Rachel J. Kincaid
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About Rachel
Kincaid teaches criminal law and criminal procedure. Kincaid's research focuses on civil rights in criminal legal systems, especially with respect to policing and incarceration. Overarching themes in Kincaid's writings include the ways police and carceral systems and structures simultaneously privilege and protect system actors while reinforcing and compounding structures of oppression; access to justice for people affected by law enforcement abuses of power; and the ways that legal education obscures injustice.
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Argues that the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment fail prisoners because guards often dehumanize them. Suggests that courts and policymakers should shift to an “objective reasonableness” standard, emphasize inmates’ humanity in jury instructions, and borrow concepts like necessity and self‑defense to better guard against the use of excessive force.
Explains how teaching police about “excited delirium” —a made-up medical condition rooted in racist and ableist ideas—can encourage the use of excessive force, and urges stopping that training.
Argues that law schools should play an active role in promoting social justice—not just through career services, but by hiring professors with real-world public service experience. Further argues that this shift in hiring could help law schools better prepare students to tackle today’s major social and political crises.
Shows how people in prisons and jails are especially vulnerable to COVID‑19 misinformation—partly because dehumanizing treatment within the criminal justice system makes them distrust medical advice, putting their health at serious risk.