First, we host a debate over Oakland’s Measure LL which would establish a civilian-run Police Commission.
In support, we welcome Pamela Drake, of the Coalition for Police Accountability.
In opposition, we welcome Leigh Davenport of the Anti Police Terror Project.
Then, a discussion with Baz Dreisinger, a journalist and Professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who traveled around the world visiting prisons and witnessing attempts at restorative justice for the new book Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World.
About the book:
From serving as a restorative justice facilitator in a notorious South African prison and working with genocide survivors in Rwanda, to launching a creative writing class in an overcrowded Ugandan prison and coordinating a drama workshop for women prisoners in Thailand, Dreisinger examines the world behind bars with equal parts empathy and intellect. She journeys to Jamaica to visit a prison music program, to Singapore to learn about approaches to prisoner reentry, to Australia to grapple with the bottom line of private prisons, to a federal supermax in Brazil to confront the horrors of solitary confinement, and finally to the so-called model prisons of Norway. Incarceration Nations concludes with climactic lessons about the past, present, and future of justice.