When I was younger, I used to think that criminal justice just mean that when people committed crimes, they went to jail, and everyone who went to jail was guilty of their crime and it was as simple as that. I never thought of the criminal justice system as a whole being made of interconnected parts; I never thought about what happened to people after they were released from prison, and I never thought about the impact it had on their families and their futures after prison. As I have grown, and listened to the stories of people affected by mass incarceration through documentaries like 13th, and this eCornell Keynote, Criminal (In)Justice: How Mass Incarceration Disrupts Families and Communities, I have learned that the criminal justice system is much more complex and life altering that I thought. America’s current criminal justice system is one that disproportionally affects black Americans through excessive policing and cycle that perpetuates crime and incarceration in black communities. When somebody goes to jail, they are removed from society and while life pauses for them, it keeps going for everyone around them. Families and children of incarcerated people are equally affected. They are separated from their family, they lose the income and emotional security from their incarcerated family members, and children affected by mass incarceration, especially, are born into the world already with an unfair disadvantage that will affect their whole life. For the people who become incarcerated, their lives after jail or prison will never be the same. A permanent record make it difficult for incarcerated people to find jobs, to pay off their probation fees and fines from their criminal charges, and it greatly hindrances their acceptance back into society. The lingering affects of incarceration are deeply rooted in racism and focus more on profit and punishment than rehabilitation of incarcerated people, which is why it is so toxic to our society. I am happy that the speakers in this keynote are doing so much hard work to help the people affected by this system rebuild their lives and overcome the difficulties and setbacks that go hand-in-hand with criminal justice. I hope that one day our system will be reformed to better rehabilitate people who commit crimes instead of destroying their lives to perpetuate this cycle.