Waltham Public Library - A Year of Black History: Mass Incarceration

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCo9_1e1CbU

In 1903 scholar and civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois profoundly wrote that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." As we begin 2022, recent events and contemporary institutions remind us that DuBois' words continue to ring true. During this program, Dr. Louis Couloute will discuss the role that mass incarceration has played in shaping racial inequality in the United States – with a particular emphasis on the legal and organizational policies structuring the lives of criminalized people.

Dr. Lucius Couloute is an assistant professor in the Sociology and Criminal Justice department at Suffolk University in Boston. His primary research interests involve the multiple impacts of mass incarceration and criminalization. He is currently working on projects that examine the barriers to reentry that formerly incarcerated people face, the geographic concentration of incarceration, and how families negotiate the criminalization of loved ones. Lucius is also on the advisory board of the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, with whom he has also published multiple policy reports on the social and economic impacts of having been to prison.