Damaging Minds and Bodies: Trauma, Violence and the Criminal Justice System

Co-sponsored by the Youth and Justice Clinic at the UCLA School of Law, the UCLA American Indian Studies Center, the UCLA Disability Studies Program, and the National Association of Social Workers - USC Unit

The February 10-11, 2017 symposium addressed the destructive impact of the U.S. criminal justice system, including through policing, courts, jails, prisons, and immigration detention facilities, on the physical and mental health on racially and economically vulnerable communities, people with disabilities, and families. A central theme and purpose of the event involved confronting contemporary criminal justice practices as, essentially, a public health crisis. Some specific areas for dialogue and learning included the degenerative health effects of prison and detention conditions, collective trauma and terror within communities of color stemming from police violence, justice system treatment of sexually vulnerable and gender-nonconforming people, deaths of incarcerated people with mental illness, the invisibility of indigenous people in contemporary dialogue about policing and incarceration, racial profiling, detention and persecution of Muslim, Arab and Middle Eastern people, and the relationships between healthcare and social service disparities and vulnerability to arrest and incarceration.

This event was free and open to the public.

Continuing Education

• Provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number CEP16697, for 3 contact hours.
• MCLE Credit is available through the State Bar of California, including 8.5 CLE hours in total, with 4.25 hours of Elimination of Bias credit. Provider number: 17833. 
• Provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number CEP16697, for 3 contact hours. Approved sessions are Plenary 1 (10:45am, February 10) and Plenary 4 (2:30pm, February 11) at 1.5 contact hours each.  
• CEUs in Social Work are available for California only (for LCSWs, MFTs and LPCCs).
• Event approved for 8.5 CEUs.

The University of Southern California (USC) School of Social Work, an accredited school of social work as defined in Business and Professions Code section 4991.2, meets the requirements set forth in section 4996.22(d) (1). The School is recognized by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences as a continuing education provider pursuant to Section 1887.4.3

Schedule and Agenda

View this event in our media archive.