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How Black Lawmakers Hurt the African American Community in the 1970s

April 24, 2017
Talking About Race—Rethinking Crime and Punishment in Black America: A Conversation with James Forman Jr. (April 17, 2017)
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The first substantial cohort of Black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office in the 1970s amid a surge in crime and addiction. Many worried that the civil rights victories would be undermined by lawlessness and thus embraced tough sentencing and police tactics. The policies they adopted had devastating consequences for poor Black neighborhoods.

Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. presented his new book on the subject, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, at a recent event in the Open Society Institute–Baltimore’s Talking About Race series.

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Topics

Criminal Justice, Discrimination, Rule of Law

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