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2
Thursday, May 26, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS
Harvard
prof. talks
criminal
justice and
racial bias
Panel criticizes mass
incarceration and
racialized policies
By RIYAH BASHA
Daily Summer News Editor
Elizabeth Hinton, an assistant
professor of history and African
and African American studies at
Harvard University, sat down with
three panelists to present her new
book, “From the War on Poverty to
the War on Crime: The Making of
Mass Incarceration in America,”
at Literati bookstore Wednesday
evening. More than 40 audience
members participated in a discussion
on the racialized American prison
system and criminal justice reform.
The panel included two University
of Michigan faculty members —
Heather Thompson, a professor
of history and Afroamerican and
African studies, and Reuben Miller,
an assistant professor in the School
of Social Work, and community
organizer Ronald Simpson-Bey, the
alumni associate for Just Leadership
USA — an organization dedicated to
reducing the nation’s imprisoned
population.
Hinton, an Ann Arbor native and
former assistant professor in the
Department of Afroamerican and
African studies at the University,
introduced
her
book’s
themes,
which point to the historical roots of
mass incarceration in the bipartisan
welfare policies first introduced
by Lyndon Johnson in the late ‘60s
and the negative consequences of
imprisonment on communities.
“The origins of mass incarceration
begin at the height of the civil
rights movement ... I’d identify
root causes to be employment,
schools, lack of housing,” she said.
“This book looks at how we can get
to a more equitable and just society
in the U.S.”
Miller built upon Hinton’s
argument,
drawing
a
direct
relationship between slavery and
modern-day targeted policing and
punishment.
“This is connecting so many dots
historically, not just theoretically,”
Miller said. “Policies in the ‘60s
picked up the old discourses of
the post-Reconstruction era that
already linked Blackness with
criminality,
dependence
(and)
poverty.”
The speakers also couched their
remarks in light of decarceration
efforts on both state and federal
levels
—
President
Barack
Obama issued executive actions
earlier this year ending solitary
confinement for juvenile offenders
in
federal
prisons
and
has
advocated for relief on mandatory
minimum sentencing for drug-
related offenses, while Gov. Rick
Snyder (R) has publicly stated his
support for criminal justice reform.
Thompson pushed back, however,
and
criticized
policymakers’
measures as surface-level efforts.
“We can have sentencing reform,
we can build extraordinary reentry
programs, we can do all sorts of
heavy lifting,” she said. “But if we
don’t tackle these fundamental
assumptions
about
Black
criminality, we won’t fix it. Indeed,
what we will do is package it anew in
equally troubling wrapping.”
Hinton
offered
a
number
of
solutions
from
providing
direct
funding
for
community
organizations
to
instating
restorative programs in prisons,
which would help provide inmates
with education and employment
opportunities. Simpson-Bey, who
also spent 27 years in a Michigan
state prison on a wrongful murder
conviction, went further to suggest
a complete overhaul of attitudes on
race and class in years to come.
“We dismiss changing hearts as
an individual level thing, but people
walk in with these attitudes to make
policy,” he said. “This is about deep
empathy. This thing affects all of
us.”
Thompson predicted Hinton’s
book will be a transformative book
in criminal justice circles.
“You begin to realize what a
huge job it will be to undo this,”
Thompson said. “There are many
layers of assumption about Black
communities that were there from
the beginning ... it’s not about doing
it more humanely or cheaply.”
SINDUJA KILARU/Daily
Harvard University assistant professor of history and African American Studies Elizabeth Hinton speaks about her new book
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime at Literati on Thursday.