E31 – The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth

Kristin Henning is the author of the book Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth.

She is a Blume Professor of Law and the Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law. She and her law students represent youth accused of delinquency in Washington, DC. some honors she’s received are the 2021 Juvenile Leadership Price, the Robert E. Shepherd Jr. Award for Excellence in Juvenile Defense from NJDC, and the Shanara Gilbert Award from the American Association of Law School.

Show Highlights:

· Why and how she got involved

· How she gets paid – indigent representation – Free

· The major differences between the adult and juvenile legal system

· Managing our responses to crime

· Knowing how the adolescent brain development

· Perception of juvenile crime

· Their records are confidential, and the downside of this

· Stories from her book describing some charges black youths get

· Criminal courts shouldn’t be a catchall for regulating adolescent behavior

· Reducing the police footprint of police in children’s lives

· How they see us