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Talking About Race: A Conversation with Paul Butler

Georgetown Law professor and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler talks about his new book, Chokehold: Policing Black Men, with Open Society Institute–Baltimore's Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program director Tara Huffman.

Butler suggests that the criminal justice system, in targeting Black men, is not malfunctioning but performing exactly as designed. “Cops routinely hurt and humiliate Black people because that is what they are paid to do,” he writes. “The police, as policy, treat African-Americans with contempt.” Ultimately, changing the status quo requires not just “reform” of the current system, he claims, but a wholesale reinvention.

This event is copresented with the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs as part of Open Society Institute–Baltimore’s Talking About Race series.

Speakers

  • Tara Huffman

    Speaker

    Tara Huffman is director of the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program at Open Society Institute–Baltimore.

  • Paul Butler

    Speaker

    Paul Butler is a professor of law at Georgetown Law.

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