| Event sponsors | Simpson Center for the Humanities, humanities@uw.edu, Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, & Department of Law, Societies & Justice, |
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| Description | The history of criminal justice is, in many respects, the history of bad ideas. Some bad ideas have become so deeply embedded in our legal and political culture to become trans-historical “myths” that provide a hidden source of legitimacy to the enterprise of state punishment. In two events, a lecture and a colloquium, Jonathon Simon will draw from his forthcoming book to tell the story of five myths that invest modern punishment with a presumption of positive effects, impervious to repeated failure, centering around the victim, the offender, danger, order, and white supremacy. Such myths support and sustain the problem of penal excess in the US and globally. Part of the Negotiating Carceral Regimes project. Cosponsored by Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, Department of Law, Societies & Justice, Jonathan Simon (He, Him) is the Lance Robbins Professor of Criminal Justice Law at UC Berkeley. Simon’s scholarship explores the role of crime and criminal justice institutions in the governance of modern democratic societies, the place of risk-based rationalities in modern law and governance, and the history of ideas about law and society. |
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