September 21st, 2017 at 6pm

Food For Thought is a monthly evening of food, film and discussion with a focus on films of social, political, environmental and community interest. Held on the third Thursday of each month, the night will feature food samples by Honest Weight Food Co-op, music by Jack Empie, a feature film screening, and an open panel discussion.

This month’s film

MILWAUKEE 53206 is a one-hour documentary that chronicles the lives of those affected by incarceration in America’s most incarcerated zip code. Through the intimate stories of three 53206 residents, we witness the high toll mass incarceration takes on individuals and families that make up the community. The film not only examines Milwaukee’s zip code 53206, but also illuminates the story of people from across the United States who live with the daily effects of mass incarceration.

Mass Incarceration in the United States

Both in raw numbers and by percentage of the population, the United States has the most prisoners of any developed country in the world. For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for the affluent. With more than six million people under “correctional supervision”, a combined prison population would make for the second largest city in America.1 Look even closer and find that the rate of incarceration is not just isolated to prison populations, but entire communities and family systems. Milwaukee’s poorest zip code, 53206, sits as the most incarcerated zip code in the nation, with 62% of adult males having spent time in a state correctional facility

https://www.milwaukee53206.com/

Panelists

David Hureau

David joined the faculty of the SUNY School of Criminal Justice in the fall of 2016. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Sociology and Social Policy in 2016, his M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2006, and his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 2001. David is broadly interested in the relationship between crime, punishment, and social inequality, with a particular research interest in understanding the nature of violent crime and its consequences. Recent research projects include an ethnography of a network of young men disproportionately exposed to homicide, a mixed methods investigation of the market for illegal guns, and a policy evaluation of a major gang violence intervention effort. David has served as an NBER-NSF Crime Research Fellow, a Doctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago Crime Lab, an IGERT-NSF Doctoral Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard, and a Research Fellow at the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard.

Karen L. Murtagh

Karen L. Murtagh is the Executive Director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York (PLS), a not-for-profit legal services organization that was founded in 1976 to provide civil legal services to indigent inmates in New York State correctional facilities. She is a graduate of Clarkson University and Albany Law School. She is admitted to practice law in New York State, all Federal District Courts of New York and the U.S. Supreme Court. She has litigated issues concerning prisoners’ due process rights at disciplinary hearings, prison conditions, deliberate indifference, the First Amendment and the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). She has tried cases in both the Court of Claims and Federal Court and has argued numerous cases before New York State courts including the New York Court of Appeals where she successfully argued that an incarcerated person’s mental health must be considered as a mitigating factor at a prison disciplinary hearing. Ms. Murtagh was also successful as amicus, appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case challenging the constitutionality of a New York State statute that prohibited prisoners from filing federal 1983 actions in state court.