Heather Ann Thompson: Inner City Violence in the Age of Mass Incarceration

History is an excellent teacher, offering unique insights into the past so we may better understand the present. On Thursday, Apr. 14 historian Heather Ann Thompson, Ph.D. will be at Central Washington University to give a lecture on the history of inner city violence and mass incarceration. The lecture will be held in the Student Union and Recreation Center (SURC) room 137 at 7 p.m. and will be free and open to the public. A lecturer at the University of Michigan, Thompson has spent years studying the history of prison and justice policies in the United States. She is most known for her work studying the Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971 and its legacy on the criminal justice system. Thompson is the author of the award-winning articles, ?Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline and Transformation in Postwar American History? and ?Rethinking Working Class Struggle through the Lens of the Carceral State: Toward a Labor History of Inmates and Guards.? She also wrote ?Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971 and its Legacy,? which is slated to hit shelves Aug. 2016. This talk is part of the CWU Social Justice and Human Rights Series. This year?s theme, Mass Incarceration and Racial Justice: Black and Brown Lives Do Matter, seeks to educate Central?s community and spark discussions about race and equality.