Criminalization is a system of racial and social control. Its impact is the social, political, and economic marginalization of poor people and people of color. This Salon will examine the roots of criminalization and highlight the many policies fueling mass criminalization, including America’s decades-old, war on drugs, our current immigration policies, and the school-to-prison pipeline. We will also examine ways that criminalization has been used as a form of social control to disenfranchise and support a permanent underclass in the country. Participants will gain language and frameworks to discuss mass criminalization as a racial justice issue, identify ways to disrupt the criminalization pipeline, and articulate a moral and theological framework through which we can challenge race-based criminalization.
