BJA Conference

I'm currently in Washington DC attending a national conference on justice reform convened by the US Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance. It is a fairly massive gathering -- more than a thousand attendees, speeches by Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano, dozens of breakout sessions, etc. Remarkably, BJA put this whole thing together in just a couple of months. Hats off to them -- particularly because I'm told that it is their first such gathering in more than a decade. I'm speaking tomorrow, but I spent today hopping from panel to panel, listening to Mike Jacobson of the Vera Institute talk about cost/benefit analysis, Candice Kane of Operation Ceasefire talk about reducing gun violence and Robin Steinberg of Bronx Defenders talk about indigent defense reform, to name check just a few.