Year: 2022

November 16, 2022 — Dr. Christopher Seeds is an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Society at the University of California, Irvine. His book, Death by Prison: The Emergence of Life without Parole and Perpetual Confinement, is an ambitious overview of the rise of life sentences for American prisoners. Dr. Kevin Dahaghi, Post-doctoral Fellow at […]

October 24, 2022 — Novel Justice is a book event series hosted by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice. We invite authors to discuss recently published criminal justice books and to engage in Q&A with faculty and students. Dr. Michael Walker is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. His […]

October 3, 2022 — In an event designed to accompany Bryan Stevenson’s visit to campus, the Wilson Center hosted a screening of The Visiting Room, a short film about the experiences of people serving life sentences at Angola Prison in Louisiana. Following the film, Ben Finholt, Director of the Just Sentencing Project at the Wilson […]

September 23, 2022 — Chris Fabricant is the Director of Strategic Litigation at the Innocence Project. His book, Junk Science and the American Legal System, presents an insider’s journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role junk science plays in maintaining the status quo. Professor Brandon Garrett, Director of […]

April 7, 2022 — Dr. Jessica Simes is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University. Her work contributes to sociological research on racial inequality, mass incarceration, the conditions of prison confinement, and the social structure of cities. Her book, Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Incarceration, applies a unique spatial analysis to mass incarceration […]

February 16, 2022 — Tony Messenger is the metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His book, Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice, is a call to arms, shining a light on a two-tiered system invisible to most Americans. Novel Justice is a book event series hosted by […]

February 10, 2022 — Virginia is the most recent state to abolish the death penalty, but capital punishment is still authorized in 27 states, by the federal government and the U.S. military. There are numerous studies and advocates to point to why the death penalty should be abolished nationwide, but the people who are sentenced […]

January 26, 2022 — North Carolina Department of Justice Deputy General Counsel Daniel Mosteller and Senior Policy Counsel Steven Mange join the Wilson Center for Science and Justice to discuss the state of national litigation about opioids. In 2021 NC Attorney General Josh Stein announced a $26 billion settlement with opioid distributors and a manufacturer. […]

January 12, 2022 — For over a decade, Judge Leifman, Associate Administrative Judge in the Miami-Dade County Court, 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida, has worked with stakeholders to reform how the criminal legal system interacts with individuals with mental illnesses. With his colleagues he has developed a unique diversion model, the “Miami Model,” that is […]