Crime and punishment in the Black community and the inherent racism in America's criminal justice system

Prof James Forman is a professor of law at Yale University's Law School, and a visiting professor at Stanford Law School, where he specializes in Constitutional Law, racial issues in the American criminal justice system and the prison complex and the mass incarceration of African Americans and other minorities. Earlier, Prof Forman was a clerk on the US Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit and a law clerk for assistant Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He is the son of the very prominent civil rights pioneer and Black Panther Party leader, the late James Forman.   James has written numerous law reviews in legal journals and articles for the New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications. He is the co-founder of the Maya Angelou Public Charity School and runs a juvenile justice clinic. He holds degrees from Brown University and Yale Law School. Prof James' most recent book is "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America" which explores the ambiguities and cross efforts within the justice system and the African American leadership that has resulted in the disproportion of African Americans now incarcerated and its large social and cultural costs