Our criminal justice system exists, in theory, to protect people from criminal acts. In practice, it often harshly punishes those who are most affected by crime. People living in poverty and people of color are disproportionately victims of crime; they are also disproportionately arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. 

 

What is "just" about this system of justice? What if the justice system were focused on repair rather than retribution? What would a system that minimizes suffering look like?

 

Join us March 14, 2018, at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland for a Think & Drink conversation about alternative systems of justice with three people who have deep knowledge of the one we have now: author and investigator Rene Denfeld; David Rogers, executive director of ACLU of Oregon; and Bobbin Singh, executive director of Oregon Justice Resource Center.

 

Think & Drink takes place at the Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., in Portland, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. We invite you to stay after the program for snacks and conversation. Minors are welcome when accompanied by an adult.

 

General admission tickets for this event are $10. No-cost tickets are available for all Think & Drink events. 

 

 

 

Rene Denfeld is the author of the novels The Child Finder and The Enchanted, both inspired by her work as a death penalty investigator. As a former chief investigator at a public defender's office, Denfeld has worked hundreds of indigent cases, including exonerating innocent people from prison. In addition to her justice work and writing, she is a passionate advocate for children in foster care and has been a therapeutic foster adoptive parent for many years. She has won numerous prestigious honors for both her justice work and her writing, including the 2017 Break The Silence Award, a French Prix, a Carnegie listing, and an ALA Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and is the 2018 Oregon Literature Fellow.

 

David Rogers is executive director of the ACLU of Oregon. He has more than twenty-five years of social justice organizing and advocacy experience at organizations such as Western States Center, Oregon Voice, and Partnership for Safety and Justice, a statewide advocacy organization that works on criminal justice reform. He has also served as a consultant to a range of philanthropic organizations, including Ford Foundation and the Executive Alliance to Expand Opportunities for Boys and Men of Color. He was a recipient of a Charles Bannerman Fellowship for Organizers of Color from the New World Foundation.

 

Bobbin Singh is the founding executive director of Oregon Justice Resource Center, an organization that works to promote civil rights and improve legal representation for communities that have often been underserved in the past, including people living in poverty and people of color. He was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and was deeply inspired by the great figures of the civil rights movement in the South. He argues that for individual rights to have any meaning, we must protect them for everyone, without exception. He is a member of the Oregon Council on Civil Rights.