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In this episode, Professor Daniel Loehr unpacks the eugenic foundations of “three strikes” and habitual offender laws—sentencing statutes that remain on the books in 49 states. Drawing on his newly published report with The Sentencing Project, Loehr reveals how these laws emerged not from neutral ideas about crime and punishment, but from early 20th-century theories of inherited criminality and a legal agenda designed to prevent reproduction by Black and brown people. Loehr’s work challenges the legal system to confront that history—and invites public interest lawyers, legislators, and law students to use it as a tool for advocacy and repeal.
He also reflects on what it means to teach this kind of law at CUNY: where students are encouraged to ask harder questions, surface hidden histories, and develop arguments no one else is making.
Featured Speaker:
Daniel Loehr – Associate Professor of Law, CUNY Law
Go inside the conversations, classrooms, and collective efforts happening at CUNY Law with Sustained, a series about how lawyers, organizers, and communities are carrying social justice advocacy forward—not for a moment, but with the movements.