Cornell Population Center presents The Mortality and Criminal Legal System Contact Conference

Friday, September 26, 2025 

8:00 am – 4:30 pm, Statler Hotel Amphitheater

Agenda for the conference here.

The Cornell Population Center, in collaboration with the Racial Justice Institute at Georgetown University, is hosting a research conference on the mortality of people with criminal legal system contact in September 2025. The goal of this conference is to bring together a collection of work produced by academics, justice-involved people and their families, community advocates, and other stakeholders to develop a post-COVID-19 research agenda that documents and investigates how the criminal legal system affects the mortality of people and communities with the highest risk of contact. All aspects of the criminal legal system—policing, probation, prisons/jails, immigration detention centers, and other forms of social control/intervention—will be covered as mechanisms and sites of mortality disparities. Research and perspectives presented at this conference will culminate in a Special Issue of Population Research and Policy Review.

Register for the conference here!

Click here for the list of registered attendees.

Click here to view the bios of the Speakers below.

Keynote Speaker: Evelyn Patterson, Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University

Featured Participants:

• Saifuddin Abdus-Samad, Hunter College
• Mirvais “Mir” Aminy, Project Rebound, CSU-Fullerton
• Andrea Armstrong, Loyola-New Orleans
• Bocar Ba, Duke University
• Ingrid Binswanger, Kaiser Permanente
• Sarah Brayne, Stanford U.
• Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, Duke U.
• Ernest Chavez, CSU – Long Beach
• Sarah Cushman, Cornell Prison Education Program
• Brittany Friedman, USC
• Amanda Geller, UC-Irvine
• Carmen Gutierrez, UNC-Chapel Hill
• Eunice Hyunhye Cho, ACLU
• Hedwig “Hedy” Lee, Duke U.
• Andrew Papachristos, Northwestern U.
• Becky Pettit, U. of Texas
• Michelle Phelps, U. of Minnesota
• Jessica Simes, Boston u.
• Justin Strong, U. of Arizona
• Naomi Sugie, UCLA
• Bryan L. Sykes, Cornell U.
• Emily Wang, Yale U.
• Chris Wildeman, Duke U.