Locking Up Our Own: Crime & Punishment in Black America

Cleveland-Marshall College of Law welcomes Yale Law School Professor and Pulitzer Prize Winning Author James Forman Jr to speak at a free Criminal Justice Forum lecture Thursday, September 20, at 5:00 p.m. on "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America."   

Forman is a leading critic of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color.  He is the author of a 2017 book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.  The book made the New York Times’ list of the 10 Best Books of 2017 and was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.  Locking Up Our Own explores the complex relationship between race, class, and the American criminal justice system in a new and original light.

During the lecture, Forman will address what can be done to end mass incarceration and replace the practice with a criminal justice system that is more humane and restorative.

Forman teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and criminal law policy, constitutional law, juvenile justice, and education law and policy. He previously taught at Georgetown Law School, and worked at the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., where for six years he represented both juveniles and adults charged with crimes.  Forman was a law clerk for Judge William Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The event is free and open to the public and will provide attendees with one hour of continuing legal education (CLE) credit.