Guest Lectures and Presentations
The Prison University Project regularly hosts lectures and talks by scholars and writers from a variety of disciplines. During the spring and summer of 2009, PUP is hosting a lecture series at San Quentin on sentencing policy and reform. The lectures have addressed the history of sentencing guidelines in California and the political climate related to sentencing reform. These lectures are intended to provide opportunities for students and volunteers in the College Program to learn more about sentencing and to gain access to resources on criminal justice policy.
Listed below are bios for each of the speakers, along with links to audio recordings of their lectures and electronic versions of the publications presented at San Quentin.
Sentencing law and policy (or the lack of it) in California: a view from inside the sausage factory| Steven Meinrath
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Steven Meinrath has been Counsel to the California State Senate Committee on Public Safety since 2005. His has worked in California's criminal justice system for 34 years. He has worked as a Probation Officer, a Federal Public Defender, a State Public Defender (representing death row inmates in federal habeas corpus proceedings), a staff attorney for the Central California Appellate Program, in private criminal defense practice, as a lobbyist for the criminal defense bar, and as counsel to the Assembly Public Safety Committee. He has been an instructor at appellate practice seminars, has written several op/ed articles on criminal justice issues for the legal newspaper the Daily Journal, and is responsible for numerous published opinions including United States v. Sanchez-Vargas, 878 F.2d 1163 (9th Cir. 1989); People v. Pinkins, 222 Cal. App.3d 897 (1990) (ordered depublished by the Cal. Supreme Court); and In re John H., 3 Cal.App.4th 1109 (1992).
The Role of Federal Courts in State Sentencing Reform | Helene Silverberg
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Helene Silverberg is currently a staff attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and previously litigated international human rights cases. Prior to attending law school, she taught American politics at Princeton University and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Understanding California Sentencing | Kara Dansky
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A leading voice on criminal law and criminal justice policy issues, Kara Dansky is the executive director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. Dansky teaches seminars on sentencing law and policy and diversion courts; advises policy-makers on a wide range of criminal justice issues, including corrections and sentencing reform and the creation of a sentencing commission for the state of California; and helps law students prepare for careers in criminal law and criminal justice policy. She also coordinates the Stanford Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections, a policy working group focused on sentencing and corrections reform in California. Dansky serves on the Executive Board of the National Association of Sentencing Commissions.
The Evolution of Juvenile Justice in California | Barry Krisberg
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Barry Krisberg is the president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. He is known nationally for his research and expertise on juvenile justice issues and is called upon as a resource for professionals and the media. Krisberg received his master's degree in criminology and a doctorate in sociology, both from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining NCCD, Krisberg held several education posts. He was faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley; Krisberg also was an adjunct professor with the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs School at the University of Minnesota. He is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Legal Studies at UC Berkeley and holds an adjunct Professorship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Hawai`i.
The Changing Scale of Imprisonment in the US: Why Populations Can't Be Expected to Drop As Much As They Have Increased | Franklin Zimring
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Franklin Zimring is the William G. Simon Professor of Law at UC Berkeley. His major fields of interest are criminal justice and family law, with special emphasis on the use of empirical research to inform legal policy. He is best known for his studies of the determinants of the death rate from violent attacks; the impact of pretrial diversion from the criminal justice system; and criminal sanctions. Zimring is the author or co-author of many books on topics including deterrence, the changing legal world of adolescence, capital punishment, the scale of imprisonment, and drug control. Recent books include The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment (2003), American Youth Violence (1998), and Crime is Not the Problem: Violence in America (with Hawkins, 1997).
Passage, Implementation, and Effects of California's Three Strikes Law | Elsa Chen
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Elsa Chen teaches American Politics and Public Policy and is the Director of the Program in Public Sector Studies at Santa Clara University. Her current research focuses on criminal justice sentencing policy, including racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing outcomes and the effects of mandatory minimum sentencing policies such as California's "Three Strikes and You're Out" law. She has also published work on the impacts of the internet and e-mail on communication among public officials and members of the public. Before coming to SCU, Chen worked as a policy analyst in the criminal justice program at RAND.
Decriminalizing Drugs is Not Enough: Why Re-evaluating our Sentences for Violent Crime is Crucial to Eliminating Mass Imprisonment | Jonathan Simon
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Jonathan Simon is the Associate Dean of the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program and Professor of Law at UC Berkeley. Simon teaches courses on criminal law, criminal justice, risk and the law, and socio-legal studies. His scholarship concerns the role of criminal justice and punishment in modern societies, insurance and other contemporary practices of governing risk, and the intellectual history of law and the social sciences. Simon serves as faculty co-chair of the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice. Simon is the author of Poor Discipline: Parole and the Social Control of the Underclass, 1890-1990 (1993) and the co-editor of Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility (with Tom Baker, 2002) and Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies, and the Law: Moving Beyond Legal Realism (with Austin Sarat, 2003). His most recent book is Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (2007).
