The (In)Justice System
A 2015/2016 Event Series on California Prisons
October 21, 2015
4:30 PM to 6:00 PM PDT
Social Science Matrix
820 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Matrix is located on the 8th floor of Barrows Hall, on the UC Berkeley campus, near Telegraph and Bancroft Avenues, just up the hill from Sather Gate. There are entrances at both ends of the building, but only one of the elevators on the eastern side goes directly to the 8th floor. You can alternatively take the stairs to the 7th floor and walk up the stairs from there.
Matrix is located on the 8th floor of Barrows Hall, on the UC Berkeley campus, near Telegraph and Bancroft Avenues, just up the hill from Sather Gate. There are entrances at both ends of the building, but only one of the elevators on the eastern side goes directly to the 8th floor. You can alternatively take the stairs to the 7th floor and walk up the stairs from there. - See more at: http://matrix.berkeley.edu/event/minerva-new-kind-higher-education#sthas...
After years in the shadows, prisons and jails in the United States—which warehouse 25 percent of all prisoners in the world—are the subject of unprecedented public attention, as mass incarceration, racial and economic inequity, violence against prisoners, and medical and mental health neglect are receiving critical scrutiny. President Obama recently became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, state legislatures are working to cut prison populations, once-unthinkable bipartisan coalitions are tackling criminal justice reform, and a recent landmark legal settlement in California will establish limits on solitary confinement. Still, even with this new attention and an appetite for change, few major reforms have been implemented.
UC Berkeley's Human Rights Program and the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law, with generous support from the Townsend Center for the Humanities and Social Science Matrix, are pleased to present a 2015-16 event series focused on California prisons. This series will examine conditions, policies, and prospects for change within a national and international context. Speakers will include scholars, advocates, international practitioners, and people who were formerly incarcerated.
The first event in the series, scheduled for October 21 at 4PM, will be "The Lifecycle of the Problem," a panel discussion with Keramet Reiter, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law & Society and Lawin the School of Social Ecology at UC Irvine; Hernán Reyes, the former medical coordinator for Health in Prisons for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and Jonathan Simon, Adrian A. Kragen Professor of Law and Director of UC Berkeley's Center for the Study of Law and Society.
This panel will provide a "big-picture" overview of the human rights issues in and around California prisons—before, during, and after imprisonment—and will place these issues in the context of a national and international framework. Among the topics to be considered: the school-to-prison pipeline, police bias, discrimination in courts and sentencing due to poverty and race, prison practices and policies, mental and physical health, neglect and solitary confinement in prisons, hunger strikes, and re-entry and the problems of disenfranchisement and discrimination. The panel will give particular attention to the impacts of mass incarceration on individuals’ health and communities’ well-being, and will consider what reforms and actions should be a priority—and what it will take to make them happen.
If you are interested in attending this panel on October 21, please RSVP to hrc@berkeley.edu. Space is limited.
Photo: Michael Coghlan