November 12, 2021 / Hybrid Virtual and In-Person
Presented by the Temple Law Review and the Center for Public Health Law Research, Temple University Beasley School of Law
We are in the midst of a nationwide contest over police reform. Finding consensus on the question of whether and how law enforcement systems can be reformed to produce better social results is complicated by deep divisions over what the police are today. There is a respectable body of opinion that holds the police to be so durably militarized, so enmeshed in the structure of a racist criminal legal system, as to be unreformable. Others diagnose the problem as one of fit between police tools and the actual problems they are asked to address; these reformers see potential for reshaping policing within a larger reorganization of government services. And, of course, there are those who are skeptical about the need or possibility of any fundamental reforms, and who therefore focus on incremental improvements within current police agencies and/or in the set of laws they are assigned to enforce. All these discussions of policing and police reform come at a time when many cities are electing “progressive” district attorneys pledging big changes in who gets charged and imprisoned; when “diversion” has become a common, if contested, practice; and the racist and ineffectual character of U.S. drug law has never been plainer. From a public health perspective, data point to the criminal legal and carceral systems as major sources of iatrogenic harm and social determinant of health inequities.
This Symposium asks how to move forward to make this complex system healthier while avoiding the pressures to accept well-intentioned but ineffective interventions. Where do we need to go now to accurately diagnose the causes of dysfunction and then implement and evaluate reforms that make a measurable difference? What are the pressure points and levers for change in the law, in law enforcement practices, in democratic engagement, and in the level and distribution of resources for human well-being and security in our communities? How does the well-being of individuals and their communities rise to the top as the active force shaping security policies and practices?
For this one-day Symposium, panels bring legal analysis, social theory, and data to bear on key issues for legal and organizational change. Topics include:
- The problems with using criminal legal systems as gatekeepers to and providers of basic health and social services
- The economic impact of prison and court debt
- What reality-based drug policy looks like and the role of problem-solving courts
- The relationship between crime, eviction policies, and housing shortage
- The challenges of dismantling structural racism in the criminal legal system
- The long- and short-term effects of the school-to-prison pipeline
This Symposium seeks to understand less obvious drivers of racial disparities in and exacerbated by the criminal legal system and underexplored routes to causal change.