Unusually Cruel and Inefficiently Just: A Conversation about Punishment in the U.S.

As the national conversation about criminal justice reform continues to challenge public policy and personal perspectives on U.S. policing and courts, it is equally important to think about the punishment part of this complicated equation. 

In this conversation with legal scholar and attorney Marc Howard and justice advocate and poet Reginald Dwayne Betts, moderator Marcia Chatelain will examine the ways that prisons fail to rehabilitate. Join New America's Fellows and Political Reform programs as part of a conversation that seeks to challenge assumptions about what prisons can and cannot do, as well as to investigate the ways people can remain incarcerated even if they are ostensibly set free.

This event will be live-streamed on this page. Follow the conversation online with #CJReform and @NewAmerica. 

Lunch will be served. 

Speakers: 

Reginald Dwayne Betts, @dwaynebetts 
Class of 2018 Emerson Fellow, New America 
Author, Bastards of the Reagan Era 

Marc Morjé Howard, @marcmhoward
Professor of Government and Law, Director of Prisons and Justice Initiative, Georgetown University 
Author, Unusually Cruel: Prisons, Punishment, and the Real American Exceptionalism 

Moderator: 

Marcia Chatelain, @DrMChatelain 
Class of 2017 Eric & Wendy Schmidt Fellow, New America

Copies of Bastards of the Reagan Era and Unusually Cruel: Prisons, Punishment, and the Real American Exceptionalism will be available for purchase by Solid State Books.