Rubin “Hurricane” Carter Speaks on Restorative Justice

Last night, the Berkman Center and Prof. Charlie Nesson hosted a discussion on restorative justice in the US and Jamaica at Harvard Law School. The featured guest was Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a former prizefighter whose story of wrongful imprisonment and eventual release was made famous in a movie starring Denzel Washington. Carter discussed his experiences in his trials and behind bars, and how he was able to overcome his anger at what he considers a broken criminal justice system. Carter also spoke about his nonprofit organization, Innocence International, which aims to highlight the cases of wrongfully imprisoned people worldwide and work for their release.

Carter was joined by Kevin Wallen and Courtney Kazembe, who discussed their work on the SET restorative justice program in Jamaican prisons. SET seeks to constructively bring unresolved enmities to the surface and deal with them before an inmate is parolled.

Prof. Nesson experimented with bringing in a broader audience to the event than those in physical attendance by webcasting the event and offering a web form for taking questions. Several of Prof. Nesson’s students also blogged their reactions to the event in real-time as it progressed. To listen to the archived webcast stream, click here. The event was also profiled in today's edition of the Harvard Crimson.