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Conference Session: Session X—Thinking about the Future of Non-Judicial Oversight of Prisons and Jails in the United States

Speaker(s): Michele Deitch, Adjunct Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs (Facilitator)

Michael Mushlin, Professor, Pace Law School (Facilitator)

Date:

Length: 66 minutes

Description: This closing session is a facilitated audience discussion primarily focusing on two major issues: (1) whether it is feasible or appropriate to design oversight mechanisms that target selected issues such as prison rape, correctional health care, placement in administrative segregation, and treatment of mentally ill prisoners; and (2) the appropriate design of an oversight entity in the U.S., and whether oversight should be conceived of as federal, state, or local in structure. Certain audience members are asked to respond to the initial inquiry about targeted oversight, including: Federal Judge Reggie Walton, Chair, National Prison Rape Elimination Commission; Fred Cohen, court monitor for Ohio’s correctional health care system; Professor Michael Jackson, University of British Columbia School of Law; and Beth Mitchell, Senior Attorney at Advocacy, Inc., Texas’s protection and advocacy organization. Other audience members who contribute to a wide-ranging discussion are: law professor Lynn Branham and advocate Michael Hamden (both addressing ACA accreditation issues); Malcolm Young, Executive Director of Illinois’ John Howard Association; Jack Beck, Director of the Correctional Association of New York’s Prison Visiting Project; Elizabeth Alexander, Director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project; Richard Wolf, Executive Director of the New York City Board of Correction; and Paul Wright, Editor of Prison Legal News.

The statements made here represent the speakers' own thoughts. Neither the LBJ School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, nor any organization providing support for this effort necessarily endorses the views and statements included here.