Police States, Prison Nations
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
[1] If we count people in prisons and jails as well as those on parole or probation, then 7 million people are under correctional supervision in the U.S., which amounts to 1 in 34 adults.
[2] Critics have identified the U.S. as a prison nation, arguing that the war on drugs, the war on terror, and crackdowns on immigration have compromised justice by increasing state surveillance and curtailing liberties in the name of greater security. The carceral state is experienced especially acutely in the U.S. by racial and ethnic minorities. Racial disparities have reached astonishing rates at every level of the U.S. criminal justice system. African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately stopped by police, treated violently by law enforcement officers, detained, arrested, incarcerated, sentenced to death, disenfranchised, and ensnared in the school-to-prison pipeline.
[3] This November the 10th Annual Ray Warren Symposium will focus on these pressing issues of civil rights and justice by analyzing racial ideologies and the contours of the carceral state. Though many events will focus on the contemporary U.S., we will explore these questions historically, globally, and comparatively. Students, faculty, activists, community leaders, and artists will come together to address these topics from different professional and personal perspectives. Participants will present academic research, speak from personal experience, and share creative work.
All symposium lectures and panels are free and open to the public. Please join us and contribute to the conversation.
For more information, click
here for the Symposium main page.
