 In recent years, the criminal justice system has become a focal point in the discussion of civil rights in the United States. A number of commentators have argued that the system amounts to a “new Jim Crow,” reducing blacks to an inferior, caste-like status (Alexander 2012; for criticism of the Jim Crow analogy, see Forman 2012). Yet, even apart from such arguments, civil rights concerns have been raised about every dimension of criminal justice in the U.S., from the investigation and arrest of suspects to the imposition of the death penalty. And issues of racial equality with respect to criminal justice are hardly limited to the U.S. (Clarke: 9–10). In France, for example, race-based abuse perpetrated by the police is a matter of serious public concern, and the office of Defender of Rights has found that persons perceived as black or Arab are 20 times as likely to be stopped by police as members of the general population (Bredeen and Morenne 2017).