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Are "Marginalized Communities" Betrayed by a "Broken System"?

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The American Constitution Society hosted a panel that addressed this topic:

Marginalized, disproportionately low-income communities, including communities of color, sexual minorities and transgender people, have a fraught relationship with the criminal justice system. Overcriminalization and overincarceration, the inevitable consequences of our current criminal justice policies, rob marginalized communities of financial and human capital, and exacerbate these communities' lack of political and economic power. Over- and under-policing (in which police aggressively police communities for minor crimes while failing to prevent or investigate major, violent crimes) fail to adequately address threats of violence, both at the hands of criminals and the police. What measures best empower these communities to achieve the political and economic influence to ensure self-determination and prevent continued mistreatment by the criminal justice system?

I am grateful that I was invited to present a dissenting viewpoint, which I started out by noting, in my typically diplomatic way, that I disagreed with the ACS's conclusions, but not as much as I do with their even more misguided premises.

The discussion is here.  I am especially in the debt of the panel's moderator, Kanya Bennett, Legislative Counsel to the Washington Office of the ACLU.

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