Our panelists

Stop and Frisk and Marijuana Arrests:
Policing Communities of Color in Harlem and Beyond

DElores Jones-BrowN
Delores Jones-Brown is a leading researcher on NYPD’s Stop and Frisk policy and has had a substantial role in generating the public concern about its consequences. She is the founding director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where she is also a professor in the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration. In addition to her academic career, Dr. Jones-Brown has worked in criminal justice in a range of ways: as a prosecutor, in community-based and institutional corrections, and on program development for court-involved youth. She continues to be involved with the development of law and justice-related education for middle schools and high schools. Among many publications, her book, Race, Crime and Punishment, won a New York Public Library award in 2001. As a leading researcher on Stop and Frisk and the NYPD, her 2010 report on the policy and its consequences has served as a touchstone document for other researchers and the media in New York and across the country, and was issued in revised form in October 2012.  Dr. Jones-Brown received her bachelor's degree from Howard University. She holds a Ph.D. in criminal justice and a J.D., both from Rutgers University.

Khary Lazarre-White
Khary Lazarre-White is the executive director and co-founder of the Brotherhood Sister/Sol (BHSS), an innovative Harlem-based youth development and education organization. Since its 1995 inception, BHSS has become a national model for its comprehensive and holistic approach that encompasses after-school care, school and home counseling, summer camps, job training and college preparation, scholarships, legal representation, and international study programs. BHSS also seeks to empower Black and Latino youth by focusing on peer training and education. An author, Lazarre-White has edited many BHSS publications, and his essay on juvenile justice, “The Line of Prevention,” was published in Justice for Kids in 2011 (NYU Press).  Lazarre-White has received numerous awards for his work with the Brotherhood Sister/Sol, and was appointed by New York City Mayor Bloomberg to the Advisory Board of NYC’s Young Men’s Initiative. He also serves on the board of advisers for the Heinz Endowment’s Black Male Initiative and for the National CARES Mentoring Movement. Lazarre-White received a B.A. in Africana Studies from Brown University and a J.D. from Yale University.
 

HArry G. Levine
Harry G. Levine is Professor of Sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has been at the forefront of scholarship on drugs and alcohol since the late 1970s and has received six distinguished scholarship awards for his research about the history of addiction, alcohol prohibition and regulation, international drug policy, crack cocaine, and the war on drugs. His current work focuses on the epidemic of racially-skewed marijuana possession arrests in New York City and throughout the United States. His research in partnership with the NAACP, ACLU, Drug Policy Alliance, and Latino civil rights groups has documented the major financial costs, damaging consequences, and racial disparities of lowest-level marijuana possession arrests. Levine’s work has contributed to raising public, media and political attention to police stop and frisks and to the over-policing of young people of color in New York and other major cities. His work has been cited in editorials and news stories in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, WNYC, Associated Press, New York Magazine and other publications. Dr. Levine was raised in New York City, attended Brandeis University, and received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

RAkim Amalu JenkiNS
Rakim Amalu Jenkins, a native of Brooklyn and a Mellon Mays Fellow at City College, is pursuing a double major in sociology and Black studies. Seeing the hardships facing his community propelled him to seek education as a path to change his family and neighbors’ circumstances. His overarching objective is to obtain a Ph.D. in sociology with a specialization in urban sociology and the Afro-American predicament. He aspires to develop scholarships that break down the structure of poverty, improve the quality of life for Black people, and move the nation closer to achieving its founding principles. As president of the Black Student Union, Rakim has educated others on civil and human rights and the historical achievement of people of African descent. He has lectured in classes, led study groups and book discussions, hosted events, and participated in panel discussions and radio broadcasts. Rakim is a motivational speaker and during his free time he enjoys speaking to the youth on the importance of higher education.