April 24, 2008
Contact: Caroline Jenkins Hanna
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—The Amherst College Colloquium on the Constitution and the Imagining of America will convene its semiannual meeting to discuss “Constitution and the Prison: Incarceration American-Style” on Friday and Saturday, May 2 and 3. Sponsored by the Colloquium as well as the Charles Hamilton Houston Forum on Law and Social Justice, the events will take place in the college’s Alumni House and will feature various members of the Amherst faculty and outside experts.

The following talks are free and open to the public:

May 2

  • 3:30 - 4 p.m. — Welcoming remarks, Austin Sarat, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science and Five College 40th Anniversary Professor at Amherst.
  • 4 - 5:30 p.m. — “The U.S. Prison Industrial Complex: A Story About Race in Modern America,” Vanita Gupta, staff attorney with the Racial Justice Program of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national office; moderated by Carleen Basler, professor of American studies and sociology at Amherst.

May 3

  • 9 - 10:30 a.m. — Michael Jacobson, director of The Vera Institute of Justice; moderated by Chris Dole, professor of anthropology at Amherst.
  • 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. — “The Limits of Punishment,” David Fathi, U.S. program director of Human Rights Watch; moderated by Dole.                           
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