FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: prisonsymposium@gmail.com

"THE CRIME WITHIN: A KING HALL PRISON LAW SYMPOSIUM"

AT UC DAVIS School of Law

Davis, CA -- "California's correctional system is at a crisis point.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger. On Saturday, April 7, 2007, the UC Davis School of Law at Martin Luther King Jr. Hall will present "The Crime Within: A King Hall Prison Law Symposium." King Hall 3L and second-time prison law symposium co-organizer Kimberly Huangfu explains, "Considering the current state of crisis that the California Prison system is facing, conservatives and liberals alike are in agreement that something needs to be changed. Thus, we chose this year’s theme to reflect how our criminal justice system is failing to adequately serve the basic needs and rights of our nation’s prisoners."

Taking place in Martin Luther King Jr. Hall Room 2021 from 9:00 am until 5:00 pm, this third annual prison law symposium is free and open to the public. Speakers from a diversity of backgrounds and expertise have been invited to speak on four panels: Present Prison Conditions, Alternatives to Incarceration and Post-Release Issues, Sex and Gender Oppression, and Death Penalty. The first panel will include Holly Cooper, a King Hall graduate and supervising attorney for the Immigration Law Clinic on campus. This panel will also include, Ed Mead, a former political prisoner who served 18 years in prison for his participation in the George Jackson Brigade, a 1970s radical organization that engaged in armed actions against the state. Today, Ed mead is the President of the California Prison Focus and staff member of the Prison Art Project. Other panelists will include Monica Knox, a long-time public defender with the Federal Public Defender’s office whom has extensive experience with the prison system from both a professional and personal perspective, Gail Patrice from the Statewide Family Council, a group of family members and friends of prisoners that meets regularly with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to create and maintain communication and a better understanding regarding the prisons, those they incarcerate and their families, and Debbie Reyes from the California Moratorium Project, an organization that seeks to stop all public and private prison construction in California. The second panel will feature Beth Waitkus, the Director of the Insight Garden Program at San Quentin which has involved a team of local landscapers, gardeners and community members, as well as prison inmates and staff to build and maintain an organic, native California garden on San Quentin's medium-security prison yard. Other speakers will include Lisa Rea and Russ Turner from The Justice & Reconciliation Project and Candlelight Foundation, respectively, who will speak on restorative justice and legislative reform. Lisa Rea is the president and founder of The Justice & Reconciliation Project (JRP) and has an extensive background in restorative justice with a passion for restoring victims of crime and communities while holding offenders accountable. Russ Turner, an award-winning director and producer of film, has spent 30 years working in the Criminal Justice System directly with the California Highway Patrol and The California Attorney General’s Office. He is currently working as a Crime Prevention Specialist with the California Attorney General’s Office in the Crime and Violence Prevention Center. Aside from discussing reforms and alternatives, Matthew Powers, Executive Director of PRIDE Industries’ new Re-Entry Services Division, will address the ever-increasing need to provide post-release services to former-prisoners. The third panel features Andrea Bible from Free Battered Women, which seeks to end the re-victimization of incarcerated survivors of domestic violence as part of the movement for racial justice and the struggle to resist all forms of intimate partner violence against women and transgender people. Other featured speakers include, Karen Shain, Co-Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Chris Daley, a staff attorney at Transgender Law Center, Maria Ortega, a member of the Trans/Gender Variant in Prison Committee -- a community organizing project of the Transgender, Gender Variant & Intersex Justice Project, and Lynsay Skiba from Justice Now. And lastly, the fourth panel, focused on facilitating open discourse regarding death penalty issues, will include Ellen Eggers, a Deputy State Public Defender in Sacramento for the past 17 years and Founder of the Sacramento California Death Penalty Focus Chapter, and Edward Bronson, Professor of Political Science and Public Law from Chico State, who has been involved in hundreds of death penalty cases for over almost 40 years.

The idea for the first prison law symposium in April of 2005 ("The Truth Unlocked: A California Prison Law Symposium") originated in a Judicial Process seminar taught by King Hall Professor Bill Hing. Always seeking to supplement coursework regarding the judicial system with other issues of legal significance, two years ago Hing sought the assistance of Susan Jordan, a 2L at the time, to present to the class regarding her expertise in the criminal justice system. A group of students in that class became inspired to create a symposium exploring the very timely and provocative issues and gathered support and funding to realize their vision for three years in a row.

With generous funding provided by the King Hall Annual Fund and American Constitution Society, breakfast and lunch will be provided on Saturday. The schedule for the symposium and more information about this effort can be found at the symposium blog: http://crimewithinpls.blogspot.com/. Any questions can be directly e-mailed to kimberly.huangfu@gmail.com.