Talking Feds
Talking Feds
Harry Litman
Justice Abandoned: Rachel Barkow on the Supreme Court’s Role in Mass Incarceration
1 hour 3 minutes Posted Jul 24, 2025 at 9:00 am.
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With just 5% of the world’s population, the United States holds nearly 25% of its prisoners. In this one-on-one, NYU Law Professor Rachel Barkow joins Harry to discuss her new book Justice Abandoned, which reveals how a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions helped enable the rise of mass incarceration. From pretrial detention to stop-and-frisk, Barkow explains how the Court’s embrace of “law and order” politics quietly gutted constitutional protections—and how today’s conservative majority could, ironically, be positioned to help reverse course.

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