Justice in the Judiciary: Adam Foss at MIT Media Lab Defiance Conference

Merry Mou
Merry Mou
Jul 21, 2017 · 4 min read

Nathan Matias and I are alternately liveblogging several talks from the MIT Media Lab Defiance Conference. Links to other liveblogs:

As we talk about defiance today at the Media Lab, Adam Foss, brings to us the stories of those who have, in the eyes of the law, defied, and subsequently become entangled within the US’s outdated and ineffective systems of mass incarceration, spending the rest of their lives in and out of jail, deprived of the opportunities to pursue a better existence.

Foss is a former Assistant District Attorney in the Juvenile Division of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office (SCDAO) in Boston, MA, and an advocate for criminal justice reform. In this moving talk, Foss paints vivid pictures of the people — teenagers, and mostly poor people of color — he’s met as a prosecutor, and implores us to think about these people — who aren’t in this room today and who aren’t getting the help they need — and how we could begin to reinvent the roles of the prosecutor and the criminal justice system in our society.


Foss starts by challenging us to think more about how the criminal justice system affects us everyday. He remarks that it has affected who is not sitting with us today, who is not here to take part of our conversations and feedback loops, what we take for granted from when we are 4, 5, 6 years old. Foss says he “won the lottery” when at age 3, he was adopted by white parents.

Using medicine as an example, Foss has us consider that the first surgery was done 5000 years ago, with stone tools; since then, countless medical advancements have allowed us to go to the doctor without fearing for our life, and often expecting comfort. Now imagine if one of your loved ones needed a heart transplant, and you walk into the surgery room to see a newly graduated medical student, with stone tools in hand.

The reasons why people commit crimes are biological, they are environmental, they are situational. Thousands of people everyday go to court rooms, in reality looking for help. And who do we have on the front lines when they get to the courtroom? People like Foss, that is, prosecutors.

Foss describes the amount of preparation he had for his job as a prosecutor. He went to law school at age 25 and graduated at age 28 (and was one of the older ones in his class). He had no special training, other than his life experience. His stone tool was prison. “I’m not seeing the same reaction to this as to my surgeon example,” he says. “This is where we need to be defiant.”

Foss tells the story of Servulo, a teenager who first ended up in jail at age 14 “Sometimes jail can unfortunately be a surrogate parent.” He is incarcerated several more times after that, then put in a foster home, then arrested again….

Foss says, his job description was written at the signing of the Magna Carta. He is responsible for collecting evidence at the scene of a crime, and present that evidence to determine either innocence or guilt.

3 weeks ago, Servulo was murdered while sitting outside of a friend’s home, at age 19. Since age 14, we knew that he would be part of a homicide, whether as the perpetrator or the victim.

We must demand more out of our criminal justice system, says Foss. In the 8–9 weeks between graduating and entering the professional world, he took a road trip with his band, in lieu of all the training and exposure he should have gotten. He lists only some of the topics he should have gotten training in — adolescent brain development, psychology, poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, mental health…. Prior to becoming a prosecutor, he had never been inside a prison, had never been to a homeless shelter….

Foss cites some statistics to illustrate the impact and scope of the US criminal justice system. “There are more African Americans in prison right now than were enslaved at the start of the civil war.”

Foss created Prosecutor Impact to prepare prosecutors-to-be for the many life and death decisions that they’ll need to make throughout their job. He reminds us though that the problems of mass incarceration start from before birth, and that the prosecutor is just one of the last steps that can decide a young person’s life.

Foss concludes — “For all the young men and women I’ve met, who I couldn’t help, or whom I could have helped if I had done something a little different, please think about what you’ll do different, how you will be defiant.”

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