Commission on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System

At this time last year, public-interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson received one of the longest standing ovations in the history of the TED conference. Founder of the Equality Justice Initiative, Mr. Stevenson spoke of his work fighting racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. The North Carolina Advocates for Justice is proud of its partnership with many local leaders across the state of North Carolina in forming the North Carolina Commission on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System. For a full list of the Commission members, click here. The Commission was formed through the work of the NCAJ Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Criminal Justice System Task Force, which was created in October 2010 and has drawn on expertise from leadership at the ACLU, NC Prisoner Legal Services, North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, and Public Defender’s offices, among others.

The Commission, established in September 2012, is an independent entity that aims to better understand and then remedy the underlying, systemic causes of the disproportionate representation of African-Americans and Hispanic/Latinos in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. The Commission intends to research the points at which disproportionate representation occurs and their underlying causes, then will undertake to design remedies supported by all criminal justice stakeholders. For more, visit www.ncracialjustice.org.