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Criminalizing Normal Adolescent Behavior In Communities Of Color: The Role Of Prosecutors In Juvenile Justice Reform, Kristin N. Henning
Criminalizing Normal Adolescent Behavior In Communities Of Color: The Role Of Prosecutors In Juvenile Justice Reform, Kristin N. Henning
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
There is little dispute that racial disparities pervade the contemporary American juvenile justice system. The persistent overrepresentation of youth of color in the system suggests that scientifically supported notions of diminished culpability of youth are not applied consistently across races. Drawing from recent studies on implicit bias and the impact of race on perceptions of adolescent culpability, Professor Henning contends that contemporary narratives portraying black and Hispanic youth as dangerous and irredeemable lead prosecutors to disproportionately reject youth as a mitigating factor for their behavior. Although racial disparities begin at arrest and persist through every stage of the juvenile justice …
Why Care About Mass Incarceration?, James Forman Jr.
Why Care About Mass Incarceration?, James Forman Jr.
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Paul Butler’s Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hip Theory of Justice makes an important contribution to the debate about the crime policies that have produced this result. Butler began his career as a federal prosecutor who believed that the best way to serve Washington, D.C’s low-income African-American community was to punish its law-breakers. His experiences—including being prosecuted for a crime himself—eventually led him to conclude that America incarcerates far too many nonviolent offenders, especially drug offenders. Let’s Get Free offers a set of reforms for reducing …