“Understanding African American attitudes and actions on matters of crime and punishment requires that we pay careful attention to another topic that is often overlooked in criminal justice scholarship: class divisions within the black community.21 Although mass incarceration harms black… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“gun crime: it wasn’t equally distributed throughout black America. Rather, it was concentrated among the poorest blacks, who were forced into living conditions that generated violence. Few” — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“As the tough-on-crime movement gathered force, those who had been arrested or convicted rarely participated in debates over criminal justice policy, in D.C. or… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“As the historian David Krugler explains, “African Americans were not so much rioting as fighting back, counterattacking, repelling violence; above all, resisting.”79” — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“But when they are carrying out investigatory or pretext stops, they are much more likely to stop black and other minority drivers: blacks are… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“Keeping blacks subjugated required that they be unarmed. Alabama’s law was typical: “Any freedman, mulatto, or free person of color in this state” was… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“During his first year in office, Congress did just that, passing legislation that changed the formulas governing eligibility and payouts for certain means-tested entitlements.7… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“Fowler, Hines, and the rest of the city’s black clergymen claimed that the majority of D.C.’s citizens shared their opposition to Clarke’s bill.” — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“Understanding African American attitudes and actions on matters of crime and punishment requires that we pay careful attention to another topic that is often… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“by the year 2000, the lifetime risk of incarceration for black high school dropouts was ten times higher than it was for African Americans… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“No: it was blacks who killed marijuana decriminalization in D.C.” — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“Most of all, the fight against crack helped to enshrine the notion that police must be warriors, aggressive and armored, working ghetto corners as… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“But class divisions influence criminal justice debates in black communities in less obvious ways as well: they explain, for example, why black elected officials… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“(At PDS, we often lamented that there were never waiting lists for prison—just for alternatives to prison.) But” — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“Donald Trump, whose signature contribution to political debate had been his relentless propagation of the lie that Barack Obama is not an American citizen,… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“The condescension was rooted in class. Those who fought for the hiring of black police occupied one stratum of black society; those who actually… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
“gun crime: it wasn’t equally distributed throughout black America. Rather, it was concentrated among the poorest blacks, who were forced into living conditions that… — James Forman Jr Copy Share Image
