LBJ School News Brief

prison conference graphic

Leading prison experts to convene to advance transparency and accountability in
U.S. prisons

“Opening Up a Closed World: What Constitutes Effective Prison Oversight?” is the title of a three-day conference on prisons to be held at The University of Texas at Austin on April 23 to 26. The groundbreaking event will bring together some of the world’s leading experts on independent prison oversight, American corrections policy and human rights to discuss a variety of methods for ensuring transparency and accountability in U.S. prisons.

The by-invitation-only gathering features experts from all over the United States Canada and Europe, including dozens of prison monitors, top-level correctional administrators, state and federal policymakers, human rights advocates, prisoners’ rights attorneys, journalists and scholars. Among the distinguished speakers are former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, the president of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the chief British prison inspector.

“The United States is one of the only Western countries without a formal and comprehensive system in place providing for the routine, external review of all prisons and jails,” said conference organizer Michele Deitch, an adjunct professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at UT Austin and a Soros Senior Justice Fellow.

“In the absence of external scrutiny, conditions are ripe for human rights violations,” said Deitch. “Typically, problems come to light only when there is a lawsuit or a disturbance, either of which can have disastrous financial, human, or legal consequences for the agency. But external monitoring helps prevent abuses from occurring in the first place and helps prison officials identify and correct dangerous conditions early on.”

To address these problems, the conference will focus heavily on examining ways that international and domestic models of oversight can be adapted for wider use in the United States. Conference details are available at http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/prisonconference/.

Co-sponsored by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and Pace Law School, the event is a follow-up to a high profile symposium titled “Prison Reform Revisited: The Unfinished Agenda,” held at Pace Law School in 2003.

Additional cosponsors include UT School of Law, William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law, Swedish Studies Endowment Fund and Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault at UT Austin as well as Penal Reform International - The Americas.

For additional information, contact Michele Deitch at (512) 328-8330 or (512) 296-7212.

“Prison Reform Revisited: The Unfinished Agenda,” a symposium held at Pace Law School and the New York State Judicial Institute, October 2003

10 April 2006

Comments to: lbjweb@uts.cc.utexas.edu

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