Janet Reno will join CU symposium on juvenile justice, Nov. 6-7

By Susan Lang

A symposium titled "Rethinking the Criminalization of Youth," will be held Nov. 6 and 7 at Cornell, featuring former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, a Cornell alumna and a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor.

Reno

Scholars from around the nation will participate in the symposium, which will examine the evolving history of the American juvenile justice system and the death penalty and how new research in the social sciences suggests that contemporary practices for juvenile offenders be changed. The event is free and open to the public.

The symposium will be held on the eve of the trial in Fairfax County, Va., of teenager Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the two men accused of the Beltway sniper murders a year ago.

The meeting will focus on behavioral sciences research into crime and punishment for youthful offenders, as well as on the history and current administration of the juvenile death penalty. Other topics will include adolescent confessions, recidivism in the adult criminal courts versus youth courts, why the United States refuses to sign international covenants against the juvenile death penalty and the Malvo case.

"This is a cross-college, multidisciplinary effort to enliven undergraduate education around an important social policy issue and to review recent research that suggests that minors and adults differ in terms of their criminal culpability, their understanding of legal processes and their responsiveness to treatment," said conference organizer Joan Jacobs Brumberg, a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential fellow and Cornell professor of human development and feminist, gender and sexuality studies. "Students will get the opportunity to experience the kind of intellectual conferences that their professional careers as lawyers, doctors, teachers, social workers and psychologists routinely demand. Our undergraduate conferees will have access to experts in a variety of different disciplines and fields -- developmental psychology, law, criminology, history and sociology -- as well as the opportunity to interact with Janet Reno."

The symposium begins with a reading by Brumberg from her new book, Kansas Charley: The Story of a 19th Century Boy Murderer, Thursday, Nov. 6, at 4 p.m., in Mann Library.

On Friday, Nov. 7, at 9:30 a.m. in Barnes Hall, Laurence Steinberg, Distinguished University Professor at Temple University, will give a plenary talk, "Less Guilty by Reason of Adolescence." Steinberg is a driving force behind the MacArthur Network, an interdisciplinary group of developmental psychologists, criminologists and lawyers who are mapping "best practices" for how the law should deal with youthful offenders. A panel discussion at 11:15 a.m. will explore the treatment of violent youth. Panelists include Steven A. Drizin, associate clinical professor of law, Northwestern University School of Law; Jeffrey Fagan, director of the Center for Violence Research and Prevention at Columbia University; and David Kaczynski of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty and the brother of "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski. James Garbarino, former professor of human development at Cornell, now at Boston College, will give summary comments.

Friday's afternoon session, in the Stein Mancuso Amphitheater, G90 Myron Taylor Hall, will begin at l:45 p.m. with a presentation by Victor L. Streib, professor and former dean of Ohio Northern University Law School and author of The Juvenile Death Penalty in America, on the past and future of juvenile executions. A panel discussion, "The Juvenile Death Penalty: Where We Are Now?" will follow at 3 p.m., featuring panelists from different perspectives. They include Steve Harper, director of the Juvenile Death Penalty Initiative; Robert Blecker, an expert in criminal law and the death penalty at New York Law School; and Cornell law professors Muna Ndulo, John Bloom and Steve Clymer. Reno will give a final summary and comments.

The conference is sponsored by the Department of Human Development, College of Human Ecology, Cornell Law School, American Studies Program, Weiss Community Initiative, Ethics and Public Life, Law and Society, Rose Goldsen Lecture Fund, Rhodes Class of '56 Professorship, Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Death Penalty Project, Department of Government, Family Life Development Center and Cornell Institute for Research on Children. For additional information on the conference, contact Jane Powers at jlp5@cornell.edu.

In addition to taking part in the symposium, Reno will deliver a sermon, titled "Justice," Sunday, Nov. 9, at 11 a.m. in Sage Chapel. The appearances are part Reno's final visit to Cornell in her term as a Rhodes Class of '56 professor.