Race and the Crisis of Justice

Race and criminal justice: A tortured history

Presidents have long struggled with the consequences of racial injustice

Featured Video

June 01, 2017

Race and the Crisis of Justice

In this 2017 documentary, the Miller Center looks at race, policing, and the criminal justice system through the lens of the presidency. Beginning with the 1964 shooting of an unarmed African American teenager in Philadelphia, the 12-minute film traces the decades-long history of federal policing and crime control policies across presidencies, and examines how "law-and-order" rhetoric has been used to justify violence against African Americans.

Past events: Law and justice

Brandon Garrett
The dysfunction of American justice

Brandon Garrett, who taught about wrongful convictions at the UVA School of Law and is now at Duke Law, discusses how our justice system is broken—and how to fix it.
Bryan Stevenson pointing
Race and policing in America

"Most social disturbances over the last 50 years in communities of color have been triggered by police violence" says Bryan Stevenson during a return to American Forum.
Risa Goluboff
Vagrant nation

Risa Goluboff, the dean of the UVA School of Law, discusses how laws criminalizing hoboes and beggars became instruments for social control—and were dismantled by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960s and 1970s.
Adam Benforado
Criminal injustice

Adam Benforado of Drexel University argues that our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members and proposes a wealth of practical reforms to prevent injustices.