This is followed by Robert J. Durán’s chapter on “policing the barrio.” Durán presents a historical overview of Latinos and policing, as well as a review of the literature. Mary Romero and Gabriella Sánchez follow with an examination of the critical challenges Hispanic defendants face once within the grasp of the “long arm of the law.” The chapter’s foci include racial and ethnic profiling, police abuse and brutality, police discretion, and the violation of rights. The section concludes with a chapter by Carlos E. Posadas and Christina Ann Medina on legislation at local, state, and federal levels designed to clamp down on Mexican immigration. Legislation has been influenced by several factors, including “race/ethnicity, economics, war, and labor shortage” (p. 87).

The chapters in Section Two focus on Hispanics and the judicial system. Claudio G. Vera Sánchez leads off the section with a chapter on the policies, practices, and structural hierarchies that influence the experiences of Latino police officers. Namely, they participate in a supposed race-neutral organization that yields the disproportionate incarceration of Latinos. This is followed by David V. Baker’s chapter on the forces that have and continue to shape Hispanic criminal (in)justice. The legacy of internal colonial domination is what governs the contemporary forms of (in)justice experienced by today’s Hispanics in American society.

In Chapter 8, Adalberto Aguirre, Jr. discusses the social construction of Mexicans as criminals through the dynamics of power and privilege. The process involves both ideology and institutional domination. In the next chapter Alfredo Mirandé examines the process by which Latinos are subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures. In short, their rights and protections under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution have been diminished in everyday life. In the chapter that follows, Mirandé examines the exclusion of Latinos from participation in juries. This exclusion occurs through the “common sense racism in the American judicial system” (p. 159). In Chapter 11, Guevara Urbina examines the barriers that indigent defendants face in the American court system. The justice system consists of a confluence of different factors (economics, race, etc.) that oppress some segments of society while serving others.

The chapters in Section Three focus on Hispanics and the penal system. Sofía Espinoza Álvarez leads off with a chapter on “the road to prison” that highlights the institutional processes by which Latinos are subjected to discrimination that facilitates their imprisonment. In Chapter 13, Rick Ruddell and Natalie R. Ortiz focus on the experiences of Hispanic prisoners, including healthcare, rehabilitation opportunities, and community reentry. In the next chapter, Kathryn D. Morgan focuses on probation and parole and how they prolong captivity beyond incarceration. The disparate impact of imprisonment, probation, and parole result from the emphasis on punishment and the scapegoating of Latinos as responsible for societal troubles.

In Chapter 15, Ilse Aglaé Peña and Martin Guevara Urbina examine the legacy of capital punishment and the execution of Mexicans and Latinos. They note that the disproportionate use of the death penalty against Latinos has been increasing in recent decades. In the next chapter the editors of the volume focus on life after prison and provide recommendations for overcoming barriers to successful reentry back into the larger society. They emphasize policies and practices that promote successful reintegration into conventional society.

Section Four consists of two chapters by the editors of the volume. One focuses on the globalization of criminal justice, and the other on the future of Latinos in the American criminal justice system. Key aspects of the globalization of criminal justice include the war on drugs, the rise of the illegal alien ideology, and the use of national security propaganda. In the final chapter the emphasis is on paradoxes and dilemmas within the American criminal justice system in the context of shifting demographics.

The volume will prove highly useful to scholars, students, and lay readers alike. It examines the issues that characterize the relationship between Latinos and the American criminal justice system from historical perspectives, within specific contexts, and across the full spectrum of the dimensions of criminal justice.