Bruce Western - Criminal Justice as Social Justice

Nearly 7 million in the U.S. are under some form of correctional supervision, whether in prison or jail, on parole, or on probation. Bruce Western leads a discussion about the empirical and ethical challenges of mass incarceration.

Following an introduction from Academy President David Oxtoby, Bruce Western gives a quantitative overview of mass incarceration in the U.S. (beginning at 06: 12), discusses the Boston Reentry Study (29: 06), and shares some stories (43: 03) before opening up the conversation for Q&A (58: 36).

The event, held on February 19, 2020 in Cambridge, MA, also served as the 2091st Stated Meeting of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

https://www.amacad.org/publication/incarceration-social-inequality
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Bruce Western is the Bryce Professor of Sociology and Social Justice and Co-Director of the Justice Lab at Columbia University. His research has examined the causes, scope, and consequences of the historic growth in U.S. prison populations. Current projects include a randomized experiment assessing the effects of criminal justice fines and fees on misdemeanor defendants in Oklahoma City, and a field study of solitary confinement in Pennsylvania state prisons. Western is also the Principal Investigator of the Square One Project that aims to re-imagine the public policy response to violence under conditions of poverty and racial inequality. He was the Vice Chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ panel on the causes and consequences of high incarceration rates in the United States. He is the author of ”Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison” (2018) and ”Punishment and Inequality in America” (2006). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar, and a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.
https://scholar.harvard.edu/brucewestern/boston-reentry-study
https://squareonejustice.org/

David W. Oxtoby is the President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is President Emeritus of Pomona College and he was a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education prior to becoming President of the American Academy. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.

http://criminaljusticecourses.net/bruce-western-criminal-justice-as-social-justice/