How did We Get Here?:

The Problems and Potential Reforms for Policing Today

Date: Wednesday, January 27

Time: 8 PM

Place: Click here to watch a recording of the event.

Questions can no longer be submitted.

Speaker:

Paul Butler is a professor of law at Georgetown University. He is originally from Chicago, Illinois and is one the nation's most respected scholars regarding issues of race and criminal justice. He graduated cum laude from Yale, and cum laude from Harvard Law School. Butler has clerked for Judge Mary Johnson Lowe, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Shortly afterwards, he joined Williams & Connolly, a law firm in Washington D.C., where he specialized in criminal law. In 1990, Butler joined the public corruption unit in the U.S. Department of Justice as a federal prosecutor. He prosecuted cases involving a U.S. senator, FBI agents, and other law enforcement officials. He also prosecuted drug and gun cases as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney. Butler joined the George Washington University Law School as the Carville Dickinson Benson Research Professor of Law, and served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School as well.

Professor Butler’s first book Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice, published in 2009, investigates the role of hip-hop in American culture, and the places where everyday citizens meet the justice system. The book received the Harry Chapin Media Award. Butler is the author of the new book Chokehold: Policing Black Men, published in 2017, which argues that the US criminal justice system serves to watch and control African American men. The book was a finalist for the 2018 NAACP Image Award for best non-fiction.

Paul Butler’s scholarship has been published in numerous leading scholarly journals, and he frequently appears on NPR and MSNBC. He lectures regularly for the American Bar Association, NAACP, as well as many colleges, schools, and community organizations.

Written by Alecia Daley-Tulloch, Class of 2021 and Sonia Shuster, Class of 2021