Oct 10, 2019
Racism affects our criminal justice system — from policing methods
to prison-system structures to punishments issued for different
crimes. More than 50 years after the publication of the Kerner
Report — which investigated the 1967 race riots — many of the same
problems of institutionalized racism persist today. Carl Suddler
joins Julian Zelizer in this episode to discuss the racialized
nature of the criminal justice system, which is the topic of his
new book, “Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in
Postwar New York.” The book examines history of policies and
strategies that led to the criminalization of black youth,
including stop-and-frisk policing and no-knock warrants, and media
coverage of black youth and crime. Suddler is an assistant
professor in the Department of History at Emory University. Prior
to joining to Emory faculty this year, Suddler was an assistant
professor of African American history at Florida Atlantic
University and a postdoctoral fellow at the James Weldon Johnson
Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory. His
research focuses on the intersections of youth, race, and crime and
on the consequences of inequity in the United States. Suddler is
also a contributing writer for the Conversation and Bleacher Report
and has published work in the Journal of American History, Journal
of African American History, American Studies Journal, and The
Washington Post.