*Z3A. What Are Prisons For? Thinking About Justice
History & World Affairs | Registration opens 2/27/2025 9:00 AM
The ACLU reports that the United States has 5% of the world’s population but nearly 20% of the world’s incarcerated people, with a phenomenal surge of incarceration since the 1970s. Yet The Sentencing Project reports that increased incarceration has no effect on violent crime and increasing sentence length does not deter crime. So what’s up? How are we complicit, if unconsciously? Why do inequities of race and poverty largely define the prison population? Morally, and in consideration of public safety, what should prison be for? Assigned readings (available weekly) will help us grapple with this question of justice in America.
- Image courtesy of Shutterstock
Barbara Danish
Producer & Presenter
Barbara Danish, PhD, (LLI) was director of the Writing Center at New York University, taught at Pratt Institute, and currently works at Family of Woodstock.
Laura Brown
Presenter
Laura Brown, MFA, (LLI) has worked in publishing for more than 40 years and is a former president of Oxford University Press.