Beth Richie: Gender, Violence and the Criminal System

Welcome to this week’s episode of the Art of Authenticity. Today is a really special day for me because I have one of my dear friends, Dr. Beth Richie, joining us. She is the Director of the Institute of Research on Race and Public Policy and a professor of African American study’s criminology, sociology, gender and women studies and criminal law and justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She’s also a senior advisor for the NFL on gender violence. Beth is somebody who, if you met her, you would love her as much as I do. She’s just this warm, amazing, charismatic human being. She is also somebody who has been an activist for her entire career and shares with us stories from early days in New York where she was one of the original six women who started the idea of women shelters, how that experience shaped her career and her focus in trying to bridge the gap between the women who were underprivileged, experiencing domestic violence, and domestic violence as a whole for privileged white culture. Beth has been instrumental in moving this conversation forward but she is also honest, candid, open, and shares with us many ways in which she feels the system is still struggling today, as most of us are aware, with the movements like Black Lives Matter. Tune in, listen to this show. She’s just got so much insight and I feel like every point she made, I could have dove into for an hour. She’s got such depth of experience and knowledge, so I hope you enjoy today’s show.