There are two tracks in the American justice system, one for blacks and another for whites, that have resulted in both the disproportionate representation of blacks and their harsher treatment throughout the criminal process. In light of this, the main purpose of The Political Roots of Racial Tracking in American Criminal Justice is to determine why public-policy reforms to promote racial justice continue to be lacking. Moore approaches the issue in a political context and provides a comprehensive examination of both historical and contemporary roles of policy actors, including the United States Supreme Court, the United States Congress, political parties, public opinion, the media and scholars.

Secondary analyses of national datasets are used to substantiate the differences in black and white experiences during contacts with police (traffic stops, non-traffic contacts, arrest-related deaths), felony and misdemeanor prosecutions, pretrial release and detention, trial, sentencing, and imprisonment. The research is guided by a policy-process theory, which posits that policy actors and the process itself contribute to the perpetuation of racial tracking. Content analyses of cases, legislative initiatives, and political-party platforms are used to support the theory. An analysis of public opinion and beliefs about racialized justice, black involvement in crime, the crime problem itself, and support of law enforcement leads Moore to conclude that the public is more concerned about the crime problem than about the race problem.

An important contribution of the book is its critique of numerous Supreme Court decisions relating to criminal justice between 1932 and 2005, involving capital sentencing, the right to counsel, and police strategies in which the Court remained indifferent to the salience of race. Throughout its history, many landmark decisions, including Powell v. Alabama, Furman v. Georgia, and McCleskey v. Kemp, involved issues of race. Relatedly, after analyzing several legislative initiatives in Congress, and political-party platforms, Moore argues that racial-justice proponents were no match for the notorious law-and-order agenda. The book concludes with a critical analysis of social-science research, and racial, legal-process, structural, and cultural theories often used to explain racial disparities. In spite of their importance, they are not the major source of the public's information on black involvement in crime and racial injustice. Instead, the media's continued portrayal of blacks as criminals negatively impacts racial-tracking reform efforts.

Moore joins a cadre of political scientists and others who use a policy approach to examine race, crime, and justice. It is an important addition to understanding why racial-tracking policy reform is so difficult. While examining policy actors at the state and local levels was beyond the scope of this book, it does provide a good foundation for future research in this area. The exclusion of more recent data and policy initiatives since 2011–12 is one limitation of the study. During the past five years the efforts of racial-justice advocates have influenced sentencing, restorative justice, and school punishment reforms. Another limitation is the exclusion of hate-crime statistics that document historical racial animus, which is also downplayed in the book. In spite of these limitations, the book is an important addition. It calls attention to the need for developing more effective strategies to advance racial-justice policy reforms. It cautions that before this will happen, changing the racial frame of blacks as criminal must occur.