This collection of essays was produced as a result of the contributors' sense of dissatisfaction with the way race and ethnicity have been treated in criminological research. This attitude provides an organizing principle for the book while also injecting it with critical urgency. To date, analyses of the relationship between ethnicity and crime have focussed on the causes of crime whereas The Many Colors of Crimeregards race and ethnicity as structural influences. In the introduction the editors challenge the omissions of previous research by claiming that it failed “to consider how race and ethnicity are themselves central organizing principles within and across societies” (1). Accordingly, this volume sets about uncovering the way such stratification informs all aspects of crime, from the laws that criminalize certain behaviours to perceptions of violence and safety across communities.

The essays are effectively organized into four sections which draw attention to areas previously neglected by researchers: “Constructs and Conceptual Approaches,” “Populations and Intersectionalities,” “Contexts and Settings,” and “Mechanisms and Processes.” In the first section, for example, stereotypes – such as the “criminalblackman” – which disadvantage particular populations are challenged. The importance of moving beyond existing black–white paradigms to attain a fuller, more nuanced, understanding of the links between race and crime is asserted. According to Marjorie Zatz and Nancy Rodriguez, this can be achieved by focussing on the “convergence of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, and class” (50). Essays in section 2 further emphasize the need to attend to intersectionalities and crime. In particular, Stacy De Coster and Karen Heimer call for the development of new sampling strategies to produce more “meaningful comparisons across race–class–gender groups” in order to “move beyond an examination of patterns of offending to ask questions about causal mechanisms” (153).

Overall, the volume's devotion to establishing comparative studies of racial and ethnic groups and to acknowledging regional and temporal variances yields productive insights into structural and social inequalities in the United States. But the findings are alarming: the extent of racial and economic segregation recalls apartheid and the lack of research into the way that race and ethnicity are embedded in the historical and social context of crime, crime prevention, and justice is telling. In conclusion, the editors recognize the need for further studies comparing crime and criminal justice across nations, but they fail to mobilize their study of domestic crime to challenge America's claim to judicial authority in an international context.