John Jay College Of Criminal Justice | The City University of New York

   

New York, NY, January 9, 2012 – Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy will lead a prestigious group of speakers, including three heads of state correction systems, police chiefs and prosecutors from around the country, for discussions on the evolving role of drugs, race and mass incarceration in the U.S. justice system at the Seventh Annual Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City on Monday, February 6^th and Tuesday, Feb 7^th , 2012.

Gov. Malloy will deliver the keynote speech on February 6^th on the conference theme: "The Problem That Won't Go Away: How Drugs, Race and Mass Incarceration Have Distorted American Justice (and What To Do About It)"

Other speakers include: Charlie Beck, Chief, Los Angeles Police Department; Benjamin Tucker, Deputy Director, White House Office on National Drug Control Policy; Bridget G. Brennan, Special Narcotics Prosecutor, City of New York; Leann K. Bertsch, Director, North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; Risco Menton-Lewis, Assistant District Attorney, Nassau County, Long Island; Linda Greenhouse, Yale University, Former New York Times Supreme Court reporter; and Joseph Krakora, New Jersey Public Defender.

"As the nation moves into a presidential election year, it is more important than ever that critical criminal justice issues stay prominently placed on the public agenda," said John Jay President Jeremy Travis. "The Center on Media, Crime and Justice is to be commended for once again bringing together a stellar group of public officials, policymakers, scholars and journalists to achieve this important objective."

"This year's conference comes at a time of major change and challenges in our criminal justice system," said Stephen Handelman, director of the Center on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ) at John Jay, which organizes the annual symposia. "A frank dialogue between journalists and criminal justice practitioners has never been so necessary."

Attendance is free. For a complete list of speakers, an agenda, and registration info, please visit: http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/centers/media_crime_justice/5081.htm

The Harry F. Guggenheim Symposium is the only national gathering which brings together journalists, legislators, policymakers, scholars and practitioners for candid on-the-record discussions on emerging issues of U.S. criminal justice. Panel topics this year include: early release from prisons, America's drug addictions, youth, gangs and gun and eyewitness identification.

Sixteen U.S. journalists from print, online and broadcast outlets have been awarded fellowships to attend the conference. The unique fellowships, organized by John Jay's Center on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ), are aimed at encouraging and promoting top-quality journalism on criminal justice.

The Fellows were selected from a wide pool of applicants based on editors' recommendations and on investigative reporting projects currently underway or in the planning stage related to the topics explored at the 2012 conference. They will join four California journalists previously chosen as fellows for the CMCJ's Three Strikes California Journalism Workshop project in 2011, and selected to attend the Guggenheim conference on the basis of their reporting work.

Their projects cover subjects ranging from an exploration of black market prescription drugs to the use of confidential informants and mental health in the prison system.

The 2012 Fellows are listed below.

The award-winners will receive financial assistance or stipends that enable them to attend the conference and related events. Overall support for the conference and fellowships comes from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Ford Foundation, the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project and the Public Welfare Foundation. These organizations did not participate in the review or selection of the fellows.

About John Jay College of Criminal Justice: An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in service to society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu.

The Center on Media, Crime and Justice, established at John Jay College in 2006, is the nation's only practice- and research-oriented think tank devoted to encouraging and developing high-quality reporting on criminal justice, and to promoting better-informed public debate on the complex 21^st century challenges of law enforcement, public security and justice in a globalized urban society. For more information, visit http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/cmcj or >www.thecrimereport.org

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation sponsors scholarly research on problems of violence, aggression, and dominance. The foundation provides both research grants to established scholars and dissertation fellowships to graduate students during the dissertation-writing year. For more information, visit http://www.hfg.org.

2012 John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Fellows

(in Alphabetical Order)

Mike Carter, The Seattle Times
Mike Chalmers, The News Journal (DE)
Perry Chiaramonte, Fox News.com
Hannah Dreier, Contra Costa Times (CA)
Taylor Dungjen, Toledo Blade (OH)
Elizabeth Elliott, Busted Halo.com (freelance)
Gwen Florio, The Missoulian (MT)
Gregory Gilderman, Newsweek/Daily Beast.com
Brandi Grissom, Texas Tribune
Auditi Guha, Somerville Journal/Cambridge Chronicle (MA)
John Howell, Patch.com, West Hartford (CT) (freelance)
Robert Ortega, Arizona Republic
Jennifer Portman, Tallahassee Democrat (FL)
Jordan Michael Smith, In These Times (D.C.) (freelance)
Susan Tebben, Glasgow Daily Times (KY)
Carla Zanoni, DNAinfo.com (NY)

Three Strikes Fellows

Alan Minsky, KPFK-FM, Los Angeles
Ryan Gabrielson, Center for Investigative Reporting, California Watch
Frank Stoltze, KPCC-FM, Los Angeles
Marisa Lagos, San Francisco Chronicle