Meryl Schwartz presents Race and Wrongful Conviction: What innocence reveals about racism in the criminal justice system
Monday, January 18 at 7 PM over Zoom
While African Americans are only 13% of the American population, they constitute a majority of innocent defendants wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated, mirroring disparities found across the criminal legal system. This unique group of people who are fortunate enough to have had their innocence proven provide a lens into how our systems of justice—designed to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty—get it wrong. Racial bias sits at the core. How can their experience lead us toward reform?
CBE member Meryl Schwartz has been an advocate for justice reform for more than 30 years. She recently left the Innocence Project, a national nonprofit that frees the innocent and reforms the criminal justice system, after nearly nine years in executive leadership. In previous roles, she provided strategic guidance and support to a long list of nonprofits whose missions commonly seek to reform the systems intended to deliver justice and opportunity to people who are poor, including the adult and juvenile criminal systems, urban public school districts and poverty reduction and employment programs. Meryl began her career as a poverty and immigration lawyer.
Zoom link will be provided upon RSVP.