International Media & Conflict Resolution Conference

Last weekend, we hosted a truly special gathering of scholars and practitioners in the areas of media, journalism, international relations, communications, psychology, law, and dispute resolution. I will be blogging a few more times about the conference, abstracts, and upcoming issue of the Marquette Law Review on the symposium, but wanted, for now, to post a couple responses to the conference that I received from attendees.

One of our alums who attended, Evelyn Ang, sent me this clip in light of what we had talked about regarding the impact of changing media. Truly an amazing video! Another alum, Amy Koltz, noted, “I found the speakers engaging and the presentations thought-provoking — I’m amazed at the group of presenters you were able to pull together and bring to Marquette.”  She also provided a link to this article from Haaretz on media coverage of Israel and noted that it could have been a presentation in the conference. Our own program manager and conference planner, Natalie Fleury, heard this story on NPR Monday morning about Al Qaida’s training manual on the Internet, directly linking to Gabriel Weimann’s talk on Saturday.

And, from 2L part-time law student (and full-time veterinarian) Marty Greer, came this summary of the conference for those who missed it:

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International Media and Conflict Resolution Conference

I am in the midst of final planning for our conference this weekend on the media and conflict resolution. Blog readers (and others) are all invited! The International Media and Conflict Resolution Conference will bring together experts from diverse fields to discuss the influence of different forms of media in the development, escalation, and de-escalation of conflict. An international cadre of journalists, legal academics, psychologists, communication professors, and conflict resolution professionals who live and work in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East will gather at the Law School for sessions analyzing the dynamics of media and conflict resolution in the following topic areas: (1) Separation/Independence; (2) Terrorism; and (3) Elections and Conflict. 

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Justice Involves Communities

This past week, the 2009 Marquette Law School Public Service Conference focused on the efforts of communities across the nation to rethink criminal justice policy with a greater emphasis on community involvement in both planning and implementation.  Over the past two decades, Wisconsin has more than quintupled its public expenditures for corrections. At the same time, local communities have struggled with increasing jail populations and declining resources for treatment and reentry services.  At the core of this challenge is the desire to keep communities safe while providing more effective alternatives to long term incarceration.

These challenges are not unique to Wisconsin.  As keynote speaker Jeremy Travis pointed out,

As our nation has reacted to rising crime rates over the years, the response of many elected officials has been to turn to the funnel [arrest, prosecution and incarceration,] as a crime control strategy. . . . We have invested enormous sums of money in these crime control strategies, with profound consequences. . . . Most strikingly, the national rate of incarceration has more than quadrupled over the past generation so that America now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

This approach has been accompanied by a drop in the crime rate.  It also has had other sociological consequences which are not as easily quantifiable. 

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