Confronting Mass Incarceration: Lecture from the 2018-2019 Jorde Symposium

Abstract

Thank you. It's a real honor to be at any event that is sponsored by the Brennan Center. I read your tweets, your emails, your policy reports, and your articles in the Atlantic. You are a vital institution. Thank you for doing the work that you are doing. I had a chance to spend some time with Tom Jorde earlier this afternoon, and Tom, I want to tell you how much I appreciate you putting your name, energy, and heart behind this lecture series. I'm especially grateful to the commentators that we have.'

I want to start by talking to you all about what propelled me to want to write this book, Locking Up Our Own.2 Fundamentally, it grew out of my experiences working in the criminal legal system. I used to call it, and I call it in the book, the criminal justice system, but more and more I've started to call it the "criminal legal system" because, like a lot of people, I'm starting to wonder if there's even enough justice in the system to earn the title "criminal justice system." In this lecture, I'll go back and forth between the two phrases.

One of the stories that I tell in the book is of a young man I represented who I'll call Brandon. Brandon was a teenage client of mine: 15 years old. He had been charged with, and pled guilty to, possession of a gun and possession of a small amount of marijuana. He was facing sentencing in Superior Court, and I was the public defender appointed to represent him. I had taken the job of being a public defender because I viewed it as the civil rights work of my generation.