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Punishment Without Crime
February 25, 2019 @ 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
FreePunishment Without Crime (Basic) offers an urgent new interpretation of inequality and injustice in America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly misdemeanor. Legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff reveals the inner workings of a petty offense system that produces over 13 million cases each year. People arrested for minor crimes are swept through courts where defendants often lack lawyers, judges process cases in mere minutes, and nearly everyone pleads guilty. As a result, vast numbers of Americans – most of them poor and people of color – are stigmatized as criminals, impoverished through fines and fees, and stripped of driver’s licenses, jobs, and housing.