Call For Abstracts: LSU Law Journal for Social Justice and Policy @LSULawCenter @KenLevy2020

                                                                 Call For Papers

 

LSU Law Journal for Social Justice and Policy

November 11, 2022

Virtual

 

The LSU Law Journal for Social Justice and Policy is pleased to announce its Call for Papers for our upcoming symposium on the Industrial Prison Complex System. The Symposium will take place in a virtual format on November 11, 2022. 

 

Submissions can include but are not limited to the following topics:

·      Capital Punishment

·      The Business of Private Prisons

·      Hard Labor as Punishment

·      Implications of the 8^th Amendment

·      Federal v. State v. Private Prisons

·      The implications of the current prison system

·      Restitution for Innocent individuals imprisoned

·      Sentencing Guidelines and the impact on prisons

·      Alternatives to Prison for non-violent offenders

·      Economic Impacts of the Current Prison System

·      Two-Year Anniversary of George Floyd: Where are we at now?

·      Decriminalizing Marijuana

·      Privatization of Probation

·      No Cash Bail v. Cash Bail

 

LJSJP seeks to elevate underrepresented voices in legal academia and to confront pressing social justice issues of the day. Academics at all levels and in all disciplines (not just law) are encouraged to apply.

 

To apply, please submit an abstract of approximately 350-750 words through this form by August 29, 2022.

 

 

 

Braatz on The Eighth Amendment's Milieu: Penal Reform in the Late Eighteenth Century

Erin Braatz, New York University, is publishing The Eighth Amendment's Milieu: Penal Reform in the Late Eighteenth Century in volume 106 of the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (2016). Here is the abstract.

Conflicting interpretations of the history of the “cruel and unusual punishments” clause of the Eighth Amendment play a significant role in seemingly never-ending debates within the Supreme Court over the scope of that Amendment’s application. These competing histories have at their cores some conception of the specific punishments deemed acceptable at the time of the Amendment’s adoption. These narrow accounts fail, however, to seriously engage with the broader history of penal practice and reform in the eighteenth century. This is a critical deficiency as the century leading up to the adoption of the Eighth Amendment was a period in which penal practices underwent numerous changes and reforms. This Article closely examines the experiments in penal reform that occurred in the American colonies immediately following the Revolution to elucidate what the Founding Generation thought about penal form, how and why it might change, and its relationship to the creation of the American republic. It argues that these penal reform movements, which have been ignored in discussions of the Eighth Amendment, were well known during the founding era. Furthermore, the salience of these reform movements at the time demonstrates a persistent concern among the Founders with adopting a more enlightened or civilized penal code in order to distinguish the American republic from monarchical practices in England and Europe. Foregrounding the content of both the experiments themselves and the debates over penal practice, they reflect yields important and previously unrecognized insights for our understanding of the Eighth Amendment’s meaning and its import at the time it was drafted. This Article helps illuminate current debates over the interpretation and application of the Eighth Amendment, including the use of international comparisons, the idea of evolution or progress, and the concept of proportionality. It also exposes significant gaps and limitations in the historical accounts relied upon by the Court to date.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.