12:00
Cambridge University
October 29
Institute of Criminology
A generation of justified criticism of the American criminal punishment system has culminated in the unprecedented political and academic rise of the penal abolitionist movement. The abolitionist critique fundamentally indicts prisons as an instrument of national (and perhaps global) racial, class and capitalist domination—one that ought not merely be curtailed but eliminated. In its strongest form, abolitionism is skeptical of punishment as such. But more powerful than any individual argument, abolitionism is unified by an ethos that views state punishment as always regrettable, shameful or tragic. Ekow N. Yankah is the Thomas M. Cooley Professor of Law and professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan. His work focuses on political philosophy and criminal theory, particularly, questions of political obligation and justifications of punishment. Further information and registration: https://www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events