Since the 1980s, the United States has reshaped policing and punishment into mechanisms for extracting resources from marginalized communities and converting them into public and private revenue streams. In this talk, Professor Joshua Page (University of Minnesota) draws on historical and contemporary research to explore how criminalization, policing, and punishment have been redesigned to siphon wealth from subordinated groups, subsidize government budgets, and fuel corporate profit. As tax burdens for the affluent have declined, these extractive practices have become central to the country’s criminal legal system, deepening racial, economic, and gender inequalities. Page will discuss the origins, operations, and consequences of what he and Joe Soss call “legal plunder,” as well as the political struggles emerging to challenge it. Join us for a compelling examination of how the criminal legal system has become a site of financial extraction—and what it means for justice today.