“Nineteen-year-old Brock Turner received a six-month jail sentence for raping an unconscious woman. Her heartrending impact statement drew national attention to the case, stoking outrage at the judge’s use of discretion in handing down such a light sentence.
“The uproar is well-founded. It is natural and necessary to wonder: in this era of the mass incarceration of black and brown men and women, many of whom remain locked up for crimes far less grave than Turner’s, why was this young man offered such leniency?”