Excessive Punishment, Mass Incarceration, and Reimagining the Justice System: A Book Talk
Hosted by The Brennan Center for Justice & The Peter L. Zimroth Center on Criminal Law at NYU School of Law
Monday, September 30th, 2024 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Location: NYU School of Law’s Greenberg Lounge located in Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Washington Square South New York, NY 10012
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Today, nearly 1.2 million people are confined to federal and state prisons, and approximately 700,000 more are locked up in local jails. Recidivism rates remain stubbornly high, and racial disparities persist; Black Americans are still imprisoned at five times the rate of whites.
The new book Excessive Punishment: How the Justice System Creates Mass Incarceration, features essays from scholars, practitioners, activists, writers who experienced incarceration, and others. The contributors explore the social costs of excessive punishment and how to ensure public safety without perpetuating the harms of mass incarceration.
Join us to hear from several of the book’s contributors as they discuss why the U.S. criminal justice system is so punitive and how to reimagine a system of safety and justice.
Speakers include:
- Jeremy Travis, Senior Fellow, Columbia Justice Lab
- Dr. Monica Bell, Professor of Law, Associate Professor of Sociology, and Counselor to the Dean at Yale Law School
- David A. Singleton, Associate Professor of Law at the University of District of Columbia (UDC) David A. Clarke School of Law
- L.B. Eisen, Senior Director, Justice Program, Brennan Center