Path to Justice from Penal Reform International on Vimeo. This quarter, I’m interning with the Northwestern University Center on International Human Rights, a legal clinic in the law school. One of our projects is an access to justice project in Malawi, where we work to improve legal representation for prisoners – particularly those sentenced to…
I recently finished reading an amazing book, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice. The book itself has too many statistics and can be quite dry at times, but the strong message that resounds through its pages is truly powerful. It is a damning account of the utter…
Through my studies in the political science field, I’ve studied both Guantanamo Bay and the Gacaca process of post-conflict restorative justice in Rwanda in quite a bit of detail. Well, you might ask, what in the world do these two issues have in common? In essence, both alleged terrorists in Guantanamo and those on trial…
I know I haven’t done Feature Friday in a really long time, but I’m planning to start again; there are so many amazing organizations and people I keep running across that I’d really like to highlight. This week, I’m going to be talking about Youth Represent. According to the website, Youth Represent’s mission is: to…
At my internship last summer, what I really took away was the importance of pioneering a new approach to human rights. The 20th century approach to human rights was in defining human rights standards – like the International Covenants on Civil & Political Rights, and Economic, Social, & Cultural rights. I’m sure you know how…
I just ran across this fascinating Time interview with Stephen Rapp, who was previously chief prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone (H/T Shelby Grossman). Rapp states: The concern all of us had was that we were conducting justice in a comfortable courtroom with long trials and well-paid attorneys. Prisoners had single cells, and…
Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers. Thank you so much for reading, commenting, tweeting, or discussing these issues with me. It genuinely means a lot, and I put time and effort into writing this blog not only because I personally love writing, but also because I love interacting with all of you on a regular…
I’m always getting to news late on this blog, because I constantly have things I want to say. So although this post refers to a news story from last week, I still feel a need to write about it – because it has haunted me ever since I read it. Last week the New Yorker…
Oftentimes, it seems to me that criminal justice reform falls to the wayside in light of many more seemingly pressing issues, even within the broader human rights community. People tend to look down on criminal justice reform, wondering why resources need to be spent on assisting those who are accused of crimes, when they would…
This is a topic that has been swirling around in my mind for months, but I’ve never really garnered the courage to write it down coherently. But now, as I embark on a journey to work with International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) in Geneva this summer, this topic is becoming increasingly relevant to my work….