Black, Latinx people are overrepresented in prison, study says
A new report by the Criminal Justice Policy Program (CJPP) at Harvard Law School shows that Black and Latinx people are overrepresented in Massachusetts’ criminal justice system and that they receive longer sentences than their white counterparts when convicted. The analysis, “Racial Disparities in the Massachusetts Criminal System,” was the result of a 2016 request by Ralph Gants ’76, J.D. ’80, chief justice of the state Supreme Judicial Court, for the Law School to take an in-depth look at the problem. The authors include CJPP Executive Director Brook Hopkins, J.D. ’07, and fellows Elizabeth Tsai Bishop, Chijindu Obiofuma, and Felix Owusu. The Gazette interviewed Hopkins and Owusu, a Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, about the disparities and the need for policy reforms. Q&A Brook Hopkins and Felix Owusu GAZETTE: What triggered the request by the chief justice of the state Supreme Judicial Court for the...