This weekend, Sean San José‘s play Superheroes, which addresses the crack epidemic, debuts at Cutting Ball Theater. After the show on Sunday, Dec. 7, I’ll be giving a short talk about the crack epidemic, the criminal justice system, and the failures of the war on drugs.
Where: The EXIT, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco
When: 5pm
Today at noon, PST, KPFA will air an hour-long interview I did with C.S. Soong from Against the Grain about my forthcoming book, Cheap on Crime. It was a great conversation. Here are some details on how to listen:
Points, the blog of the Alcohol and Drugs Historical Society, ran an interview with me about Cheap on Crime.
If you’re in San Francisco today and want to learn more, I’ll be giving a talk about the book at the American Sociological Association meeting, at the Hilton in Union Square, on a panel about Law in Hard Times, between 12:30 and 2:10. I’ll be very happy to meet blog readers there!
This evening, Uncommon Law is hosting a special screening and discussion of Herman’s House.
In 1972, New Orleans native Herman Joshua Wallace (b. 1941) was serving a 25-year sentence for bank robbery when he was accused of murdering an Angola Prison guard and thrown into solitary confinement. Many believed him wrongfully convicted. Appeals were made but Herman remained in jail and—to increasingly widespread outrage—in solitary. Years passed with one day much like the next. Then in 2001 Herman received a perspectiveshifting letter from a Jackie Sumell, a young art student, who posed the provocative question:
“WHAT KIND OF HOUSE DOES A MAN WHO HAS LIVED IN A SIX-FOOT-BY-NINE-FOOT CELL FOR OVER 30 YEARS DREAM OF?”
Thus began an inspired creative dialogue, unfolding over hundreds of letters and phone calls and yielding a multi-faceted collaborative project that includes the exhibition “The House That Herman Built.” The revelatory art installation—featuring a full-scale wooden model of Herman’s cell and detailed plans of his dream home—has brought thousands of gallery visitors around the world face-to-face with the harsh realities of the American prison system.
But as Herman’s House reveals, the exhibition is just the first step.
When: 6:45
Where: The New Parkway Theater, Oakland
Admission is $10. See you there!
Great news! Cheap on Crime is now available to preorder on the University of California Press website or on Amazon.
Dear blog readers – I have good news to share: My book, Cheap on Crime: Recession-Era Politics and the Transformation of American Punishment, has entered the production stage at the University of California Press, and will be available Feb. 2015!
Since the book idea sprang from this very blog, many of you may find it of interest. The book takes a broad look (nationwide, but with a focus on California) at developments in the American correctional landscape since the Great Recession of 2008 and sets out to understand the effect the recession, and recession-era politics and rhetoric, have had on penal policies.
The book relies on two theoretical foundations: critical Marxist social history, which predicts that hard times lead to more public punitiveness aimed at the lower rungs of stratified society, and public choice economics, which predict that during economic downtimes we’ll only punish as much as we can afford. These two bodies of literature seldom speak directly to each other, but when read together they actually allow us to make sense of much of the punishment policies and practices we’ve seen in the last six years. The book identifies a new recessionary logic, humonetarianism, which allows politicians, lawmakers, public and private officials of all stripes to justify a retreat from the punitive policies that started in the Nixon era by calling for financial prudence and austerity. The book analyzes four components of humonetarianism: Scarcity-related rhetoric, the ability to generate bipartisanism and bring together strange bedfellows, new practices constrained by a leaner market, and new approaches toward inmates as burdens and service consumers. It also looks at the price we pay for advancing policies through cost rhetoric, makes some suggestions to social justice advocates, and tries to predict which, if any, of the changes we are making will remain in place when the economy improves.
I will be giving two talks about the book on professional panels in San Francisco this summer. The first talk will be at the Society for the Study of Social Problems and will focus on new perceptions of inmates.
When: Saturday, August 16, 12:30-2:10
Where: San Francisco Marriott Marquis, Room Foothill D
Panel topic: Punishment and Culture
When: Tuesday, August 19, 12:30-2:10
Where: San Francisco, either at the Hilton or at the Parc55 Wyndham (exact location TBA)
Panel Topic: Law in Hard Times: Economic Inequality and the Law
Publication events next spring will include a special book party at UC Hastings and an event at San Jose State University’s Ann Lucas Lecture Series. There will be author-meets-reader events in various professional conferences and more book-related events – watch this space!
Please contact me if you’d like to host an event/book club/book party in the Bay Area, California, and Beyond, in early 2015.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy are holding their annual conference at UC Hastings in San Francisco this coming Saturday. Yours truly will be speaking, but the real reason to show up is to hear the amazing array of health professionals, dispensary businesspeople, advocates, legislation experts, and the keynote speaker, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Here’s the program for the day:
The conference is free and open to the public, but requires your preregistration here. What better way to spend your Saturday than learn more about drugs, and particularly marijuana legalization?
I just donated the full amount raised by my marathon swim in Tampa Bay this weekend to Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. Thank you to all those who contributed!
It was an exciting day in Tampa Bay and conditions were fierce! If you’d like more information about how the swim went, read the update on the fundraiser page.
As a few blog readers might know, when not fighting the California correctional ogre, I am an open water marathon swimmer. In 24 days, I will swim the Tampa Bay Marathon Swim – 24 miles of nonstop swimming in ocean water.
I am using the swim to raise funds for Homeboy Industries, a wonderful Los Angeles based reentry nonprofit. All the information is in this link. 100% of your contributions go to Homeboy Industries; the swim expenses come out of my personal pocket. If you can, please consider contributing so I can support their important enterprise!