“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
“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 about two and a half times more likely to be pulled over for pretext stops.66 Moreover, the disparities are present regardless of gender. Black men are more than twice as likely as white men, and black… — James Forman Jr Copy Share
“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 forbidden “to own fire-arms, or carry about his person a pistol or other deadly weapon.”76 Blacks caught breaking the law were subject to incarceration—which, in the early twentieth century, often meant being sold into debt servitude… — James Forman Jr Copy Share
“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
