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Full-Text Articles in Law
Addressing Racial Inequities In The Criminal Justice System Through A Reconstruction Sentencing Approach, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Addressing Racial Inequities In The Criminal Justice System Through A Reconstruction Sentencing Approach, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Faculty Publications
(Excerpt)
Justice reform is having a moment. Across the nation and in the federal government, legislation has passed “to reduce the scale of incarceration and the impact of collateral consequences of a felony conviction.” While some of these reforms were the result of fiscal concerns over mass incarceration, others were in response to the criminal justice reckoning brought on by events of 2020 and intensified calls for racial justice. In the summer of 2020 media attention on the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor sparked nationwide and global protests and accompanying antiracism pledges by individuals and institutions. This …
Sentencing, Drugs, And Prisons: A Lesson From Ohio, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Sentencing, Drugs, And Prisons: A Lesson From Ohio, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Faculty Publications
(Excerpt)
Prison overcrowding has become a familiar story. Current data shows that more than 1 in 100 adults in America—over 2 million people—are incarcerated, earning the United States the distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that state and federal prisons are reaching and exceeding capacity. Nor should it be a shock that drug offenders take up many of the beds in those overcapacity prisons. Relative to other crimes, drug sentencing in the United States has been increasingly harsh since the 1970s, and the prison population is feeling the effects …
The Influence Of Past Racism On Criminal Injustice: A Review Of The New Jim Crow And The Condemnation Of Blackness, Jelani Jefferson Exum
The Influence Of Past Racism On Criminal Injustice: A Review Of The New Jim Crow And The Condemnation Of Blackness, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Faculty Publications
(Excerpt)
There are books that, on their own, are informative and moving. But, oftentimes, reading books together—one right after the other—compounds each works’ transformative power. Michelle Alexander’s much-needed report (calling it simply a book hardly does it justice), The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, can certainly stand on its own as an important statement about the current use of mass incarceration to maintain a racial caste system in the United States. The same strength can be found in The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, Khalil Gibran …