Explore past projects, events, and research from the Houston Institute’s 20-year history
More archived news, events, and research are available below.
News
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Obama Saddened by Ogletree’s Alzheimer’s Diagnosis
President Obama is fondly voicing support for his close friend and mentor, Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree, who has revealed he has Alzheimer’s disease. Obama has spoken of Ogletree, 63, as a constant source of inspiration to him, particularly during difficult times. In a statement to the Globe, the president said Tuesday that he…
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Most Oregon death row inmates suffer significant mental impairments, Harvard report finds
By Casey Parks, The Oregonian According to the article, a recently released report by Fair Punishment Project, found “More than a quarter of Oregon’s 35 death row inmates have evidence of an intellectual disability or traumatic brain injury. Others endured “devastatingly severe” childhood trauma. Six were younger than 21 when they were arrested. Oregon’s rate…
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Brown-Nagin named faculty director of Charles Hamilton Houston Institute
Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow has appointed Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin to be the faculty director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (CHHI) at HLS. Brown-Nagin, an award-winning legal historian and an expert in constitutional law and education law and policy, is the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at…
Events
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A Convening: Race, Reform, and Multiracial Democracy
Agenda | Logistics The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Social Justice (CHHIRJ) will hold the Race, Reform, and Multiracial Democracy convening. This convening is the launch of the Guinier Project, which will explore the relationship among electoral system reform, racial justice, and democratic representation. The convening will take place at Harvard Law School on September 21 – 22, 2023. As a Harvard law professor, Lani Guinier was always ahead of her time. She was a civil rights lawyer with the US Department of Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and she was the first Black woman to…
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Legislative Briefing: Ending Life Without Parole
PART 2 : “Ending Life Without Parole” Download the full event background flyer here. Register here: https://bit.ly/LWOPzoom Registration is now closed. VIDEO: Massachusetts has the highest percentage of people serving life without parole sentences in the nation, followed by Louisiana. As of July 26, 2021, 1,013 people in Massachusetts are serving LWOP out of less than 6,000 criminally sentenced people in DOC custody. This means that one out of every six people incarcerated in Massachusetts state prisons is foreclosed from the opportunity to ever apply for parole. Of the people serving LWOP, 600, or 59%, are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous,…
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Legislative Briefing: Reforming Parole and Medical Parole to Enhance Public Safety
Watch a recording of this event: PART 1 : “Reforming Parole and Medical Parole to Enhance Public Safety” Download the full event background flyer here. Register here: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArcOGtpjMuG9KB4tn5xS0bjqOdsFtviaAy The parole system and the medical parole system are both mechanisms that are meant to release people from incarceration and support them in the community when they do not pose a threat to public safety. These systems should ensure that the Commonwealth’s resources are used to promote health, safety, human dignity, rehabilitation, and compassion, but both systems are underutilized and focused on punishment. Please join us for this event to learn more…
Research
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Funding Sources Toolkit
Compiled by Meg Duffy, with research assistance and graphic design by Jacqueline Lantsman At the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, our mission is to create pathways to membership and participation for those society has long excluded and find ways to identify and amplify their voices in crafting and implementing public policy. To fight structural and systemic racism, we envision a society in which residents in communities of color in the United States are supported as they enact programs and propose policy changes to benefit the communities they call home. This is our vision of community justice. We…
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Abolitionist Principles & Campaign Strategies for Prosecutor Organizing
The organizations that came together to develop this framework were Community Justice Exchange, CourtWatch MA, Families for Justice as Healing, Project NIA, and Survived and Punished NY. This document is a new resource for organizers involved in prosecutor organizing. We participated in developing this framework through our work with CourtWatch MA. A webinar was held about the Abolitionist Principles on November 4, 2019: Sign on to the principles here.
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Rhetoric, Not Reform: Prosecutors & Pretrial Practices in Suffolk, Middlesex, and Berkshire Counties
On October 3, 2019, we released a groundbreaking report with Families for Justice as Healing and the Massachusetts Bail Fund under the auspices of our joint abolitionist project, CourtWatch MA. The report evaluates the efforts at pretrial reform in three different prosecuting offices in Massachusetts: Suffolk County (DA Rachael Rollins), Middlesex County (DA Marian Ryan), and Berkshire County (DA Andrea Harrington). There’s a lot of talk about progressive prosecutors, good prosecutors, reform-minded prosecutors. As an abolitionist project, CourtWatch MA cares about how people are treated in court and, ultimately, eliminating the prosecuting office. We also want to do everything we…