Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The Failed War on Drugs and It's Impacts on Society

Staff Writer, DL Mullan
War on Drugs / Discussion
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On April 4-5, of 2014 Students for Prison Education and Reform (SPEAR) hosted "Building a New Criminal Justice: Mobilizing Students for Reform," http://pace.princeton.edu/features/20... a conference at Princeton University. The conference enabled students to discuss how to "build and transition to a new system of criminal justice that prioritizes effectiveness, fairness, and humanity."

The conference, SPEAR http://pace.princeton.edu/node/816 created by a network of students who are interested and involved in criminal justice system reforms. One of the featured speakers on late Friday April 4, was Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist with award-winning filmmaker Eugene Jarecki in discussion together after the filmmaker screening of his award-winning film The House I Live In, http://www.thehouseilivein.org/see-th... a documentary about the rise of the War on Drugs and mass incarceration's effect on society.

After the film, both Chris Hedges http://www.nationinstitute.org/fellow... and Eugene Jarecki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_J... spoke for over 80 minutes with the first 20 minutes focusing on commentary of the film and the remainder of the time a very thought provocative and educational series of Q&A regarding the film, its production and insights from an wonderful pairing of two men into issues facing our criminal justice system and society as well. They look at of how and why we got where we are and the impacts of the drug "class" warfare has impacted millions of lives in the US.

Source: Youtube