Minority Confinement Topic Of Conference

CHICAGO -- The American Correctional Association (ACA) is hosting its 140th Congress of Correction this weekend in Chicago. Safer Foundation is proud to participate in this event by facilitating a symposium on disproportionate minority contact/confinement (DMC) on Sunday, August 1, from 1 to 4:30 p.m. in Room 305 at Navy Pier.

DMC refers to the overrepresentation of minorities in the criminal justice system. At the symposium, more than 100 experts from around the country will participate in generating recommendations based on research, experience and best-practice models. A panel will include Piper Kerman, author of the newly released Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison; Dave Gaspar, who has over 30 years of experience leading and managing large juvenile and criminal justice organizations; Michael Harris, Deputy Director of the San Francisco-based W. Haywood Burns Institute; and Dr. Wanda Suber, an administrator in the Office of Policy and Offender Reentry/Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

"Sixty-five percent of the 1.7 million people in U.S. prisons and jails are minorities while only 28 percent of the general population are minorities," said Safer Foundation President/CEO Diane Williams, chair of ACA's DMC Task Force. "Unless there is a directed and strategic effort to address this inequity, it will only worsen. The intent of the ACA DMC Task Force is to develop a set of recommendations that can be implemented in federal, state, and county corrections systems to reduce the number of minorities who are incarcerated."

For more than 125 years, ACA has championed the cause of corrections and correctional effectiveness. Founded in 1870 as the National Prison Association, ACA is the oldest association developed specifically for practitioners in the correctional profession. With over 20,000 members, ACA is also the largest international correctional association in the world. It serves all disciplines within the corrections profession and is dedicated to excellence in every aspect of the field.

Founded in 1972, Safer Foundation's mission is to reduce recidivism by supporting, through a full spectrum of services, the efforts of people with criminal records to become employed, law-abiding members of the community. Each year, more than 10,000 individuals seek Safer's services throughout Illinois and eastern Iowa.

Web site: http://www.saferfoundation.org/