A panel of scholars and community leaders will discuss “Mass Incarceration in America: Time for Reform?” from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, March 3, in the Hodges Library auditorium. Learn how mass incarceration came to be in the United States and discuss the promise and pitfalls of potential reforms.
Panelists include:
- Jeannie Alexander, attorney with an MA in religious studies; a co-founding resident of Harriet Tubman House, an intentional multi-faith community; and director of No Exceptions Prison Collective.
- Michael Leo Owens, associate professor of political science, religion, and African American studies at Emory University, author of Prisoners of Democracy.
- Peter Enns, associate professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University; executive director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University; and author of Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World.
- Heather Schoenfeld, assistant professor of legal studies and education and social policy at Northwestern University and author of Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration.
Michelle Brown, associate professor in UT’s Department of Sociology, will moderate.
Sponsors include the Scholars Strategy Network, UT’s Department of Political Science, the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, and UT’s Department of Sociology.