Criminal Injustice: Crack Cocaine Laws and Their Legacies

Elizabeth Hinton reveals the history and consequences of the most blatantly racist criminal policy in the United States today: federal crack cocaine sentencing laws. Drawing on newly declassified archives, Hinton traces the deliberate targeting of Black and Latine communities through these penalties, enacted under the guise of crime control but rooted in racialized fear and opportunism. She reveals how policymakers ignored scientific evidence and perpetuated disparities for decades, despite undeniable proof of the policy’s injustice. This talk confronts the enduring legacy of the wars on crime, drugs, and gangs and explores the urgent need to dismantle sentencing practices that perpetuate racial inequality.

Bio: Elizabeth Hinton is Professor of History, African American Studies, and Law at Yale University and Yale Law School. She is the author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America and America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s. Both books received numerous awards and recognition, including being named New York Times notable books. In addition to top scholarly journals such as Science, Nature, and the American Historical Review, Hinton’s articles and op-eds can be found in the pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The Nation, and TIME. Her research has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Ford Foundation. A member of the American Philosophical Society, Hinton serves as Founding Co-Director of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at Harvard University.