“Overcriminalization and Indigent Legal Care”

April 6 & 7, 2017 – Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
The Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics

Georgia State University

Keynote speakers: 
David Boonin (Philosophy, University of Colorado)
Jelani Jefferson Exum (Law, University of Toledo)
Doug Husak (Philosophy, Rutgers University)

There has been growing lay and scholarly concern with the access to legal services available to poorer persons in our society. Many commentators note that moral and policy difficulties of related trends are compounded by what some see as overcriminalization. This interdisciplinary conference will bring together leading scholars in philosophy, legal theory, and related fields to present original scholarship on these issues.

• Possible topic areas include:
• justice and criminalization
• distributive justice and access to legal services
• the scope of criminal law
• political legitimacy and retributive justice
• the administrative state and the indigent
• reasons and causes for overcriminalization
• the effect of overcriminalization on society, especially the indigent
• how to reduce the effects of criminalization, especially on the indigent
• and related themes

The conference will include one public symposium, including presentations by:
Michael Leo Owens (Political Science, Emory University)
Bernadette Rabuy (The Prison Policy Initiative)

To submit a proposal, see here.

Proposals due by 9:00 am (ET) of Thursday, December 15, 2016.

For more information, see ethics.gsu.edu.

Portions of the programming for this conference will be made possible by the Institute for Humane Studies through a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.