Reginald Dwayne Betts is a Ph. D. in Law candidate at Yale and Emerson Fellow at New America. He holds a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was awarded the Israel H. Perez Prize for best student note or comment appearing in the Yale Law Journal He spent his summers with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the District of Columbia’s Public Defender Service. He has worked in the New Haven Public Defender’s Office as a Liman Fellow.
Prior to law school, Dwayne was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies and a Soros Justice Fellow. In addition, he served by appointment of former President Barack Obama as a practitioner member of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The author of three books, Betts’ latest collection of poems, Bastards of the Reagan Era, has been named the winner of the Pen New England Poetry Prize. His first collection of poems, Shahid Reads His Own Palm, won the Beatrice Hawley Award. Betts’ memoir, A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison, was the recipient of the 2010 NAACP Image Award for non-fiction.
Reginald Dwayne Betts appears in the following:
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
A new book, 'Redaction,' combines poetry and visual art to examine the injustices of the criminal justice system.
Friday, April 07, 2023
A new book, 'Redaction,' combines poetry and visual art to examine the injustices of the criminal justice system.
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
A new book, 'Redaction,' combines poetry and visual art to examine the injustices of the criminal justice system.
Friday, September 25, 2020
Reginald Dwayne Betts discusses his latest book of poetry, Felon.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
[REBROADCAST] Reginald Dwayne Betts, a poet, author, and lawyer who was also formerly incarcerated, joins us to discuss his new book of poetry, Felon.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Reginald Dwayne Betts, a poet, author, and lawyer who was also formerly incarcerated, joins us to discuss his new book of poetry, Felon.
Wednesday, April 04, 2018
Dwayne Betts committed a carjacking when he was 16 years old. For his mom, Gloria Hill, it was just the first in a series of events in her life involving a gun.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Solitary confinement has been proven gravely dangerous for young people. The Marshall Project teamed up with Caught to investigate how widespread the practice remains in New York.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Girls make up a small fraction of the incarcerated juvenile population, but they often land in detention because they have experienced some form of trauma or abuse.
Monday, March 26, 2018
Parents know that, sometimes, kids just need time to work through stuff. A network of expensive, intense programs is selling that time to families with the means to buy it.
Friday, March 23, 2018
One of the most notable entry points in the school-to-prison pipeline opened when desperate parents turned to law enforcement for help keeping their kids out of trouble.
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Brain science convinced the Supreme Court to give thousands of so-called "juvenile lifers" a shot at freedom. Stephen is one of them.
Monday, March 19, 2018
Children who struggle with mental health issues are often swept up in the justice system. Honor perpetrates a violent crime, but instead of jail, he gets a shot at a diversion program.
Friday, March 16, 2018
In 1978, Willie Bosket murdered two people on the New York City subway. His crimes changed everything for kids and criminal justice.
Friday, March 16, 2018
How does a child caught up in the juvenile justice system stand a chance to succeed after being branded a 'criminal?'
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Stories of young lives caught in the justice system from the new podcast Caught.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Z navigates a Catch 22 that's familiar to kids in the system: He only gets the help he needs when he acts out, but "turning up" means he can't go home.
Monday, March 12, 2018
Z is a teenager serving time for armed robbery. Dwayne Betts is a lawyer who spent nine years of his youth incarcerated. The same criminal justice policies landed them in jail.
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Roughly a million kids a year get caught up in the criminal justice system. Over nine episodes, we'll listen as some of those young people tell their stories.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
In his letter to the incoming president, writer Reginald Dwayne Betts, who was tried as an adult at age 16, reckons with the image of the "superpredator."