The Justice Center recently hosted a breakfast for students with Alec Karakatsanis, a former public defender, founder and executive director of Civil Rights Corps, and author of Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System. Professor Jennifer Lauren co-hosted Karakatsanis’s visit to campus.
Karakatsanis discussed his book and his work in litigation around the country to fight cash bail, inadequate indigent defense practices, and other facets of the criminalization of poverty, with a special focus on Civil Rights Corps’ recent efforts in Houston and Dallas. After the talk, students questioned Karakatsanis about a range of topics, including the politics of the Houston cash bail litigation and his organization’s coordination with grass roots groups.