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Conference on Punishment, Conference on Drug Defense

By Jeralyn, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Tue Nov 14, 2006 at 01:39:00 AM EST
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If you are in the New York area at the end of the month, NYC's New School is holding an impressive conference on the nature of punishment in modern America.

Join us as we examine the foundations of our ideas of punishment, explore the social effects of current practices and search for viable alternatives to our carceral state.

The conference meets between 11/30-12/1/2006 in Manhattan. It lists impresssive number of top notch criminal justice experts, including death penalty expert Stephen Bright from the Southern Center on Human Rights and U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner (Boston), true champions of liberty. The cost for this two day conference is pegged at an affordable $50 (a single session is only $12). Law students, are you listening?

In addition, Richard Gere and his wife, actress Carey Lowell will be reading prison writings.

If you forget to bookmark it, there's will be an ad on TalkLeft for it.

I'll be speaking on Terrorism and the War and Drugs at the NORML criminal defense lawyers conference in Key West those same dates, otherwise I would attend. If you're a defense lawyer and Key West and drug defense are more up your alley, please join us. Here's the speaker list. Hotel rooms are at a premium, and the seminar rate is gone (even I had to pay rack rate, I waited so long to book) but it's my favorite legal conference of the year. If you missed my video of the summer conference in Aspen (with lots of photos of Hunter Thompson's Owl Farm), you can watch it here.

One more fun thing about Key West: For the first time, TChris, Last Night in Little Rock and I will be together in person. (I first met TChris at the 2002 NORML conference when he told me he loved TalkLeft, and I told him he was my favorite commenter. Within a year, he was blogging regularly here.) At the 2003 NORML conference, LNILR was trying to figure out blogging, and we spent hours at a computer in the conference room , dial-up only, as I showed him blogger and Movable Type.) This year, the three of us will be there, and we will take some time for a TalkLeft happy hour (alcohol only, of course.)

< The John Tierney Era Ends? John Who? | Trent Lott to Run for Minority Whip >

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    Conference on Punishment, Conference on Drug Defense | 4 comments (4 topical)

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    They must not want law students to attend (none / 0) (#1)
    by smiley on Tue Nov 14, 2006 at 09:55:25 AM EST
    If they did, they would not have scheduled the conference on the weekend before final exams.

    Jeralyn, do you know if this has... (none / 0) (#2)
    by Bill Arnett on Tue Nov 14, 2006 at 11:30:19 AM EST
    ...ever been looked at from the standpoint of the disenfranchisement of millions of otherwise working, taxpaying citizens who happen to enjoy a joint after work, get busted, felony conviction and bam, right to vote gone.

    And it is even worse for the poor and minorities who are disproportionately arrested and incarcerated for drug offenses. I think something like about 60% (an estimate) of the two million prisoners held in America are held on drug charges, and it doesn't seem right to lump them in with murderers, armed robbers, etc., and deprive them of the opportunity to participate in society.

    When you tell people of little hope that they can NEVER participate in certain aspects of an ordinary citizen's life, like voting, it does nothing but eliminate their voice from the public domain and render them even more hopeless.

    I think that is tragic.

    Can you identify one person... (none / 0) (#3)
    by Deconstructionist on Tue Nov 14, 2006 at 02:25:31 PM EST
     ...in the entire country who fits that description despite the fact you claim it is millions?

    "...ever been looked at from the standpoint of the disenfranchisement of millions of otherwise working, taxpaying citizens who happen to enjoy a joint after work, get busted, felony conviction and bam, right to vote gone."

       It is this kind of ABSURD disinformation that I criticiuze.

      I'm all for decriminalizing marijuana but making up huge lies that would make Goebbels blush serves no good purpose.

    I'm only asking for (none / 0) (#4)
    by Deconstructionist on Tue Nov 14, 2006 at 04:16:45 PM EST
     Just one?

    Conference on Punishment, Conference on Drug Defense | 4 comments (4 topical)

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