Law on Trial 2018: Public Opinion and the Politics of Punishment
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
No booking required
This event is part of the School of Law, Birkbeck's annual Law on Trial series. Find out more here. The hashtag for the series is #LawOnTrial.
Law on Trial 2018: Public Opinion and the Politics of Punishment
One of the most contentious debates in contemporary penology centres on the trajectory of punishment in the United States and its high level of punitiveness by international comparison. In the early 1970s, following fifty years of stability, the use of imprisonment in the US began a long and rapid ascent; over the next four decades or so, the country's imprisonment rate more than quadrupled, reaching levels far above those found anywhere else in the world. At the same time, whilst recent years have seen the number of executions and death sentences in the country decline significantly, the US remains firmly amongst the 10 most prolific executioners across the globe. Scholarship has become increasingly divided in accounting for the punitiveness of the US. One perspective has argued that harsh punishment has been driven by public concerns about crime, to which politicians in office responded by toughening criminal sanctions. Another perspective has held that politicians themselves cynically aroused public anxieties about crime to promote punitive policies with the intention of serving a select array of private interests. This panel holds up these accounts for scrutiny and, in so doing, considers the significance of the deep racial, socio-economic and political inequalities that characterise the US environment.
Discussants:
Mike Hough (Chair) (Visiting Professor, School of Law, Birkbeck)
Melynda Price (William L. Matthews, Jr. Professor of Law, College of Law, University of Kentucky)
Sappho Xenakis (Senior Lecturer in Criminology, School of Law, Birkbeck)
This event is free however booking is required via this page.
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This event is part of the School of Law's 25th Anniversary celebrations. The School of Law, Birkbeck was founded in 1992 as a Department of Law with three members of academic staff. Over the last twenty-five years it has become a School comprising the Departments of Law and Criminology as well as the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, four research Centres, 40 members of staff and an overall student body of over 1,000. The School is proud of being a pioneer in establishing and developing a hub for the field of critical legal studies. While our national and international reputation has been forged through critical legal research, more recently we have gained recognition for critical criminological and activist research, socio-legal scholarship and policy-engaged empirical research. In recognition of this the last Research Excellence Framework exercise ranked us as being in the top 10 law schools in the UK and in the top 3 in London, while our research environment was judged conducive to producing research of the highest quality.
In this our 25th Anniversary year we will be holding a series of events reflecting on our history and successes as well as looking forward to the opportunities and challenges facing critical legal and criminological teaching and scholarship in the 21st century. Find out more about the 25th Anniversary celebrations here.
Contact name:
School Of Law