Paul Butler

Harvard Book Store and the Hutchins Center welcome award-winning author and Georgetown University law professor PAUL BUTLER for a discussion of his latest book, Chokehold: Policing Black Men. 

About Chokehold

Cops, politicians, and ordinary people are afraid of black men. The result is the Chokehold: laws and practices that treat every African American man like a thug. In this explosive new book, an African American former federal prosecutor shows that the system is working exactly the way it’s supposed to. Black men are always under watch, and police violence is widespread—all with the support of judges and politicians.

In his no-holds-barred style, Butler, whose scholarship has been featured on 60 Minutes, uses new data to demonstrate that white men commit the majority of violent crime in the United States. For example, a white woman is ten times more likely to be raped by a white male acquaintance than be the victim of a violent crime perpetrated by a black man. Butler also frankly discusses the problem of black on black violence and how to keep communities safer—without relying as much on police.

Chokehold powerfully demonstrates why current efforts to reform law enforcement will not create lasting change. Butler’s controversial recommendations about how to crash the system, and when it’s better for a black man to plead guilty—even if he’s innocent—are sure to be game-changers in the national debate about policing, criminal justice, and race relations.

Praise

"Paul Butler illuminates the complexities that shape racial injustice in America with a sharp, critical, intersectional analysis that is honest and sobering. Chokehold deconstructs all of the forces that have created despair and violence in the criminal justice system but courageously posits solutions as well. An important read for anyone searching for a more just system." —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy 

"Crucial reading for woke people of all genders and generations. By engaging in courageous dialogue, Paul Butler illustrates how the system is broken on purpose, and why those who believe in justice can’t settle for shortsighted reform. With its well-researched, poignant answers to the most complicated questions of our day, Chokehold will be an important read for the movement for Black lives." —Opal Tometi, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter and executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration 

"A wonderfully disturbing book that will upset everything you think you know about race and criminal justice in America—colorful and vibrant social theory rooted in revolutionary pragmatism." —Michael Eric Dyson, author of Tears We Cannot Stop

"Paul Butler tells the unvarnished truth about the criminal justice system. Butler confronts just about everyone—police, prosecutors, judges, black elites, liberals, and radicals. A must-read for those with a serious interest in criminal justice." —Judge Shira Scheindlin (ret.), presiding judge in Floyd v. City of New York challenging the city’s stop-and-frisk program

"Chokehold speaks to the lived experiences of black men across the country who are targeted by a ‘justice’ system that is designed to punish them—and is far from ‘just’ in doing so.” —Michael Render (aka Killer Mike of Run the Jewels), Grammy award–winning rapper and activist