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Caltech

The Criminal Justice System and its Racially Unequal Outcomes

Wednesday, December 1, 2021
12:00pm to 1:00pm
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Online Event

Dr. Nazgol Ghandnoosh - The Sentencing Project

Meeting information:

https://caltech.zoom.us/j/92407984595?pwd=VzMvcE9peUpJeWJzOEVvM280dStVZz09

Meeting ID: 924 0798 4595

Passcode: antiracism

Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons across the country at nearly five times the rate of whites, and Latinx people are 1.3 times as likely to be incarcerated as non-Latinx whites. Nazgol Ghandnoosh, The Sentencing Project's Senior Research Analyst, will join us to explain why this disparity exists and how it can be eliminated. She will discuss four key features of the criminal justice system that produce racially unequal outcomes, beyond the conditions of socioeconomic inequality that contribute to higher rates of some crimes in marginalized communities. She will also showcase initiatives to abate these sources of inequity in adult and juvenile justice systems around the country.

Bio: Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D., is a senior research analyst at The Sentencing Project. She conducts and synthesizes research on criminal justice policies, with a focus on racial disparities in the justice system, public opinion about punishment, and the scope of reform efforts. In The Lancet Infectious Diseases, she explained why people serving long sentences for violent crimes should be included in COVID-era decarceration efforts. She regularly presents to academic, practitioner, and general audiences and her work has been featured in outlets including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and WNYC's On the Media.

Dr. Ghandnoosh earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her dissertation, "Challenging Mass Incarceration: A California Group's Advocacy for the Parole Release Life Term-to-Life Prisoners," was an in-depth study of a South Los Angeles-based group challenging life imprisonment.

Sponsored by the JPL Anti-Racism Discussion Group

For more information, please contact Michele Judd by phone at 626-395-6630 or by email at [email protected].