PARSIMONY | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation

PARSIMONY AND OTHER RADICAL IDEAS ABOUT JUSTICE | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation

Join us to discuss a justice system that combines the least possible punishment with the greatest possible healing.

After decades of over policing and ever-more punitive criminal justice measures, the time has come for a new approach to violence and community safety. Parsimony and Other Radical Ideas About Justice brings together leading activists, legal practitioners, and researchers, many of them justice-involved, to envision a justice system that applies a less-is-more framework to achieve the goal of public safety. Grounded in a new social contract heralding safety not punishment, community power not state power, the book describes a paradigm shift where justice is provided not by police and prisons, but in healing from harm.

A distinguished cast of contributors from the Square One Project at Columbia University’s Justice Lab shows that a parsimonious approach to punishment, alongside a reckoning with racism and affirming human dignity, would fundamentally change how we respond to harm. We would encourage mercy in the face of violence, replace police with community investment, address the trauma lying at the heart of mass incarceration, reduce pre-trial incarceration, close the democracy gap between community residents and government policymakers, and eliminate youth prisons, among other significant changes to justice policy.

Editors Jeremy Travis and Bruce Western will join the Busboys stage for a book discussion. The conversation will be moderated by Carrie Johnson. This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of PARSIMONY AND OTHER RADICAL IDEAS ABOUT JUSTICE will be available for purchase before and during the event. Please note that this event will not be livestreamed.

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Jeremy Travis is Executive Vice President for Criminal Justice at Arnold Ventures and the former president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He was director of the National Institute of Justice, clerked for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and was special counsel to the NYPD commissioner. The author of But They All Come Back, co-editor of Prisoner Reentry and Crime in America and Prisoners Once Removed, and co-editor (with Bruce Western) of Parsimony and Other Radical Ideas About Justice (The New Press), he lives in New York City.

Bruce Western is the Bryce Professor of Sociology and Social Justice and co-director of the Justice Lab at Columbia University. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Russell Sage Foundation Fellow, and a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study. The author of Homeward: Life in the Year After Pr*son and Punishment and Inequality in America and co-editor (with Jeremy Travis) of Parsimony and Other Radical Ideas About Justice (The New Press), he lives in New York City.

Carrie Johnson is NPR's National Justice Correspondent. She covers a wide variety of stories about justice issues, law enforcement, and legal affairs for NPR's flagship programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered and regularly appears on the NPR Politics Podcast.

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