As a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (“ABF”), Donika Pentcheva has been invited to an ABF Fellow Continuing Legal Education Research Seminar, titled “The Afterlife of Mass Incarceration.”
The American Bar Foundation is the world’s leading research institute for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law. The ABF seeks to expand knowledge and advance justice through innovative, interdisciplinary, and rigorous empirical research on law, legal processes, and legal institutions. To further this mission the ABF will produce timely, cutting-edge research of the highest quality to inform and guide the legal profession, the academy, and society in the United States and internationally. The ABF’s primary funding is provided by the American Bar Endowment and the Fellows of The American Bar Foundation.
The ABF Fellow Continuing Legal Education Seminar will be focused around the work of ABF Research Professor Reuben Jonathan Miller and his book, titled “Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration.”
The book is available for purchase on Amazon.com.
The book description on Amazon.com recognizes that—
“life after incarceration is its own form of prison;”
“[t]he idea that one can serve their debt and return to life as a full-fledge member of society is one of America’s most nefarious myths;”
“recently released individuals are faced with jobs that are off-limits, apartments that cannot be occupied and votes that cannot be cast;” and
“parole is structured to keep classes of Americans impoverished, unstable, and disenfranchised long after they’ve paid their debt to society.”
The book description on Amazon.com also recognizes that the book captures the stories of men, women, and communities fighting against “a system that is deigned for them to fail.” Id.
The question always appears to be:
How many of those convictions were wrongful convictions that caused the incarceration of truly innocent people?
