Breaking the Chains

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Original Air Date: 
June 20, 2020

America is in the midst of what seems like a race revolution. Street protests are continuing across the country. Police departments are enacting changes. Confederate statues are coming down. What's next in the fight for Black equality? We take a hard look at how racism infects not only the police, but the entire criminal justice system.

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Is the American criminal justice system perpetuating racial castes? Civil rights attorney and activist Michelle Alexander breaks down the systemic racism inherent to our justice system.

Length: 
10:02
Empty prison
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Scholar and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore says when you put mass incarceration in a larger context, it's pretty clear — you don't solve a problem by repeating the kind of behavior that brought you the problem in the first place.

Length: 
14:03
bars
Dangerous Ideas

"Just Mercy" author Bryan Stevenson believes in creating incentives to reduce the country's prison population.

Length: 
2:34
Demonstrators protest police brutality at a June 2 event in front of the White House.
Articles

At the heart of many Americans' fear of Black men is an ugly stereotype — the stereotype of the Black criminal. Historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad traces some of our current attitudes about race and crime to the late 19th century, when sociologists first began looking at crime statistics.

Length: 
12:29
Malcolm Gladwell
Bookmarks

Journalist Malcolm Gladwell is famous for mining behavioral science for his work, and when it comes to better understanding the intersection of crime, violence, and policing, he turns over and over to criminologist Frank Zimring.

Length: 
4:00
Malcolm Gladwell
Articles

The narrative that police brutality is a question of a few "bad apples" is precisely the wrong way to think about police brutality, says journalist Malcolm Gladwell. 

Articles

In 2010, then-LAPD Chief William Bratton asked civil rights attorney Connie Rice to investigate the biggest police corruption scandal in Los Angeles history, and to train 50 LAPD officers in what she calls "public trust policing."

Length: 
13:14
Extras

Show Details 📻
Airdates
June 20, 2020
Guests: 
Michelle Alexander
Civil Rights Lawyer and Legal Scholar
Prison Abolitionist and Scholar
Director, Schomburg Center For Research in Black Culture
Last modified: 
June 24, 2020