Luncheon topic: "We are all criminals—but most of us don’t get caught"
Tue, February 27 2018, 11:30am
Conference Room ABC, Campus Club, Fourth Floor, Coffman Memorial Union
Our February luncheon speaker, Emily Baxter, is the executive director of We Are All Criminals, a media-based advocacy organization that seeks to be a catalyst for conversations about crime, privilege, punishment, and second chances. And it’s her thesis that we are all criminals, although most of us don’t get caught.
Baxter contends that one in four people in the United States has a criminal record, but four in four have a criminal history. Through stories, statutes, and statistics, she will help us examine the disparate impact of the criminal and juvenile justice systems on people of color and poor people across the country. Her presentation will include first-person narratives and photographs.
Baxter travels throughout the country speaking on this topic and collaborating with stakeholders and change-makers in criminal justice reform. One of many newspaper accounts of her work summarizes nicely what she is about: “Essentially, Baxter advocates for people who, due to their criminal record, experience barriers in their daily lives while searching for jobs and housing or applying for loans and higher education programs. What differentiates her approach is that she asks the imperative, ‘What if …?’ question. She calls on all decision-makers to dig deep in their memory to find that one [irresponsible, illegal act] they are blessed enough to forget.”
Baxter currently lives in Durham, North Carolina, but her Minnesota roots run deep. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota (B.A. English) and the University of St. Thomas Law School, and is a former fellow at the U of M Law School’s Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. She has served on the boards of the Minnesota Second Chance Coalition and the Minnesota Community Corrections Association. Her organization’s board of directors, still based in the Twin Cities, is packed with U of M staff, faculty, and graduates.
Baxter founded the website, weareallcriminals.org, with the help of an Archibald Bush Leadership Fellowship in 2012. Prior to that, Baxter served as director of advocacy and public policy at the Council on Crime and Justice in Minneapolis, where she worked on successful Ban the Box and expungement expansion efforts, and as an assistant public defender at the Regional Native Public Defense Corporation, representing indigent members of the Leech Lake and White Earth Bands of Ojibwe charged with crimes in Minnesota State Courts.
— Chip Peterson, UMRA President
Upcoming Events
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