STEPHENVILLE (February 2, 2016) — Tarleton State University’s second “State of the American Society” speaker series, set for 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, features Dr. Heather Ann Thompson—an expert on the history of mass incarceration—and brings leading scholars and Texas policymakers to Stephenville to discuss current U.S. events and critical issues.
Thompson, a history professor at the University of Michigan, will take an in-depth look at “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: To Our Cities, Our Economy and Our Democracy.” During the past two years, she has presented her work on prisons and justice policy in the U.S. and abroad, speaking at the historic 2015 Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform in Washington D.C.
Pantheon releases her latest research—the first comprehensive history of the 1971 Attica Prison rebellion—this summer. In addition, she has written numerous popular as well as scholarly articles on the history of mass incarceration and its current impact for the New York Times, Time, The Atlantic, Salon.com, Dissent, New Labor Forum and the Journal of American History.
Thompson’s recent piece in The Atlantic on how mass incarceration has distorted democracy in America was a finalist for the best magazine article of 2014 award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
On the policy front, Thompson recently served on a National Academy of Sciences’ blue-ribbon panel that studied the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in the U.S., sponsored by The National Institute of Justice and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She serves on the boards of several policy organizations, including the Prison Policy Initiative, and works in an advisory capacity with the Center for Community Change, the Humanities Action Lab Global Dialogues on Incarceration and the Open Society Foundation on issues related to work.
Sponsored by Tarleton’s Department of Social Sciences and its School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Strategic Studies, the event takes place in the Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center Theater. For a map of the Stephenville campus, visit www.tarleton.edu/campus. There is no charge. The public is invited.
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