The passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865 brought slavery to an end in the United States of America. Yet, inequality laid the groundwork for the development of a vicious prison industrial complex backed by legislation. As the gulf widens between communities, many face a future threatened by the same entities of law and order expected to protect them. Join the Security Distillery's virtual discussion with Dr. James Kilgore on injustice, inequality and incarceration during the global pandemic while exploring avenues for future prison reform.
Dr. James Kilgore is a writer, an educator, and a social justice activist who teaches and works at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He spent six years in prison, during which time he drafted his three published novels. He is the author of Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time (2015) and appeared as a commentator in Ava DuVernay's critically-acclaimed documentary 13th (2016).