Professor Barkow speaks about politics of mass incarceration

Rachel Barkow

Summer is not a quiet time around UC Davis School of Law.  Last week, the School co-sponsored with the Davis Vanguard a presentation by Vice Dean and Professor Rachel Barkow about her important and timely new book, Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration. Published earlier this year by Harvard University Press/Belknap, the book addresses the political dynamics behind mass incarceration and institutional reforms to curtail it. It has received favorable treatment in The New Yorker, Publishers Weekly and The American Scholar.  I had the pleasure of introducing Barkow, a keen student of the modern criminal justice system in the United States.

At NYU Law,  Professor Barkow serves as vice dean, Segal Family Professor of Regulatory Law and Policy, and faculty director of the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law. Her scholarship focuses on applying the lessons and theory of administrative and constitutional law to the administration of criminal justice.  From 2013 to January 2019, Professor Barkow served on the United States Sentencing Commission. Since 2010, she has been a member of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office Conviction Integrity Policy Advisory Panel. She is a past recipient of the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award and of NYU Law’s Podell Distinguished Teaching Award. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute.

A full house attended Barkow’s presentation, which focused on the American system of mass incarceration and the need for dramatic reforms.  Criminal justice reform is a pressing public policy issue.  The presentation was followed by a robust Q&A.