UW News

February 1, 2016

UW hosts daylong public ‘teach-in’ on mass incarceration

News and Information

The acclaimed 2012 book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” is the foundation for a daylong “teach-in” at the University of Washington Feb. 9.

NewJimCrowThe event is titled “Perpetual Displacement and Bondage: Understanding Historical and Contemporary Intersections of Mass Incarceration, Racism, and Health.”

It’s free and open to the public, and will include four sessions on various aspects of mass incarceration featuring UW faculty members and community speakers.

Alison Holcomb, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Campaign for Smart Justice, and Marc A. Levin, policy director of Right on Crime, will be the keynote speakers at an evening discussion moderated by Phyllis Fletcher, managing editor of the Northwest News Network.

The event is part of UW Health Sciences’ Common Book Series, an annual program that aims to engage UW students across the health sciences in workshops, lectures and other events organized around a chosen book. “The New Jim Crow,” the book for the program’s 2015/2016 year, argues that the U.S.’s system of mass incarceration is a form of social control that oppresses millions of black people and consigns them to permanent second-class status.

The day’s sessions will be held in the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center’s Unity Room and include:

  • How Did We End Up Here? – panel and discussion with Alexes Harris and Hedy Lee, UW associate professors of sociology. 10:30 a.m. to noon
  • Providing Humane Care in Inhumane Circumstances – with Cheryl Cooke, associate professor of nursing at UW Bothell; Joisky Caudill of Red Will, a group for incarcerated Native women; Marc Stern, a correctional health care consultant and physician; Kate Stanley, a family nurse practitioner and former jail worker; and Richard Murphy, chief of dentistry for the Washington Department of Corrections. 12:30 to 2 p.m.
  • For Health Equity, We Need Liberation – with Nikkita Oliver, an artist, educator, activist and attorney; Ardell Shaw, community organizer with the Black Prisoners Caucus; and Lillian Hewko, community organizer with the Incarcerated Parents Project. 2 to 3:30 p.m.
  • So What’s Next? – workshop facilitated by Students for an Anti-Racist University of Washington. 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.

David Fernando, a staff assistant in the UW School of Medicine’s Service Learning Office, said the program is popular with UW students.

“There’s a lot of participation,” he said. “The students love it.”

Participants can attend one, several or all sessions. Registration is available online. For more information, email somserve@uw.edu.