Newswise — Robert Chase, a historian of prisons, policing, and punishment is available for commentary regarding the shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, and the recent police massacre in Dallas.

Chase connects these moments to the 1968 presidential Kerner Commission, which had some very thoughtful responses to violence surrounding race and police brutality. He briefly traces the history of resistance to police brutality alongside urban riots and suggest a path forward based on the 1968 Kerner commission.

More About Robert ChaseChase is an expert in social justice, Latino/a, and civil rights movements, and political and African American history. His forthcoming book reexamines the prisoners’ rights movement of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and the subsequent construction of what many historians now call the era of mass incarceration. His expertise also includes the history of mass incarceration and the construction of what historians call "the carceral state."

Chase is an Assistant Professor of History at Stony Brook University in New York.

He is currently located in Washington DC.