Liman Center releases updated report on solitary confinement
The COVID-19 pandemic has put the spotlight on all densely populated institutions, including prisons, raising new questions about the use of isolation in prisons. A new report released in September by the Correctional Leaders Association and the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School provides answers. “Time-In-Cell 2019: A Snapshot of Restrictive Housing” is the only comprehensive, current national data on the number of prisoners in solitary confinement—or what prison directors call restrictive housing—and the length of time prisoners are housed under these conditions.
Book charts evolution of constitutional system
In a new book, Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, looks at the bigger picture of why politics in the United States has broken down and where it is headed. Balkin, a constitutional theorist, explains how America’s constitutional system changes through the interplay among three cycles: the rise and fall of dominant political parties, the waxing and waning of political polarization, and alternating episodes of constitutional decay and constitutional renewal. Drawing on literatures from history, law, and political science, The Cycles of Constitutional Time offers a fascinating ride through American history with lessons for both the present and the future.
Professor Balkin was elected in 2020 to the American Law Institute (ALI). The new class includes 38 members who bring a range of perspectives and areas of expertise to ALI’s work of clarifying, modernizing, and improving the law. Balkin’sspecialties are constitutional law and technology law. He is the founder and director of the Law School’s Information Society Project, an interdisciplinary center that studies law and new information technologies. He also directs the Law School’s Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, and the Knight Law and Media Program.
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