Leaders in Social Justice will Convene to Explore Injustice, Inequality and Insecure Lives 

ALBANY, N.Y. (May 25, 2016) – The Justice Studies Association, an international association with firm roots in Albany, will convene leaders in social justice to explore Injustice, Inequality, Insecure Lives: Creating Social Justice at its annual conference to be held June 1-4 at the University.

The association was co-founded by UAlbany alum Dennis Sullivan who received his Ph.D. in criminal justice in the first class of what is now the nation’s oldest doctoral program in criminal justice.

Dennis Sullivan.

Sullivan was an adjunct professor at UAlbany for 15 years, teaching a graduate course in restorative justice. In 1995, he asked his friend and collaborator Larry Tifft to help him start a new association for scholars, practitioners and activists who were interested in pursuing issues extending far beyond the boundaries of conventional academic criminology.

He and Tifft began the Contemporary Justice Review, which is published by Routledge. The JSA had its first international conference in Albany in June 1997, and has met here five or six times in the Association’s 19-year history.

This year, Sullivan is presenting Knock Down Them Walls: Meeting the Needs of all Through Needs-Based Justice Programs and Thinking. Tifft will facilitate the session. Sullivan, poet in residence affiliated with Le Jardin de la Grande Chartreuse, will also present on Needs-Based Revolution: Treating Everyone Like the Richest Person on Earth.

Among the presenters at this year’s conference:

• Mary Florence Sullivan, of Columbia University’s School of Social Work, an advocate for the New York City Safe Passage Project, on Meeting the Needs of Displaced Youth.
• Fred Boehrer and Meg Kelly, immigration advocates affiliated with Emmaus House, and Albany Catholic Worker, on The New Sanctuary Movement in Albany, New York.
• Thomas Giglio, director of ENL and Refugee Services for the City School District of Albany, on Providing a ‘Home’ for Refugees in Need.

In addition to numerous presentations, the association will honor Robin Casarjian, founder and executive director of the Lionheart Foundation, which organizes emotional awareness workshops in prisons.

Past keynote speakers have included Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, and Daniel Berrigan. Each year the association bestows the Noam Chomsky Award.

Conference co-sponsors include: the Department of English, the Department of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies, the School of Criminal Justice and the UAlbany Justice & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century Project.

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