At the 29th annual Derrick Bell Lecture on Race in American Society, Kristin Henning, a professor of law and director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown University Law Center, argued that normal behaviors of Black adolescents and teenagers have been criminalized across the country. The result, Henning explained, is a psychological trauma that has largely been disregarded. She called upon educators, policymakers, and the legal community to be cognizant of the ways in which Black youth—including those with learning disabilities—have been excluded from what she deems “the privileges of adolescence.”
The author of The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth, Henning traced how racial bias has ravaged the lives of Black young people from the Scottsboro Boys and Emmett Till—falsely accused of raping two white women and of whistling at a white woman, respectively—to adolescents in her own case files. She drew a contrast with the treatment of Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager who shot two people during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020: “17-year-old child walking about with an assault rifle strapped to his body in public and doesn't get stopped,” she said. “He then kills two people, severely injures another. And not only does he get a trial with all the protections of due process, but he is found not guilty, while [12-year-old] Tamir Rice is shot and killed [in Cleveland, Ohio in 2014] in less than three seconds of the police arriving and seeing him with a toy gun in a park.”
The annual Bell Lecture, held most recently on November 13, honors the life and work of Bell, the late civil rights attorney, activist, and NYU Law professor. Jointly presented by the Center on Race, Inequality and the Law and the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, the lecture series—a brainchild of Bell’s widow, Janet Dewart Bell—enables legal scholars and activists to consider issues at the intersection of race and the law.
Watch the full video of the lecture:
Selected remarks by Kristin Henning:
“Every single time we call the police on a child or rely on some other punitive law enforcement intervention, that has a significant impact on the child's mental health, physical health, developmental trajectory, psychological well-being, and their academic success. There is a growing body of research demonstrating the extraordinary psychological trauma that young people, especially Black and Latino youth, experience in the presence of police during these most critical years of their lives, their adolescent years.” (video, 1:21:46)
“Fortunately, even as we lose ground in the appointment of federal judges in the coming days, coming weeks, a number of state high courts have still considered race and trauma…and fear to be relevant in the determination of whether a reasonable person would have believed that they were free to leave or not. Similarly, a number of state high courts have also begun to acknowledge that flight alone from the police is not inherently suspicious, especially among Black and brown folks. And that innocent people sometimes flee from the police. Why? Because they are not only afraid of violence, but they’re afraid of police corruption or resent police corruption. And they flee because they are afraid of being apprehended for something they did not do.” (video, 1:33:00)
“[W]e need a framework that is trauma responsive on the ground. That looks like counselors and social workers and positive youth interventions and social workers and violence interrupters in those places where there really is violence. It means that we need to invest directly in youth and families and in communities and not in law enforcement equipment and surveillance officers. But now, in this moment, maybe that will require us to look for private dollars instead of government funding. And I can tell you right now that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is not coming to save our children after January 2025.” (video, 1:35:07)
Posted January 23, 2025