March 10, 2026
This symposium featured Professor Judith Resnik presenting her new book, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy, which traces the origins of the corrections profession and the first international rules governing prisoner treatment adopted by the League of Nations in 1934 through World War II, the U.S. Civil Rights movement, and a landmark trial over the constitutionality of whipping in Arkansas in the 1960s. Bringing together the stories of those who designed punishment systems and those who lived under them, the book examines constitutional challenges to overcrowded cells, unsanitary conditions, violence, and prolonged isolation, as well as the global expansion of the prison industry and the ongoing push for abolition. Resnik argues that governments committed to equality cannot deliberately set out to destroy people and that many current forms of punishment need to end.
This event was co-sponsored with the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program at NYU Law.
Speaker
Judith Resnik – Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School
with comments from
Alexis Karteron – Professor of Law and Director of the Civil Rights in the Criminal Legal System Clinic, NYU Law
Emma Kaufman – Sarah Herring Sorin Professor of Law, NYU Law
