This is the most important report on conditions in America's prisons and jails for decades. If the Commission's recommendations are implemented, prisons will be safer places, and so will the communities to which most prisoners ultimately return.
— Elizabeth Alexander, Executive Director, National Prison Project of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union
The Open Society Institute–Baltimore Criminal Justice Program presents Alex Busansky and Michela Bowman discussing Confronting Confinement: A Report from the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons.
In June 2006, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons released Confronting Confinement, a report on violence and abuse in U.S. jails and prisons, the broad impact of those problems on public safety and public health, and how correctional facilities nationwide can become safer and more effective. The report reflects the Commission's work over more than a year—an inquiry that featured over 100 witnesses who testified at public hearings in cities around the country, visits to jails and prisons, conversations with people about their experience of life behind bars, discussions with current and former corrections officials and experts working outside the profession, and a thorough review of available research and data. The report can be found at www.prisoncommission.org/report.asp.
Alex Busansky worked as a Manhattan District Attorney and in the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. In 2002, he was detailed to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee where he developed strategies to address concerns of the USA PATRIOT Act and drafted legislation on law enforcement and homeland security issues. Alex Busansky is the Director of the Vera Institute of Justice Washington D.C. office.
Michela Bowman has studied and worked on a broad range of issues related to criminal justice and incarceration, with a particular focus on prison health care and conditions. She has worked with the Prisoners Rights Project of the New York City Legal Aid Society, the Federal Defender's Office, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund's criminal justice division, the Legal Action Center as part of NYU's Ex-Offender Re-entry Clinic and the Southern Center for Human Rights. Michela Bowman is the Senior Program Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice Washington D.C. office.