The CAS Full Professor Lecture Series presents: “Uncivil Punishment: Understanding ‘Collateral Consequences’ in the U.S. Criminal-Legal System" by Alec Ewald, Professor of Political Science.

When a person is convicted of crime in the United States, they face not only their direct sentence but also a raft of potential other restrictions. Limiting economic, political, and social activities, and varying dramatically and confusingly across jurisdictions, these “collateral” consequences of criminal-legal system involvement form a major part of the American carceral state.  Despite their importance, they remain poorly understood.

Alec Ewald teaches courses in constitutional law and American politics. Within public law, his current research focuses on criminal justice, specifically on the restrictions of rights and privileges that often accompany a conviction – what are sometimes called the “collateral consequences” of criminal-justice involvement.   He is author of The Way We Vote: The Local Dimension of American Suffrage (Vanderbilt University Press, 2009), and co-editor of Criminal Disenfranchisement in an International Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2009).  His work on felony disenfranchisement and other collateral consequences has been published in Criminology, Law & Social Inquiry, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Social Science Quarterly, the Fordham Urban Law Journal, the Wisconsin Law Review, and the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.