Person

Sarah A. Seo

Bylines

Reimagining the Public Defender

For the poor, who are disproportionately people of color, the criminal justice system in the United States is essentially a plea-and-probation system.

by Sarah A. Seo via New York Review of Books on November 11, 2021
Racism on the Road

In 1963, after Sam Cooke was turned away from a hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana, because he was black, he wrote “A Change Is Gonna Come.” He was right.

by Sarah A. Seo via New York Review of Books on July 23, 2020
How Cars Transformed Policing

Most communities barely had a police force and citizens shared responsibility for enforcing laws. Then the car changed everything.

by Sarah A. Seo via Boston Review on June 3, 2019
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Why We Can — and Must — Create a Fairer System of Traffic Enforcement

The discretionary nature of traffic enforcement has left it ripe for abuse.

by Sarah A. Seo via Made by History on May 15, 2019
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How the Fight Over Civil Forfeiture Lays Bare the Contradictions in Modern Conservatism

The brewing conflict between originalism and law-and-order politics.

by Sarah A. Seo via Made by History on July 24, 2017
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A Bullet Can Cross the Border. Can the Constitution? The Supreme Court Won’t Say.

The Supreme Court punts on Hernandez v. Mesa, leaving the Constitution lost in the borderlands.

by Sarah A. Seo via Made by History on June 27, 2017

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Why Do Police Drive Cars?

Since the invention of the automobile, police have used the dangers of America's roads to justify their growing oversight of motorists.

by Jackson Smith via Public Books on November 13, 2019

Was the Automotive Era a Terrible Mistake?

For a century, we’ve loved our cars. They haven’t loved us back.

by Nathan Heller via The New Yorker on July 22, 2019

A police officer stands beside a crashed automobile, 1905. (Photo by Robert Alexander / Getty Images)

The Reckless History of the Automobile

In "The Car," Bryan Appleyard sets out to celebrate the freedom these vehicles granted. But what if they were a dangerous technology from the start?

by Paris Marx via The Nation on March 13, 2023

birds eye view of an intersecting highway with a speeding car

How America Broke the Speed Limit

How we wound up with the worst of both worlds: thousands of speed-related deaths, and a system of enforcement that is both ineffective and inescapable.

by Henry Grabar via Slate on December 15, 2021

A sign that reads "We Want White Tenants in Our White Community." Two American flags are on top of the sign.

Highway Robbery

How Detroit cops and courts steer segregation and drive incarceration.

by Jade Chowning, Erin Keith, Geoff Leonard via ArcGIS StoryMaps on June 8, 2020

Street Privilege: New Histories of Parking and Urban Mobility

How the history of parking in America highlights its societal inequalities.

by James Longhurst via The Metropole on April 29, 2020

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