Author To Address The Growing Threat To Civil Liberties In America At April 17th Talk

Chestertown, MD, April 4, 2002 — The Goldstein Program in Public Affairs at Washington College and the Campus Events and Visitors Committee present "THE GROWING THREAT TO CIVIL LIBERTIES IN THE USA: FROM NIXON TO 9/11," a lecture by Christian Parenti, author of "Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis." The talk will be held on Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 7 p.m. in the Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Dr. Parenti is a graduate of the New School for Social Research and holds a Ph.D. in sociology form the London School of Economics and Political Science. His work has focused on the economic and social injustices of the war on crime, militarized policing, corrections and prisons. His recent book, "Lockdown America" (Verso, 2000), takes a long, critical look at the threat of an American criminal justice system eclipsing individual rights. When over 1.7 million Americans live in prisons; with one third of all young Black men in major urban areas in jail, on probation or awaiting sentencing; when spending on prisons in some states eclipses spending for higher education; and when prisons and prison labor become lucrative ventures for private corporations, Lockdown America asks what social and economic agendas are propelling America toward a "Big Brother" police state mentality.

Dr. Parenti teaches at the New College of California in San Francisco, and he has worked as a radio journalist in Central America, New York and California. His writing has appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times and The Christian Science Monitor, and his forthcoming book, "The Soft Cage: A History of Everyday Surveillance," will be released in 2003.

Washington College's Goldstein Program in Public Affairs is named in honor of the late Louis L. Goldstein, the College's former Chairman of the Board of Visitors and Governors, a 1935 alumnus, and Maryland's longest serving elected official. The Goldstein Program sponsors lecture series, symposia, visiting fellows, travel and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders in public policy.