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Spotlights

In our work to reimagine justice, themes emerge that provide new and essential perspectives for considering the our current justice policies and efforts to improve them.

Reckoning with Racial Injustice

Centuries of targeted racism, racial violence, and economic disadvantage directed at native, enslaved, black, and immigrant communities have created a formidable system of oppression and disenfranchisement. A concerted effort to acknowledge and reckon with these histories in a meaningful way is essential to dismantling current policies - including justice policies - that perpetuate inequality for these communities. Participants and partners of Square One, like so many in our nation today, are grappling with this as we work to reimagine justice. What is the relationship between our racialized and violent history and our current justice system? Is a racial reckoning a key part of fundamental justice reform? Is there a kind of historical reckoning that would allow us to move forward towards healing and greater equity for all?

Square One
Taking Stock: Reflections on 50 Years of Crime and Punishment in America
Square One
5-minute Durham Roundtable highlight video
Equal Justice Initiative
EJI's New Legacy Museum
Square One
Critical Connections: Trust-building as a Prerequisite to Systems Change.
Square One
A Review of Recent Historical Scholarship on Racial Criminalization and Punitive Policy in the United States
Square One
The Story of Violence in America.
Square One
Racial Justice in Criminal Justice Practice.
Equal Justice Initiative
Lynching In America: Confronting The Legacy Of Racial Terror.
The Vera Institute
Can We Learn From Our Past?
The Values of Justice Reform

A primary commitment to retribution and punishment make the U.S. criminal justice system distinguishable as the most punitive system globally. Increasingly, Square One is recognizing that the future of justice should be guided by clear foundational values that uphold the humanity and dignity of all people. The recognition of these values will extend far beyond the justice system and create greater equity in systems of education, housing, public health, and more. What are the values that are crucial to reimagining justice? How do we build consensus and understanding around a new set of core values, and put them into practice?

Square One
Reimagining Justice: The Next 25 Years
Justice Policy Institute
Tyrone Waker on the value of recognizing human dignity in justice
Square One
The Challenge of Criminal Justice Reform.
Square One
A Call for New Criminal Justice Values.
Square One
Knowing What We Want: A Decent Society, a Civilized System of Justice, and a Condition of Dignity.
Center for American Progress
A Revolution of Values in the U.S. Criminal Justice System.
The Vera Institute
Human Dignity as a Guiding Principle.
Arnold Ventures
Blinded Justice: Reflections from the Second Square One Roundtable.