States of Incarceration will bring together the national community of over 500 people in 20 cities who together created a traveling exhibition on the past, present, and future of mass incarceration.

Teams of students and people directly affected by incarceration from 20 cities each explores a history of incarceration in their own community, from Angola’s slave plantation-turned-prison in Louisiana, to the legacies of the Dakota Wars for Native American incarceration in Minnesota, to immigration detention at Ellis Island and Elizabeth, New Jersey. For its staging in New York City, the exhibit includes a focus on Rikers Island, developed by New School students in collaboration with The Fortune Society. The exhibition launches at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, at The New School April 3-21, 2016, before traveling to partner sites across the country.

The national exhibition launch events will bring together people who worked on the project from around the country to share local stories and open dialogue on national criminal justice reform.

9:00am - ‘Place Yourself’ Interactive Exhibit Component

9:20am - Framing the Forum

• Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
• Khalil Cumberbatch, Manager of Training and Communications, JustLeadershipUSA
• Marie Gottschalk, Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

9:50am - Live Polling Session A

10:00am - Panel 1: Who is a criminal? What is a crime?

• Framer: John E. Wetzel, Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections
• Brown University | Locked Up, Locked In, Locked Out: Understanding Prison in Pre-Modern Context - How do prisons reflect societal values?
• Northeastern University | The Norfolk Prison Colony Debating Society - Are prisons for rehabilitation or punishment?
• Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis | Intersections of Incarceration and Mental Illness - Why are prisons the nation’s mental hospitals?
• Commentary: Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, Professor and Vice-Chair, Chicana & Chicano Studies Department, University of California at Santa Barbara
• University of California at Riverside | In Detention: The War on Youth | How have youth been criminalized?
• University of Massachusetts, Amherst | Reforming Gender and the Carceral State | What are women’s prisons for?
• Conversation: Ronald Simpson-Bey, Alumni Associate, JustLeadershipUSA; John E. Wetzel, Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections

12:00pm - Live Polling Session B

1:00pm - Panel 2: Are criminals citizens? Are non-citizens criminals?

• Framer: Marc Mauer, Executive Director, Sentencing Project
• DePaul University | Legacies and Voices from the Inside - What do you want your legacy to be?
• University of Minnesota | Carceral Colonialism: Imprisonment in Indian Country - How has settler colonialism shaped our carceral state?
• Duke University | Death and Life in Central Prison - Who is the death penalty for?
• Rutgers University, Newark | Seeking Asylum, Resisting Detention - How can detained immigrants and asylees fight back?
• University of Miami | Crimmigration at Krome - Processing center or prison?
• Conversation: Graham MacIndoe, Lecturer, Parsons School of Design, and Amber A. Annis (Lakota), Doctoral Candidate, American Studies, University of Minnesota

3:30-4:30pm - Breakout Session

4:30-5:00pm - Share your take!